CXCVI. — THE COW-PARSNIP. 
Heracleum Sphondylium Linne. 
T HE Tribe Peucedane<e comprises many of the largest Umbellifer<e. In many 
steppes or semi-deserts and prairies they tower above other herbaceous 
vegetation, and may then be seen in the full symmetry of their rosettes of large 
radical leaves, stout ascending though hollow branches, and grand spreading terminal 
umbels. Such are the Giant Fennels ( Ferula ) of the Mediterranean region, North 
Africa, and Central Asia ; the great Angelicas of Kamtschatka ; and the grand 
Cow-Parsnips of the same country, of Persia, and the Caucasus ; several of which 
are now favourite ornaments of our shrubberies. 
The genera of this Tribe agree in having their fruits much compressed dorsally, 
or, as it is also termed, antero-posteriorly, with the lateral ridges of the two carpels 
closely appressed and broadened into a wing, while the other ridges are reduced to 
slender threads. The genus Heracleum , the Cow-Parsnips, is distinguished from 
the true Parsnips ( Pastinaca ) by its white flowers, and by the club-shaped oil-vittae 
which are not as long as the fruit. It comprises some seventy species, belonging to 
the North Temperate Zone and some mountains farther to the south. They are 
more or less hairy, coarse-growing, biennials or perennials, their beauty being that of 
general outline, not that of delicate texture. Their leaves may be pinnate, bipinnate, 
or tripinnate, but have broad lobes : they have large, many-rayed compound 
umbels with deciduous bracts, and the outer flowers very much modified in their 
symmetry. Instead of the normal five equal petals, which occur in the more central 
flowers of the umbel, these outer “ radiant ” flowers, as they are termed, have 
become monosymmetric. The outermost petal has its apex deeply indexed, so that 
it is divided into two large equal lobes : the two petals right and left of it are alike, 
each being indexed and forming two very unequal lobes ; whilst the two petals 
nearest the centre of the umbel are much smaller and symmetrical. In this way a 
large peripheral surface of white petal is secured for the umbel, rendering its many 
individually small dowers collectively conspicuous to insects. 
The densely hairy surface of the coarse leaves of our one British species 
( H . Sphondylium Linne) does not suggest that the plant would be edible by man 
or attractive to animals ; nor in this Family do we expect the secretion of much 
sugar without acridity. If then, as is alleged, the usefulness of these plants was 
detected by the demigod Herakles, whose botanical knowledge was presumably 
acquired from his tutor the centaur Chiron, he is justly commemorated in the name 
Heracleum. Pliny has, however, confused various plants under this name. The 
name 5 '^oeSuXioi', Sphondulion, the original of Limit’s specidc name for the plant, 
occurs in Dioscorides, and is apparently connected with apovSvXr], spondule , the name 
of some evil-smelling beetle ; and when we have seen the broad umbels of the 
Cow-Parsnip in our summer hedgerows crowded with scarlet Soldier-beetles we 
