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Umbellaceae 271 
ARALIA 
Herbs (ours) or shrubs or trees. Leaves alternate, pinnately or ternately decom- 
pound (ours |—2-compound) ; petioles sheathing at base; stipules none or inconspicuous. 
Flowers small, mostly perfect, in racemose or paniculate or corymbose umbels, white or 
greenish; pedicels jointed below the flowers. Calyx truncate or 5-toothed. Petals hs 
spreading, obtuse or with short reflexed points. Styles 5. Fruit a small berry. Seeds 
about 5. (Origin?) 
A. Plant stemless or nearly so; leaf 1, ternate and each division ternately or pinnately 
3—5-foliolate; umbels commonly 3, simple, not involucrate. EF. 
A. nudicaulis L. (Wild Sarsaparilla) 
AA. Plant with stem 2—3 m. high; leaves many, I—2-pinnate; umbels many, in 
panicles or racemes which are 36 dm. long, involucrate. C. (A. californica acumi- 
nata. ) A. californica Wats. (California Spikenard) 
PANAX GINSENG 
Herbs, erect; rocts globose or elongated, aromatic; stems 2—-4 dm. high (ours). 
Leaves 3, in a whorl at the top of the stem, palmately compound, 3—7-foliolate, ours 
usually 5-foliolate. Flowers in an umbel: umbel terminal, simple, greenish or white, 
polygamous. Calyx-limb obscurely 5-toothed. Petals 5, spreading. Styles 2—3. 
Fruit a small berry, drupe-like, somewhat flattish, bright-crimson (ours), enclosing 2—3 
seeds. Cultivated; reported escaped. (Gk. pan—all; akos—a cure; hence a cure-all or 
panacea, from its reputed medicinal properties.) W. 
P. quinquefolium L. (Ginseng) 
-UMBELLACEAE (Apiaceae)* Carrot Family 
Herbs. Stems often hollow. Leaves simple to decompound, alternate; petiole 
often dilated at base; stipules none or rarely minute. Flowers small, white or yellow 
or green or blue or purple, usually in umbels, rarely in heads or head-like clusters, often 
polygamous: umbels simple or compound, usually involucrate; umbellets usually with 
an involucel. Calyx-limb none or 5-lobed; lobes inconspicuous. Petals 5, on the 
calyx, those of the outer flowers sometimes larger than the inner. Stamens 5, on the 
epigynous disk; anthers versatile. Ovary inferior, 2-celled; styles 2, filiform, distinct, 
persistent, often on a conic or depressed stylopodium; cells |-ovule.d Fruit dry; carpels 
2, |-seeded, with 0 or 5 chief ribs, sometimes with 4 other smaller ribs, usually separat- 
ing at maturity along their plane of union (commissure), after separation borne on a 
slender axis (carpophore) ; ribs often winged; oil-tubes usually contained in the intervals 
between the 5 primary ribs, or under the ribs, and on the commissure side, sometimes ir- 
regularly scattered, sometimes none. Seed flat or concave on | side. 
A. Leaves simple. : 
B. Leaves awl-shaped to lanceolate or oblanceolate or obiong. 
C. Leaves entire; flowers white or yellow, in umbels. Group 3, BB (pee2d 3) 
CC. Leaves lobed to dentate; flowers white or blue, in dense somewhat spiny 
heads. Group I, A (p. 272) 
*This difficult family depends upon the oil-tubes in the fruit for the separation of 
the genera. To see these cut a thin cross section of a carpel with a sharp knife and 
examine with the low power of the compound microscope. The oil-tubes are just outside 

the seed-cavity. 
