/E(io2)odium.] umbei,lifer«. 201 



IX. SisoN, Linn. Bastard Stone Parsley. 



" Fruit ovate. Carpels with 5 ribs, and single clavate vittce 

 between them. Calyx-teeth obsolete. Petals broadly obcordate, 

 deeply notched and curved, with an inflected point. (Involucres 

 of few leaves; partial suhdimidiate." — Br. Fl. 



1. S. Amomum, L. Hedge Bastard. * Stone Parsley. Br. Fl. 

 p. 163. E. B. t. 954. 



In hedges, on banks, hy roadsides, and ahout the borders of fields, pastures and 

 woods ; abundant over a great part of the island, on chalk or clay. Fl. August, 

 September. /V. September, October. ^. 



E. Med. — Extremely common about Kyde, often nearly 5 feet high, as by the 

 roadside about a mile from Brading (where I have gathered it nearly 7 feet high). 

 Common about Brading and Sandown. 



W. Med. — About W. Cowes. Common about Yarmouth and Thorley. 



Plant perfectly smooth and glabrous, pale or often of a dark green colour. 

 Root whitish, long, slender and taperinij, straight or flexuose, hard, woody and 

 rigid, simple or slightly branched. Stem solitary, erect, wavy and rigid, filled 

 entirely with a white pith, from 1 or 2 to 4 or 5 feet high, round, slender, finely 

 grooved or striate, much and repeatedly branched, the branches alternate, erectO; 

 patent, wiry and flexuose. Leaves radical, or confined on the stem to the forks of 

 the branches, iniparipinnate, the earlier root-leaves and those of the first year 

 withering before the plant comes into flower ; leaflets about 4 pairs, remote, sessile 

 or subsessile, of a somewhat firm dry texture, ovate-oblong or sublanceolate, point- 

 ed or obtuse, unevenly incised, the serratures rounded, the cartilaginous margins 

 produced into a small mucronate point directed forwards ; lower stem-leaves simi- 

 lar to those at the root, on very long, deeply channelled, semicyliiidrical petioles, 

 which are strongly ribbed, dilated and clasping at base but not inflated, those 

 higher up on continually shortening footstalks, the leaflets smaller, narrower, more 

 deeply incised and lobed, at length at the summit of the stem pinnately pinTiatifid, 

 with very narrow linear segments. Umbels small, terminal and lateral, on long, 

 slender, wiry, naked peduncles, at first drooping, afterwards erect ; primary rays 

 mostly 4 or 5, 'rarely 3 or 6, unequal, the central very often but not always the 

 shortest ; of the umhellets extremely short, the inner flowers being almost sessile. 

 Bracts of ihe general involucre 2 — 5 (mostly 3), very much shorter than the rays, 

 lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, mucronate, scariosely margined below, the edges 

 erect or inflexed ; of the partial involucres 4 or 5 and broader, otherwise similar. 

 Calyx obsolete. Petals small, white and equal, broadly obcordate, with a large 

 strongly inflexed point. Stamens short, white, incurved. Styles (in flower) very 

 short, almost obsolete ; stigmas hemispherical ; stylopodes large, whitish, depressed, 

 semiorbicular. 



The smell of the herbage is strong and unpleasant, and the flavour of the seeds 

 bitter and aromatic. 



Scarcely known as a native of Scotland, and not yet found in Ireland. 



X. jEgopodium, Linn. Goutweed. 



" Fruit oblong, crowned with the conical bases of the deflexed 

 styles. Carpels with 5 slender ridiges, without vittse. Calyx-teeth 

 obsolete. Petals obcordate, .with an inflexed point. (Involucre 

 0)."—Br. Fl. 



* Called Spikenard by the country people of Hants, at least about Petersfield, 

 as I learn from Miss E. Sibley. 



2 D 



