PARSLEY FAMILY 191 



palmately 3 — 5 -angled or lobed leaves) calyx-tube campanulate ; 

 corolla rotate or campanulate ; stamens 5, united in 3 ; style 3- 

 cleft ; fruit a globose berry. (Name from the Greek bruo, I shoot, 

 from the rapid growth of the shoots.) 



1. B. dibica (White Bryony). — The only British species, an 

 elegant climbing plant, densely- clothed with white hairs ; tendrils 

 unbranched ; leaves large, light green, palmately 5-lobed, rough ; 

 flowers dioecious, whitish, with green veins. The fertile (pistillate) 

 flowers can be at once distinguished from the barren (staminate) 

 ones by the presence of the globular ovary below the calyx. 

 These are succeeded by globular scarlet berries, which hang about 

 the bushes after the stems aud leaves have withered. The berries 

 of the Black Bryony (Tdmus communis), a twining plant without 

 tendrils, are larger and elliptical. Both should be avoided as 

 probably poisonous. — Hedgerows ; frequent, except in the north 

 and west. — Fl. May — September. Perennial. 



ord. xxxiv. umbellffer^e. the parsley 



Family 



A large and very natural Order of herbaceous plants, compris- 

 ing about 1500 species, in 152 genera, mostly natives of the 

 temperate region of the Northern Hemisphere. They have 

 hollow or solid jointed stems, and in most cases pinnately divided, 

 often decompound, leaves, more or less sheathing at the base. 

 The flowers are usually small, polysymmetric, 5-merous, white, 

 and grouped in compound umbels : each flower, that is to say, is 

 stalked, the stalks radiating from one point. Such a simple umbel 

 occurs in three British genera — Hydrocdtyle, Eryngium, and 

 Astrdntia ; but in the others several such umbels, then known as 

 secondary or partial umbels or umbcllules, are collected into one 

 primary or general umbel. There is generally an involucre of 

 bracts at the base of the primary umbel, and involucels at the 

 bases of the secondary ones. The calyx is superior, 5-toothed, or 

 more often reduced to a mere margin ; the 5 petals usually end in 

 inflexed points ; and the 5 stamens (which, like the petals, with 

 which they alternate, are epigynous) also bend inwards in bud, but 

 commonly mature before the stigmas. The 2 carpels are 

 situated antero-posteriorly, one at the back, that is, and one at 

 the front of the flower, and are united into an inferior, 2-cham- 

 bered ovary, crowned by a fleshy disk, which bears the petals 

 and stamens ; and there are 2 distinct styles. In the fruit, which 

 is known as a cremocarp, the 2 carpels cohere by their flattened 

 inner faces, which form what is termed the commissure, to a 



