Flora Medica

'verse internal partitions. Stem 2 or 3 feet high, hollow, leafy, branched,furrowed, smooth. Leaves on long footstalks, thrice ternate, brightgreen leaflets ; sharply and deeply serrated, tapering at each end, from1 to 2 inches long, slightly decurrent ; those of the upper leaves morenarrow. Umbels large, many-rayed, stalked, partly terminal, partlyopposite the leaves ; partial ones of very numerous slender rays. Generalbracts if present very narrow, and seldom more than 1 or 2 ;but forthe most part entirely wanting ; partial several, narrow, taper-pointed,unequal. Anthers and styles purplish. Styles bowed, recurved, as longas the fruit, their bases finally a little tumid, and confluent with thereceptacle. Fruit spherical, compressed, almost black, smooth, withthe dorsal ridges very obscure, and scarcely more than slightly elevatedangles. Commissure flat, circular, smaller than the half-fruits. Adangerous poison, producing effects similar to those of hydrocyanicacid. It appears to cause true tetanic convulsions in frequent paroxysms,and death on the third day. Christison. Haller considered itthe conium of the Greeks. It appears to be fatal to cattle.APIUM.Calyx obsolete. Petals roundish, entire. Disk depressed.Fruit roundish, contracted at the side, double. Half-fruits with5 filiform equal ridges, of which the laterals form the border.Dorsal channels with single vittie, lateral with 23. Herbaceousplants with the root thickened at the neck. Stem furrowed,branched. Leaves pinnated, with wedge-shaped cutsegments. Umbels axillary or nearly sessile on the apex of thestalk. No involucres. Flowers greenish white.72. A. graveolens Linn. sp. pi. 379. Eng. Bot. t. 1210.Marshes all over Europe, the Caucasus, Mexico, Falkland Islands.(Celery.)Smooth. Leaves pinnated, the upper 3-parted; lobes wedge-shaped,cut and toothed at the apex. When wild, growing in wet meadowsand in ditches, it is acrid and poisonous; when cultivated in dry ground,and partially blanched, it is the celery well known as a salad.PETROSELINUM.Calyx obsolete. Petals roundish, incurved, entire, scarcelyemarginate, contracted into an inflexed lobe. Disk short, conical,somewhat crenulate. Styles diverging. Fruit ovate, contractedat the side. Half-fruits with 5 filiform equal ridges, ofwhich the laterals form the border. Channels with 1 vitta,commissure with 2 Smooth branched herbs. Leaves decompoundwith wedge-shaped segments. Involucres few-leaved ;involucels many-leaved. Flowers white or greenish, uniform,those of the disk often sterile. Stamens longer than the corolla.73. P. sativum Hoffm. umb. i. t. i. f. 2. Nees andEberm.pl. med.283. liandb. iii. 34*.Apium Petroselinum Linn. sp. pi. 379.t.35 D 2