Petroselinum.] umbellifee^. 199 



with long inflexed points. Styles at first erect and very short, after flowering 

 rather long, spreading and recurved. Mericarps suhcompressed and contracted 

 inwards, with 5 equidistant, filiform, pale ridges on each, the lateral pair margi- 

 nal, separated by an elliptical cleft or cavity from their opposite fellows, but meet- 

 ing at each end ; interstices univittate, with a pair of vilta at the back or lace of 

 the heraicarp ; slylopodes short, conical, crowned with the closely reflexed styles. 



The common garden Parsley is indigenous to various countries of the S. of 

 Europe, but now quite naturalized in some parts of England. On the shingly 

 beach at Hurst castle, about a mile from our shores, it is abundant and perfectly 

 spontaneous, and I have remarked it gathered as from a garden for domestic use. 



2. P. segetum, Koch. Corn Parsley. " Radical leaves pin- 

 nated, leaflets nearly sessile ovate lobed cut and serrated, upper 

 leaves with 1 — -3 linear leaflets, rays of the umbels few and une- 

 qual."— 5r. Fl. p. 163. Sison, L. : E. B. t. 328. Curt. Br. 

 Entom. XV. t. et fol. 691. 



In cultivated fields, on waste ground and hedgebanks ; very frequent on chalk 

 or clay in various parts of the island, though seldom to he found for any length 

 of time in the same places. FLJa\y. J''r. October, November. ^.or0. 



A singularly wiry and slender plant, with much the habit of Bupleurum tenu- 

 issimum, and remarkable for the very small few-rayed umbels. 



Entire plant extremely smooth and glabrous, dull glaucous-green, very weakly 

 aromatic. Root long, whitish, tapering, woody, more or less sparingly branched 

 or nearly simple. Stems 1 or more, terete, finely striated, filled with pith, often 

 very numerous, the central one mostly erect or nearly so, the lateral usually widely 

 spreading on all sides, and ascending or decumbent at base ; 1, 2, or 3 feet in 

 height, lax, wavy and rigid, repeatedly alternately and irregularly divided in a 

 dichotomous manner, the branches extremely unequal, divaricate, spreading and 

 wiry. Leaves chieHy radical, remaining green through the winter, and withering 

 away for the most part when the plant is about to flower, spreading flat upon the 

 ground in rosulate tufts ; stem-leaves subtending the forks of the branches, the 

 lower ones similar to those of the root but narrower and smaller, on lax slightly 

 clasping petioles, whose margins are involute above, the higher ones gradually 

 diminishing till reduced at the summit to a few very narrow cleft or forked seg- 

 ments, or finally to a simple wnduiied petiole. Umbels terminal, at first some- 

 what lax, exceedingly unequal in size and in the length and number (from about 

 3 or 4 to 8 or 10) of their rays, which last differ as much amongst themselves in 

 their relative length in each umbel ; those in the interior of the latter often 

 extremely contracted, the outer rays often an inch and a half in length after 

 flowering; all usually erec^o-patent in fruit; umhellets equally irregular in the 

 length and number of their rays, but with these last much shorter, more crowded, 

 one or more of the inner rays commonly obsolete, the fruit being quite sessile. 

 General involucral bracts few, subappressed, extremely unequal in length amongst 

 themselves and with respect to the rays, fleshy, subulate, ribbed, mucronulate, the 

 tips purplish, their margins near the base very narrowly scariose, partial ones 

 equally variable in length, but smaller, broader and lanceolate, otherwise similar. 

 Flowers very minute, about a line in diameter, hermaphrodite. Calyx of 5 minute, 

 blunt, spreading, fleshy points crowning the ovary. Petals ovate, white or more 

 commonly pale purple, very broad at base, with very strongly involute, scarcely 

 channelled, broad and truncate points. Filaments white, ascending or incurved ; 

 anthers large, full purple ; pollen white. Styles extremely short, obtuse and coni- 

 cal, white or purple ; stylopodcs much depressed. Syndicarps of a whitish brown 

 colour when ripe, broadly ovato- elliptical, \\ line in length and nearly as wide ; 

 hemicarps slightly compressed and contracted laterally, with 5 very prominent, 

 equidistant, filiform ridges (the 2 lateral marginal), and as many linear mtt<B 

 betwixt them, with a pair on the face of the commissure, all running the whole 

 leno-th of the fruit (not abbreviated), attenuated at each extremity (not dilated) ; 



