White and Greenisli 



With splendid, vigorous gesture the Cow-Parsnip {Heracleum 

 lanatum) rears itself from four to eight feet above moist, rich soil 

 from ocean to ocean in circumpolar regions as in temperate climes. 

 A perfect Hercules for coarseness and strength does it appear when 

 contrasted with some of the dainty members of the carrot tribe. 

 In June and July, when myriads of winged creatures are flying, 

 large, compound, many-rayed umbels of both hermaphrodite and 

 male white flowers are spread to attract their benefactors the 

 flies, of which twenty-one species visit them regularly, besides 

 small bees, wasps, and other short-tongued insects, which have 

 no difficulty in licking up the freely exposed nectar. The anthers, 

 maturing first, compel cross-fertilization, which accounts for the 

 plant's vigor and its aggressive march across the continent. A 

 very stout, ridged, hairy stem, the petioled leaves compounded 

 of three broadly ovate, lobed and saw-edged divisions, downy 

 on the underside, and the great umbels, which sometimes meas- 

 ure a foot across, all bear out the general impression of a Hercules 

 of the fields. 



Fool's Parsley, or Cicely, or Dog-poison {AEthusa Cyna' 

 pium), a European immigrant found in waste ground and rub- 

 bish heaps from Nova Scotia to New Jersey and westward to the 

 Mississippi, should be known only to be avoided. The dark 

 bluish-green, finely divided, rather glossy leaves when bruised do 

 not give out the familiar fragrance of true parsley ; the little narrow 

 bracts, turned downward around each separate flower-cluster, 

 give it a bearded appearance, otherwise the white umbel suggests 

 a small wild carrot head of bloom. Cows have died from eat- 

 ing this innocent-looking little plant among the herbage ; but 

 most creatures know by mstinct that it must not be touched. 



Strange that a family which furnishes the carrot, parsnip, 

 parsley, fennel, caraway, coriander, and celery to mankind, 

 should contain many members with deadly properties. Fortu- 

 nately the large, coarse Water Hemlock, Spotted Cowbane, 

 Musquash Root, or Beaver-poison {Cicuta maculata) has been 

 branded as a murderer. Purple streaks along its erect branching 

 stem correspond to the marks on Cain's brow. Above swamps 

 and low ground it towers. Twice or thrice pinnate leaves, the 

 lower ones long-stalked and often enormous, the leaflets' con- 

 spicuous veins apparently ending in the notches of the coarse, 

 sharp teeth, help to distinguish it from its innocent relations 

 sometimes confounded with it. Its several tuberiform fleshy roots 

 contain an especially deadly poison ; nevertheless, some highly 

 intelligent animals, beavers, rabbits, and the omnivorous small boy 

 among others, have mistaken it for sweet-cicely with fatal results. 

 Indeed, the potion drunk by Socrates and other philosophers and 



19 zts 



