106 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



umbels and one compoutid terminal umbel. Aciphylla represents a 

 genus somewhat heterogeneous, particularly as to habit. Some 

 species in their foliage resemble the Graminece, Eryngium, Pyrus, 

 Rosa; others again Spircea. The flowers are generally polygamo- 

 dioecious, and the oblong fruit perhaps similar to that of the preceding 

 genera, a little less compressed parallel to the partition. The 

 primary ridges may all be but little prominent, or more or less 

 developed into wings, sometimes the marginal, or the dorsal, or the 

 two intermediate, or several at once, with many variations according 

 to the species. In each furrow are one or several vittae, and this 

 character varies in species otherwise closely allied. The true 

 Aciphyllas are from Australia and New Zealand. Anesorhiza and 

 Thaspiuni, which we annex to them as sections, and which may have 

 exactly the same fruit, grow, the one at the Cape, the other in North 

 America. 



The first Aciphyllas known were referred to the closely allied genus 



Meiim {Emneum) athamanthicum. 



Fig. 100. Fruit (?). 



Fig. 101. Trans, sect, of fruit ("f). 



Ligusticum, inseparable from Meum, a name entitled to priority. The 

 type is M. athamanticum (fig. 100, 101), a perennial herb of temperate 

 Europe, having an oval oblong fruit, compressed parallel to the 

 partition, and seeds with Nearly flat slightly or more deeply concave 



