UMBELLIFERAE (PARSLEY FAMILY) 607 



UMBELLiFERAE (Parsley Family) 



Herbs, with small flowers in umbels {or rarely heads), the calyx entire or 

 b-toothed, the tube wholly adhering to the 2-celled and 2-ovtded ovary, the 5 

 petals and 5 stamens inserted on fhr disk that crowns the ovary and surrounds the 

 base of the 2 styles. Fruit of 2 need-like dry carpels (called mericarps) cohering 

 by their inner face (the commissure), when ripe separating from each other 

 and usually suspended from the summit of a slender jjrolongation of the axis 

 {carpophore) ; each carpel marked lengthwise with 5 primary ribs, and often 

 with 4 intermediate (secondary) ones ; in the interstices or intervals are com- 

 monly oil-tubes (vittae), longitudinal canals containing aromatic oil. (These are 

 best seen in slices made across the fruit.) Seed suspended from the summit of 

 the cell, anatropous. Stems usually hollow. Leaves alternate, mostly compound, 

 the petioles expanded or sheathing at base. Umbels usually compound, the 

 secondary ones being termed timbellets; the bracts which often subtend the 

 general umbel form the involucre, and those of the umbellets the involucels. 

 The frequently thickened base of the styles is called the stylopodium. — A large 

 and difficult family, some of the species innocent and aromatic, others with 

 Very poisonous properties. 



N. B. — In this family the figures represent the mature fruit entire and in 

 cross section. 



1 Fruit with primary ribs only, hence 3 dorsal ones on each carpel (these 

 sometimes obscure or obsolete in the first group.) 



* Frait OTOid, obovoid, or globose, not ribbed, scaly or densely covered with hooked prickles. 

 1. Eryagium. Flowers sessile in dense bracteate heads, white or blue. Leaves mostly rigid. 



more or less spinose, 

 2 Sanicula. Flowers in irregular compound few-rayed umbels, yellow or green. Leaves 

 palmate. 

 [Spennolepis may be sought here.] 



* * Fruit flattened laterally. 



^- Carpels also strongly flattened laterally. 



+t Seed straight, not sulcite ; umbels simple (often proliferous.) 



3. Hydrocotyle. Fruit suborbicular ; carpels with 8 dorsal ribs, not reticulated. Petals small, 



somewhat tubular. Low perennials in or near water. Leaves simple, roundish. 



4. Ceutella. Fruit orbicular ; carpels with 5 dorsal ribs, and somewhat reticulated. Petals flat. 



Leaves ovate. 



++ -H-.Seed lunate, deeply sulcato on the face ; umbels compound, leafy-bracted, 



5. Erigenia. Fruit nearly orbicular, with numerous oil-tubes. Low, nearly acaulescent from a 



deep-seated tuber. Leaves ternately decomiiound. 

 +- •:- Carpels terete or slightly flattened laterally ; petals white (greenish-yellow in Peiroaelinum) 

 ++ Seed-face concave ; fruit linear-oblong (rarely broader), with usually conical stylopodium. 



6. Chaerophyllum. Fruit glabrous, with small mostly solitary oil-tubes. 



7. Osmorhiza. Fruit bristly, the oil-tubes obsolete. 



44- ++ Seed-face concave ; fruit ovate ; leaves finely divided. 

 S. Spennolepis. Fruit warty or bristly, the ribs oosolete. Slender annuals. 

 9. Conium. Fruit smooth, with conspicuous often undulate ribs. Ours biennial 

 4+ 4+ -n- Seed-face flat. 

 = Leaves finely dissected ; oil-tubes solitary ; very slender annuaU 

 10. Ptiljmuium. Dnr»J ribs Aliform, lie lateral very thick and cortv. 



