Flora Medica

APIACEJE OR UMBELLIFER-flE.rous entire or trifid. Flowers white or yellow, the central onegenerally fleshy, dark purple, and sterile.116. D. gummifer Lam. diet. i. 634. Gussone prodr.i. 321.sicula t.fl. 117. Nees and Eberm. liandb. iii. 12. Pastinacatenuifolia gummi manans Boccon. mus. t. 20. Dry stony hillson the sea coast of Sicily.Hirsute. Leaves somewhat 3-pinnate rather shining ; leaflets ovate,cut," acute. Bracts of both involucres broadish, with a membranousmargin, much shorter than the umbels. Prickles of the fruit hooked.The roots vield the Bdellium siculum of the old Pharmacopoeias,according to Boccone. It has a bitter balsamic taste and a weak butunpleasant odour.N.B. De Candolle considers the plant thus called by Lamarck thesame as our British Daucus maritimus, and he reduces it as a synonymto the D. hispanicus of Gouan. He then refers Boccone's Bdelliumcarrot to D. Gingidium, the character of which here follows ;butGussone, the greatest of all authorities concerning Sicilian plants,retains D. gummifer as a distinct species.117. D. Gingidium Linn. sp. plant. 348. D C. prodr. iv. 21 1 .Rocky shores of Corsica.Stem and petioles rough with scattered bristles. Leaves bipinnate ;segments cut, toothed, ovate; lobes obtuse mucronate. Bracts ofinvolucre striated, pinnatifid, about as long as the umbel. Fruit ovate ;prickles as long as broad, setiform, capitate with inflexed hooks. Seelast species.118. D. CarotaZ^Vm. sp. pi. 348. Eng. Bot. t. 1174. Neesand Eberm. med.pl t. 287. handb. iii. 10. DC. iv. prodr. 211.S. and C. i. t. 56. Woodv. t. 161. Common in high sandy soilall through Europe, the Crimea, the Caucasus, China, andCochin-China ;also in America and elsewhere probably carried.(Common carrot.)Root slender, yellowish, aromatic and sweetish, resembling theGarden Carrot, which is only a cultivated variety. Stem 2 or 3 feethigh, branched, erect, leafy, hairy or bristly. Leaves alternate, onbroad, concave, ribbed footstalks, bipinnate, cut, narrow, acute, distantlyhairy. Umbels terminating the long leafless branches, solitary, large,white, except the one central neutral flower, which is blood-red. Generalbracts pinnatifid, slender, large, but not so long as the umbel ;partial undivided, or partly 3-cleft, membranous at the edges. Fruitsmall, protected by the incurvation of all the flower-stalks, by whichthe umbels are rendered hollow, like a bird's nest. Smith. Fruit 1-1 ^line long, pale dull brown, oval; primary ridges filiform, bristly, 3near the middle of the convex back, 2 on the plane of the commissure ;secondary ridges deeper and irregularly split into setaceous lobes.Vitta? one under each secondary ridge, and 2 on the plane of thecommissure. A poultice for correcting the fetid discharge, allaying thepain and changing the action of ill-conditioned, phagedenic, sloughingand cancerous ulcers, is prepared from the root. Fruit carminative ;but supposed to act more particularly on the urinary organs. Pcreira.54