PARSLEY FAMILY 



207 



rough stalks, 3 — 5-lobed bracts with linear segments, and linear 

 bracteoles, is only a casual introduction on ballast-heaps and in 

 cornfields. 



14. Carum. — Glabrous plants with pinnate or decompound 

 leaves ; compound umbels of white, pink, or yellow flowers, with 

 many, few, or no bracts and 

 bracteoles, and deeply-notched 

 petals ; and oblong fruit with 

 slender ridges. (Name said 

 to be derived from Caria, in 

 Asia Minor.) 



1. C. verticilldtum (Whorl- 

 ed Caraway). — An erect 

 plant, 1 — 2 feet high, with 

 leaves pinnately divided into 

 very many hair-like segments 

 and so crowded as to appear 

 whorled ; umbels flat-topped ; 

 pedicels slender; bracts and 

 bracteoles many, short, re- 

 flexed ; flowers white or pink. 

 — Wet meadows, chiefly in 

 the west; rare. Fl. July, 

 August. Perennial. 



2. C. mdjus (Common 

 Pig-nut). — A very slender 

 plant, about a foot high, 

 bearing a few finely divided, 

 3-ternate leaves and terminal 

 umbels of white flowers. The 

 tuber, which resembles a 

 small potato in shape, and is 

 covered by a thin, easily re- 

 movable, brown skin, is eat- 

 able, but only fit for the food 

 of the animal after which it is 

 named. The plant much resembles Cdrum Bulbocdstanum, but 

 differs in its brown, not black, tuber, its smaller size, ternate, not 

 pinnate leaves, fewer or absent bracts and bracteoles, large disk t 

 and erect styles. — Sandy pastures ; common. — Fl. May, June. 

 Perennial. 



3.* C. Cdrvi (Common Caraway). — Root spindle-shape ; stem 

 1 — 2 feet high, much branched ; leaves bipinnate, cut into linear 



cArum mAjus (Common Pig-nut). 



