Torilis.] UMBELLiFERa;. 219 



In dry waste places, on banks, under walls, by waysides, borders of fields, and 

 amongst corn ; prelty frequent, and most so on chalky or gravelly soils. Fl. 

 May — July. Fr. August — November. 0. 



F.Med. — Banks at Ventnor and Bonchurch, in great plenty. Ditcli-bank 

 between Seafield and Nettlestone. In the lane between Pound farm and An- 

 tony's common, near Byde. Profusely in cornfields and on banks above Sandowu 

 bay. 



W. Med. — Extremely common in the parish of Freshwater ; about Yarmouth, 

 Thorley, &c. Abundantly on a fence-bank near the Albion hotel. Freshwater 

 gate. 



Root long, whitish, slender and tapering, but litile branched or fibrous. Stem 

 one or many, sometimes CEespitose, diffuse, spreading, ascending, decumbent or 

 prostrate, the upper part in the larger plants erect or reclining, from a few inches 

 to 1 or 2 feet in length, simple or spreading, distantly and dichotomously branched, 

 more or less flexuose, round, solid, striate, wiry, rou),'h with scattered, rigid, nearly 

 appressed hairs pointing downwards. Leaves suh-bipinnate ; ^co/Zeto gray-green, 

 mostly 2 or 3 pairs, remote, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, pointed, deeply pinnatifid, 

 the segments narrow-lanceolate, entire or cleft, very acute, pointing forwards, his- 

 pid on both sides with white subappressed setae. Umbels lateral and terminal, 

 simple, very small, not half an inch wide, opposite the base of the leaves, nearly 

 sessile when in flower, their thick peduncles a very little lengthened out in fruit, 

 2- or 3-rayed, the rays so extremely short, thick and unequal as to be made evi- 

 dent with difficulty, giving to the entire umbel the aspect of a knot or bunch, of 

 an irregularly roundish figure, and somewhat convex or hemispherical in fruit. 

 Involucral bracts several, linear, subulate or setaceous, of very unequal length, as 

 long or lunger than the fruit or shorter, setose or hispid like the rays and pedun- 

 cles, with white scarious margins. Flowers all perfect, extremely minute, not 

 larger than a moderately sized pin's-head, closely aggregated and sessile on the 

 rays and in the forking between them. Petals white, equal, roundish ovate, with 

 strongly inflexed or involute but not acuminate points. Anthers very large, white 

 or purplish ; pollen white. Styles erect, conical, extremely short, thick and blunt, 

 colourless and pellucid, not elongated and reflexed in fruit. Syndicarps of a 

 whitish brown or gray colour, forming small, roundish or subhemispherical, dense 

 clusters, broadly ovoid, much contracted and with a deep furrow at the commis- 

 sure, crowned with the very minute and still erect styles ; hemicarps not much 

 more than a line in length, the exterior ones of the outermost fruit armed with 

 several rows (apparently 6 — 8) of straight, spreading, scabrous prickles, the inte- 

 rior or lateral series of which are marginal and pointing backwards, simple or 

 somewhat glochidiate, with a single, spreading or deflexed, very minute point ; 

 these prickles are about equal in length to the greatest transverse diameter of the 

 hemicarp, and the interstices betwixt the rows and face of the commissure show a 

 very few erect or appressed spinules : inner hemicarp (and usually both of those 

 belonging to the exterior fruit of the umbellets) thickly granulato-muricate, with 

 very rough crystalline or scabrous papillee in lieu of prickles, interspersed here 

 and there with a few white spines or bristles ; these tuberculated hemicarps are 

 marked with 3 equidistant distinct furrows, formed by interruptions of the tuber- 

 cles (probably the vitta), along the course of which are several erect or subap- 

 pressed bristles or setae. Carpophore bipartite, separating only for a short distance 

 from the summit. 



The plant has the weak aromatic smell of others of the genus. I have never 

 met with the variety having the exterior hemicarps ofall the fruit aculeated. Our 

 form is, according to Cosson and Germain, that most frequent in the en> irons of 

 Paris. 



