Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/282

 258 SILER TRILOBUM AS A BUITISH PLANT.

with one or more species of Lrtserpitlnrn, iiiidcr tlio name of L. Irilohnm, frum which "enus, as defined by Linnaeus, its fruit-cliaracters entirely exclude it. This is well pointed out by Crantz (Stirp. Austriac. f. 3. p. 186), who places our plant iu his genus Siler, in which, nevertheless, he unaccountably also includes Linnseus's Laserpitium Siler and L. gcilUcum. Though Crantz then is the founder of Siler as a genus in the post-Linnfean sense, the definition of Scopoli in the second edition of his ' Flora Carniolica' (vol. i. p. 217), who restricted it to the present species, is that generally quoted. Bentham and Hooker give (Gen. Plant. 908) Scopoli as the authority for the genus, with which they incorporate HoiTraann's JyaaylUs. The technical characters of the fruit readily dis- tinguish it.

Siler, Scop. — *Fruit glabrous, oval-oblong, slightly dorsally com- pressed ; commissure wide, flat cr sliglitly concave; carpels nearly semi- circular on transverse section, each with 9 blunt prominent ribs, none of them winged, the 5 primary ribs rather thicker and more prominent than the 4 secondary ones, the 2 marginal ones especially prominent, forming with the adjacent ones of the other carpel a blunt double rim to the fruit ; vittee solitary, buried one in each secondary rib, and not visible on the surface of the fruit, two other vittee in the face of the commissure; seed lenticular-coni|)ressed, fiat or nearly so on the face ; stylopod small, rather flat; styles persistent, closely reflexed over the stylopod. (When dry the dorsal compression of the carpels becomes much greater, and the ribs so much narrower and more prominent, as to have led to their being described as winged.)

S. TRILOBUM [Crantz, Austr f. 3. p. 186 (1769)1, Scopoli Fl. Carn. ed. 2. vol. i. p. 217 (1772) ; De Cand. Prod. iv. 200. LnserpUlnm. trilobitm, L. Sp. 3.57 (ex parte) et plurim. aiict. Europ. (non Crantz, nee Lapeyr. nee Rochel). Siler aqiiileffifoUum, Spreng. Urab. 41; Gpeitn. Fruct. p. 92; Mertens and Koch, Dentsch. Fl. ii. 368. Laserpilinm. aqnileyifolium, Jacq. Austr. p. 29 (non Brotero, nee De Cand.). L. audriacnm, Pallas in sehed.

Rootstock vertical, thick, the ujiper portion clothed with the fibrous re- mains of the petioles of leaves of past years ; slem erect, 4 to 6 ft. high, moderately branched, terete, striate, glabrous, glaucous, solid, branches stifl', rigid ; rool-leaves triternate on long petioles, the leaflets more or less deeply trifid, roundish, irregularly and very coarsely crenate, stem-leaves ternate, the leaflets less rounded, trifid, with more elongated segments, petiole dilated into a rigid sheathing base, all the leaflets thick, almost coriaceous, glabrous, shining dark clear green above, glaucous and ele- gantly veined beneath; umbels icxmw^X, vf\\}\ 1.5 to 22 widely spreading i)ranclies, general involucre of 1 to 3 ovate-lanceolate deciduous bracts or 0, partial of 5 to 8 small lanceolate bracts, secondary umbels distant with 20-30 flowers, rather lax ; flowers all regular, on long pedicels, petals dis- tant, obovate-spathnlatft, with a narrow base, bifid, with a long inflexed point, white, when in bud pinkish, calyx with 5 minute teeth, stamens twice as long as the petals ; fruit y\ iu. long, y\ in. wide, slightly con-

flowering_ season had passed, and the fruit, though it had attained its full size, was not ripe, also I dug- up no roots. In the description, therefore, the characters of the rootstock, the flowers, and the fully ripe fruit are taken from Continental specimens.
 * When I collected the specimens from which the description is drawn, the

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