98 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



fine or imperceptible. In Femla also the inflorescence often has a 

 peculiar character, due to the position of a certain number of female 



Kucedaimm (^Ferula) neapolitanuin. 



Pmoedanum {Scnrodosu) 

 Asa-fiBiida. 



Fig. 86. Trans, sect, of fruit {'f). 



flowers, sessile or with short pedicels, and disposed in no fixed order 

 around the point whence spring at the base the secondary axes of the 



inflorescence. But this peculiarity is far 

 from constant. The same is true of the 

 woody consistence and great development of 

 the stems, of the form and size of the leaf- 

 divisions.'^ Ferulago ^ is Ferula whose vittse, 

 variable in number, often easily separate 

 from the carpels, with the exterior coat of 

 the fruit belonging to the receptacle.' They 

 are mostly irregular, more numerous than 

 those of the true Ferula and separated from 

 each other by slightly elevated ridges. The 

 umbels are also generally furnished with a 

 polyphyllous involucre. 



The small importance we attach to the 

 character of the inflorescence obliges us 

 to consider as only a section of the same genus, Dorema (fig. 



Fig. 87. Fiuit (f). 



' These divisions are large and more or less 

 deourrent under the ramifications of the ner- 

 vures in the leaves of J. Narthex, an Indian 

 species of which has been made the genus Nar- 

 tiiex (Faicon. Trans. Linn. Soc. xx. 285 ; — 

 Balf. Trans. Roy. Soc. JSdinb. xxii. t. 21, 22). 



2 Koch, Nov. .Act. Nat. Cm: xii. 97. — Boiss. 

 J'l. Or. ii. 996. — ? MammatocauKs Tavroh. Flora 

 (1834), 347. BoiBSiEU has enumerated (Fl. Or. 

 ii. 1001, 1003) as helpnging to Firulago (from 

 which, in fact, they appear inseparable), Feucer 

 dai.um twdosmti L. {F. nodosa Boiss.) and F. 



lophoptcra Boiss. type of the genus Ulopiera 

 Fenzl (Floi-a [1843], 461 ; Fndl. Gen. Suppl. iii. 

 83), in which the margin of the carpels is undu- 

 lately curled ; which, hy concatenation, has led 

 to be included in Ferulago, Zqphosciaditmt DC. 

 (M^OT. Ombell. 57, t. 2 ; Frodr. iv. 207) con- 

 sidered by others (B. H. Gm. 905, n. 91) as a 

 distinct genus allied to Prangos and Crithmam. 

 ' Bentham and Hooker (fore. 918) think that 

 Xanthogalv/m Lallem. [Fisch. et Mey. Ind, Sem. 

 Sort, Petrop. viii. 73}, a Spanish species doubt- 

 fully referred to Faula lophoptera, is perhaps 



