PARSNIP 



brought into court, bear flowers of such surpassing beauty that 

 they may easily challenge the petted darlings of our gardens and 

 greenhouses. Flouted they live, despised they flourish, and only 

 because they are in the wrong place do the Dandelion and the 

 Wild Carrot fail of the appreciation that, if beauty only were 

 to be considered, is their due. 



The many tiny florets of the carrot umbel are disposed in a 

 radiating pattern as fine as lace; in the centre of the cluster is 

 one deep maroon floret, a single point of color surrounded by 

 whiteness. 



The umbel from its first showing of white is a full week coming 

 to maturity; as the florets open it is concave, in its prime more 

 or less convex; fading it becomes concave again, and finally the 

 ripening seeds are protected by infolding arms that make, in- 

 deed, a bird's nest, which is one of the country names for the plant. 



Nevertheless, this lovely creature is a weed, and will take pos- 

 session of great tracts in defiance of the farmer, but, as it is a 

 biennial, it can easily be extirpated, and its existence in culti- 

 vated land indicts the farmer. 



Daucus carota var. satlva, the Garden Carrot, was certainly 

 cultivated in Holland three hundred years ago. Whether it is 

 simply carota improved or whether it is really another species 

 seems difficult to determine, and the doctors disagree. 



PARSNIP 



Pastinaca sativa. 



Pastus, food, from the use made of its roots. 



The garden Parsnip, native to southern Europe, western Asia, India, 

 and Siam. Biennial. July-September. 



Root. — Biennial, fusiform, large and esculent. 



ieai^M.— Radical, yellowish-green, pinnately dissected; leaflets in- 

 cisely dentate, the terminal one three-lobed. 



Flower-stem.— Thrte: to five feet high, rather stout, furrowed and 

 branching. Umbels nearly level on the top. 



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