Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/140

 130 PARSLEY stems, much divided leaves with sheathing petioles, and small fi ve-petalled flowers in com- pound umbels, followed by a fruit which splits into one-seeded halves; the coating of these half fruits contains an aromatic oil in long narrow receptacles or oil tubes, which are often placed between elevated ribs. Parsley is a biennial, sometimes lasting longer, with a thick white root, which with the leaves and all other parts has a peculiar aromatic odor and taste. The leaves are triangular in general outline, twice pinnate and in the garden varie- ties much subdivided and cut. The first year it forms a tuft of radical leaves ; the next year the flower stem appears and grows about 3 ft. high with umbels of small yellowish or green- ish flowers, followed by the fruits or seeds. Parsley is a native of the eastern Mediterranean region, and being much cultivated throughout Europe has established itself in various locali- ties ; in England it is quite naturalized on some of the rocky coasts. It is cultivated in most gardens for its aromatic leaves, which are used in seasoning soups and various dishes, and also for garnishing, the rich green color of the leaves and their elegantly divided and crisped foli- age making it superior to all other plants for this use. The original form of -the plant, with plain leaves, is seldom seen, several varieties with finely cut foliage, called curled and double parsley, being preferred on account of their greater beauty; in some of the recent kinds, called fimbriated or mossy, the leaves are re- markably subdivided. Hamburg parsley is a large-rooted variety, cultivated in the same manner as carrots ; its roots are used to flavor soups and stews, or are cooked separately like parsnips. The seeds of parsley are very slow in germinating, often remaining a month or six weeks before the plants appear. When the plants are large enough they are thinned to 10 in. apart, or transplanted and set at the same distance ; it is said that repeated trans- plantings tend to make the leaves more double. Parsley is sometimes used as an edging to beds in kitchen gardens with pleasing effect. Mar- ket gardeners supply it fresh all winter ; in September the foliage is cut away from the roots, and before cold weather a short dense tuft of leaves is formed ; the plants are dug before the ground freezes, and stored in trenches covered with straw. If kept in the open ground over winter, it should be protected by litter ; in spring it soon throws up its flower stalks. The leaves are the favorite food of the parsley worm, a green caterpillar marked with black and yellow spots; when disturbed it throws out, just behind its head, a pair of soft orange- colored horns, which emit a powerful and most repulsive odor; this is the larva of a large, handsome black butterfly with yellow mark- ings, papilio asterias. Parsley has long been used medicinally, and at one time remarkable powers were attributed to it; the root is now occasionally employed as a diuretic. Its odor has a remarkable power in neutralizing or PARSNIP masking other odors ; it is often chewed after eating onions, and it is said to render even the odor of garlic imperceptible. In some parts of England the superstition prevails among the rural people that to transplant parsley will entail bad luck. Fool's parsley, cethusa cyna- pium, is a highly poisonous plant of the same family, introduced from Europe and more or less naturalized in some of the older states ; as it resembles the plain form of parsley, serious accidents and even death have resulted in Eng- land from mistaking it for parsley. In flower the two are easily distinguished, as in the fool's parsley each partial umbel has an involucel of three long, narrow, pendent leaves beneath it, which the true parsley has not ; mistakes may be avoided by using only the curled parsley. PARSNIP (pastinaca sativa), an umbellifer- ous plant, cultivated for its edible root. The name was -written pastnip by the old herbalists, from pastinaca, the ancient Latin name. The parsnip is found wild in southern and central Europe and temperate Russian Asia and parts of Great Britain, and is introduced into this country ; it is usually a biennial, sometimes in the wild state flowering the first year. It has a hard tap root with strong branches ; an erect stem about 2 ft. high and branching ; lower leaves pinnate, and more or less downy on the under side, the divisions sharply toothed and more or less lobed ; the umbels of yellow flow- ers of eight to twelve rays, flat on top, without involucres ; fruit about three lines long, oval ; the conspicuous oil tubes run their whole length. In cultivation the root is much increased in size, almost without branches, and is soft and fleshy; the stem is much taller and the leaves longer and smoother than when wild. Prof. Buckman of the royal agricultural college, Eng- land, experimented on the improvement of the parsnip from the wild state. He found that the plants from seeds sown as soon as ripe, and those from the same lot of seeds kept until spring and then sown, showed marked differences ; and he regards the keeping of the seeds out of the ground, from the time they are ripe until they can be sown in spring, as an important step in cul- tivation, as it places the seeds in a condi- tion quite different generations from the wild seed showed dif- ferences in form, including specimens with tendencies in their shape toward that of the established cultivated varieties. Selecting a