A P I A C E JE. 337 



Perennial herbaceous plants with decompound leaves and sheathing pe- 

 tioles, the upper leaves often reduced to the petiole alone. Umbels large, 

 many-rayed. Involucres deciduous. Flowers yellow. Inhabit Asia, 

 Northern Africa, and Southern Europe. These plants all appear to be 

 active, but are principally interesting from the circumstance of one or more 

 of them affording the celebrated Silphion or Laser of the ancients. This 

 gum-resin has been successively stated to be the product of Opoponax, 

 of Ferula tingitana, of Laserpitium siler, and gummiferum, Thapsia as- 

 clepium, &c, but the researches of Delia Cella in Cyrene, appear conclu- 

 sively to show that it is procured from the T. silphion, Viviani. This is 

 the only umbelliferous plant of that district of country that agrees with the 

 representations of it on ancient coins and monuments. 



The Laser cyrenaicum or Asadulcis of Cyrene, which was deemed the 

 best, was held in the highest estimation for its curative powers. According 

 to ancient writers it would neutralize poisons, cure the worst wounds, restore 

 sight to the blind, &c. So great was its reputation that it was represented on 

 the coins of Cyrene, and it was estimated at its weight in gold. It must have 

 been very early known, for among the representation of Etruscan antiquities, 

 of a date anterior to the foundation of Rome, figures of the plant are to be re- 

 cognised. Although the powers attributed to it are evidently extravagant and 

 absurd, there can be no doubt that it must have been an active and efficacious 

 remedy, and one that deserves attention, now that its true origin has been dis- 

 covered. In consequence of the great demand for it, the plants furnishing it 

 at Cyrene became exterminated, and various analogous gum-resins were sub- 

 stituted for it, thus Pliny {Hist. Nat. 1. xxii. c. 23) says, that in his time it 

 was chiefly imported from Syria, the best coming from Media and the worst 

 from Parthia, that of Cyrene being wholly exhausted. 



Daucus. — Linn. 



Margin of calyx 5-toothed. Petals obovate, emarginate, with the apex inflected ; the 

 outer ones usually radiating and bifid. Fruit somewhat compressed from the back, ovate 

 or oblong. Mericarps with the 5 primary ridges filiform and aculeated ; the 3 middle 

 ones at the back, the lateral on the plane of the commissure ; the 4 secondary equal, pro- 

 minent winged, split into a single row of spines. Vittae single in the channels below the 

 secondary ridges. 



The species of this genus are generally biennials with bipinnate leaves. 

 The bracts of the involucre are multifid, leafy. The flowers are white or 

 yellowish, the central one usually dark purple, fleshy and sterile. They are 

 mostly natives of countries bordering on the Mediterranean, but the cultivated 

 species, JJ. carota, is found in many parts of the world, but is probably only 

 naturalized and not truly a native. 



D. carota, Linn. — Stem hispid ; leaves tripinnate ; leaflets incised, linear-lanceolate, 

 acute; umbel concave ; fruit bristly. 



Linn., Sp. PI. 348; Torrey & Gray, Fl i. 635; Eng. Bat. t. 1174; 

 Stephenson and Churchill, i. 56; Woodville, t. 161. 

 Common Names. — Carrot ; Common carrot. 



Foreign Names. — Carotte, Fr.; Carota, It.; Gemeine mohre, Ger. 



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