3o8 TEXTBOOK OF BOTANY 



An individual flower is small, with five sepals (which are 

 sometimes very small), five petals, five stamens, and a pistil 

 composed of two macrospore leaves with separate styles. 

 The sepals, petals, and stamens are " inserted above the 

 ovary " — that is, their lower parts are really grown together 

 with the wall of the ovary so that they seem to grow from 

 above it. The fruit is two-parted, each part containing a 

 single seed. To the parsley family belong a number of plants, 

 such as dill, coriander, parsley, fennel, caraway, angelica, 

 anise, lovage, and celery, whose leaves, fruits, and other parts 

 are eaten or used in the preparation of food because of their 

 aromatic flavor. To it also belong the parsnip and the 

 carrot, whose thickened roots are eaten. Several members 

 — for example, asafetida, caraway, coriander, anise, and fen- 

 nel' — are sources of drugs ; some, including the poison hem- 

 lock (also medicinal) and the water hemlock, are poisonous ; 

 and others, like the wild carrot, are familiar weeds. 



326. The Heath Family. — The name comes from the 

 heaths or heathers, which cover great areas in the Old World, 

 living in waste places, on hillsides, and in sandy forests. 

 Most of the members of this family are shrubs, with thick, 

 shiny leaves, which are often densely covered with hairs on 

 the lower surface. They are found for the most part either 

 in comparatively dry locations or in swampy places. The 

 flowers have four or five sepals, the same number of petals 

 generally more or less united, as many or twice as many 

 stamens, and a single compound pistil. Among the useful 

 members of the family are the blueberries, cranberries, huckle- 

 berries, and wintergreen. The rhododendrons, azaleas, and 

 kalmias are valued for their showy flowers. The " trailing 

 arbutus " is one of the American representatives of the family. 

 Another is the " Indian pipe," which has no chlorophyl but 

 which lives as a saprophyte, being helped in securing its food 

 from decaying matter in the soil by a fungus whose threads 

 form a thick felt over the surfaces of its roots. 



