Bot. v. iii. p. 363. — Walker's FI. of Oxf. p. 76. — Bab. FI. Bath. p, 21.— Mack- 
Catal. of PI. of Irel. p. 29. — Scandix Pec ten. Curt. FI. Land. 1.249. — Jacq. 
FI. Austr. v. iii. p.35 t. 263. —Mart. FI. Rust. t. 38. — Willd.Sp. PI. v. i. pt. ji. 
1449. — With. (7tii etl.) v. ii. p. 387.— Hook. Brit. FI. p. 131. — Sibtli. FI. Oxon. 
p. 100. — Abbot’s FI. Bedf. p. 66. — Purt. Midi. FI. v. i. p. 154. — Grev. FI. Edin. 
p. 72. — Mack. FI. Flibern. p. 126. — Scandix vulgaris, Gray’s Nat. Arr. v. ii. 
p. 503. — Scandix semine rostrato vulgaris, Ray’s Syn. p. 207 .—Pecten veneris, 
Johnson’s Gerarde. p. 1040. 
Localities. — In corn-fields ; common. 
Annual. — Flowers from May to August. 
Root tapering, simple, whitish, furnished with a few fibres. 
Stems from 6 to 12 inches high, one or more from the same root ; 
spreading, branched, leafy, furrowed, rough, often purplish. Leaves 
light green, thrice pinnatifid, with strap-shaped, pointed, smooth 
segments. Petioles ( footstalks J dilated at the base, with mem- 
branous, hairy edges. Umbels irregular, sometimes simple, but 
usually of 2 or 3 rays, without an involucrum. Umbellules ( partial 
umbels J small, of several short rays, accompanied by a partial 
involucrum of several broad, cloven or jagged, white-edged leaves, 
longer than the partial flower-stalks. Flowers small, white, in 
some degree radiant, especially those of the circumference, which 
ripen seed, the innermost having no perfect germens. Petals 
unequal, entire, inversely egg-shaped, pointed and infiexed at the 
apex. Fruit oblong, rough, furnished with an angular, rough 
beak, an inch and a half or two inches long, and crowned with the 
purplish, enlarged, 5-cleft receptacle of the flower, over-topped by 
the straight upright styles. — I)r. Withering says, that by care- 
fully dividing the germen after it has shot out an inch or more in 
length, a tube continued from the styles down to the seeds may 
be discovered. 
This plant is a very common weed in corn-fields, not only in 
Britain, but in all the Southern parts of Europe, and also in the 
North of Africa and Teneriffe. The very long beak of the fruit 
will distinguish it from all other British umbelliferae. It is slightly 
aromatic and acrid, but no particular use is attributed to it. 
Dioscorides mentions it as eatable, but his Eksc/Cu? (Scandix J 
may not be ours. 
“ Flow many plants, we call them weeds. 
Against our wishes grow. 
And spatter wide their various seeds 
With all the winds that blow. 
Man grumbles when he sees them rise. 
To foul his husbandry ; 
Kind Providence this way supplies 
Ilis lesser family. 
Scatter’d and small, they ’cape our eye, 
But are not wasted there ; 
Safe they in clefts and furrows lie. 
The little birds find where.” 
Saturday Magazine. 
