APL 
APO 
require to be thinned and cleaved from 
weeds, which may be performed either by 
hand or hoe ; but the latter is most eligible, 
as it will stir and loosen the surface of the 
earth, which may be beneficial to the plants, 
cutting them out to about six inches dis- 
tance from each other. In the latter end 
of July, the roots will mostly have attained 
a size proper for use ; and may be drawn 
occasionally ; but they seldom acquire their 
full growth till about Michaelmas. This is 
sometimes called Hamburgh parsley, pro- 
bably from its being much cultivated about 
that place. It is chiefly cultivated and es- 
teemed for its large roots, which are white 
and carrot-shaped, being long, taper, and 
of downright growth, often attaining the 
size and appearance of small or middling 
parsnips ; they boil exceedingly tender and 
palatable, are very wholesome, and may be 
used jn soup or broth, or to eat like carrots 
and parsnips, or as sauce to flesh meat 
A. dnlce, or the common celery. The me- 
thod of propagation in all the varieties of 
this sort, is by sowing the seed in the spring, 
and when the plants have attained six or 
eight inches in height, transplanting them 
into trenches, in order to be earthed up on 
each side as they advance in growth, and 
have their stalks blanched or whitened, to 
render them crisp and tender. 
APLANATIC, in optics, a term applied 
by Dr. Blair, professor of astronomy in 
Edinburgh, to that kind of refraction disco- 
vered by himself, which corrects the aber- 
ration of the rays of light, and the colour 
depending upon it, in contradistinction to 
the word achromatic, which has been ap- 
propriated to that refraction in which there 
is only a partial correction of colour. See 
Optics. Dr. Blair discovered a mixture 
of solutions of ammoniacal and mercurial 
salts, and also some other substances, which 
produced dispersions proportional to that of 
glass, with respect to the different colours ; 
and he constructed a compound lens con- 
sisting of a semi-convex one of crown glass, 
with its flat side towards the object, and a 
meniscus of the same materials, with its con- 
vex side in the same direction, and its flat- 
ter concave next the eye, and the interval 
between these lenses he filled with a solu- 
tion of antimony in a certain proportion of 
muriatic acid. The lens thus adapted did 
not manifest the slightest vestige of any ex- 
traneous colour. He obtained a patent for 
the invention in 1791. 
APLUDA, in botany, a genus of the Po- 
lygamia Monoecia class of plants, the com- 
mon calyx of which is an univalve, bifloral, 
ovated, concave, loose, mucrouated glume ; 
the proper glume is bivalve, and placed ob- 
liquely ; the corolla is a bivalve glume of 
the length of the cup ; there is no pericar- 
pium ; the seed, which is single, is involved 
in the glume of the corolla. Male eorol. 
two valved; female floret sessile; stamina 
three. Female corol. two- valved ; one style ; 
one seed, covered. There are four species. 
APOCOPE, among grammarians, a fi- 
gure which cuts off a letter or syllable from 
the end of a word, as ingeni for ingenu. 
APOCRYPHAL, something dubious, is 
more particularly applied to certain books 
not admitted into the canon of scripture. 
Those are certain books of the Old Testa- 
ment extant only in Greek, admitted by the 
church of Rome as canonical, but rejected 
by the reformed churches as no part of holy 
writ; such are the books of Judith, Wis- 
dom, Tobit, Baruch, Maccabees, the third 
and fourth books of Esdras. In this sense 
apocryphal stands distinguished from cano- 
nical, though the Romish church disowns 
the distinction. Authors are divided as to the 
origin of the appellation apocryphal, and 
the reason why it was given to these books. 
The apocryphal books were not received 
into the canon, either of the Jews, or an- 
cient Christians, but were first made cano- 
nical by a decree of the council of Trent. 
The apocryphal books, according to the 
sixth article of the church of England, are 
to be read for example of life and instruc- 
tion of manners ; bat it doth not apply them 
to establish any doctrine. 
APOCYNUM, in botany, a genus of the 
Pentandria Dygnia class and order. Corol. 
campannlate ; nectareous filaments five, al- 
ternating with the stamina. There are 14 
species. 
APODES, the name of one of the orders 
of fishes in the Linnaean distribution of ani- 
mals. Their character is that they have no 
belly fins : there are 12 genera, viz. 
Ammodytes,, Ophydium, 
Anarchichas, Sternoptyx, 
Gymnothorax, Stromateus, 
Gynotus,' 1 
Leptocephalus, 
Muraena, 
Stylephorus, 
Trichiurus, 
Xiphias, 
which see under the several heads in the al- 
phabet. 
APOGEE, in astronomy, that point of 
the orbit of a planet, or the sun, which is 
farthest from the earth. 
Ancient astronomy, which placed tbs 
