CXC— THE STONE-PARSLEY. 
Sison Amomum Linne. 
I T is not difficult to correlate the main structural features of the majority of the 
Umbelliferce with their physiological characters or mode of life. Most of them 
are herbaceous perennials with relatively somewhat small and slow-growing under- 
ground parts. In other words, most of the food manufactured by the radical leaves 
is rapidly transferred to the tall and quick-growing aerial stems, so that there is not 
much surplus, as it were, to add to the underground growth. The rapidly formed 
stems are of a diameter proportioned to their height, branching and weight of leaves, 
flowers and fruit. Their fluted exterior is but the result of the peripheral arrange- 
ment of the groups or bundles of large water-conducting vessels which give them 
just sufficient mechanical strength to support the vertical strain or weight : the 
cylindrical form offers sufficient resistance for their height to horizontal stress ; 
while the rapidly dying pith and subsequently hollow condition is indicative of the 
great economy of material. It is quite as possible to connect size of stem with area 
of nourishing leaves in such herbaceous plants as these, as Ruskin, in his “ Modern 
Painters,” pointed out that it was in the case of trees ; but it has to be remembered 
that, though the little cauline leaves no doubt serve to nourish the stem in their 
immediate neighbourhood, the bulk of the formative material required by the stem 
and its branches, the flower-clusters and the fruits, must certainly come from the 
physiological activity of the lower leaves, whether during the present or during a 
preceding season, by way of the rhizome. 
The first striking characteristic of the group to manifest itself in spring is 
the fern-like division of the leaf into a bipinnate or tripinnate arrangement of 
innumerable small toothed and pointed leaflets. Wide apart as are the two groups, 
this has, no doubt, the same physiological significance in the Umbelliferce as in Ferns. 
The leaves are often of a delicate texture, wilting rapidly when picked. The fine 
division of their surface — none of the segments overlapping — adds enormously to 
their length of margin and general area, with an economy of cellular tissue, while it 
is accompanied by a great subdivision of the vascular system, veins extending into 
every minutest segment, so that transpiration is, as a rule, rapid. Rapid transpiration 
in a growing plant is as much the expression of rapid internal chemical change and 
growth as active respiration in a moving animal is the expression of violent muscular 
exertion. 
At the same time, the success of the Umbelliferce in the struggle for existence is 
manifest in the many genera and species into which the type has varied ; the 
numerous individuals of single species, often growing in a social condition and 
dominating other herbaceous vegetation ; and also in the adaptation of members of 
the Family to very varied surroundings. They may grow in water or mud, like 
the Water Dropworts ((Enanthe) ; be deeply-rooted in sandy steppes, as are the 
