Umbelliferae
A large natural order of herbaceous or rarely woody plants, principally inhabiting the Northern hemisphere. Flowers hermaphrodite or often polygamo-monoecious, rarely dioecious, umbellate or rarely capitate or whorled; calyx five-lobed, or almost wanting; petals five, valvate or sub-imbricate in bud, inserted outside an epigynous disk, free, caducous, the points generally inflexed, sometimes two-cleft or two-parted, the outer often largest; stamens five, alternate with, and inserted like, the petals; filaments inflexed in bud; anthers two-celled, introrse umbels simple, or often duplicate-compound, terminal, solitary or many in a panicle. Fruit dry, two-celled, dividing into two mericarps, the surface marked with ten more or less prominent ridges. Leaves usually alternate, entire or variously toothed, cut, lobed, or pinnate; petioles usually dilated at base. Stem usually furrowed or channelled, knotty, fistular or full of pith. Among the useful Umbellifers, the following (indigenous to Britain) may be noted: Carrot (Daucus Carota), Chervil (Anthriscus Cerefolium), Parsley (Carum Petroselinum), and Parsnip (Peucedanum sativum). The order embraces upwards of 150 genera and about 1300 species, few of which are remarkable for horticultural beauty. Illustrative genera are: Apium, Daucus, Myrrhis, Narther, Peucedanum, Sium, Smyrnium.