Malabaila
(named after Count Malabaila von Canal, a former Director of the Botanic Gardens at Prague). SYN. Leiotulus. ORD. Umbelliferae. A genus comprising about half-a-score species of hardy perennial, often glabrous herbs, similar in habit to Peucedanum, but with broader leaves. They are natives of South-eastern Europe, Eastern Africa, and Western Asia. Flowers yellowish, in compound, many-rayed umbels; calyx teeth obsolete or minute; petals rather broad, acuminate, inflexed (often obtuse or retuse). Involucral bracts few or none. Fruit orbiculate or rarely obovate, flat, compressed. Leaves pinnate or pinnately decompound; segments often broad, incised-toothed. Seeds of the undermentioned species should be sown in the open ground, in spring.
M. Opoponax (Opoponax). fl., petals roundish, entire, involute; styles very short. June and July. fr. girded by a dilated, convex margin. l. bipinnate; leaflets unequally cordate, crenated, obtuse, hairy, especially beneath. Sheaths at the flowering branches spathaceous, and sometimes destitute of leaves. h. 6ft. South Europe, 1640. SYNS. Opoponax Chironium, Pastinaca Opoponax (under which name it is figured in S. F. G. 288). M. pimpinellaefolia (Pimpinella-leaved). fl., petals slightly hairy outside. Involucre of one to three leaves; involucels of four or five leaves, dimidiate, deciduous. July and August. fr. orbicular. l. bipinnatifid, pubescent; segments cuneated, deeply serrated, lower ones reflexed, upper ones linear-lanceolate. Stem angular, branched. h. 2ft. Caucasus, &c., 1818.