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ECHINOPHORA spinosa.
Prickly Sampire.
PENTANDRIA Digynia.
G en. C har. Partial Involucrum turbinate, o f one
leaf, in six segments. M a rg in a l power’s radiant,
male, s talk ed ; central one female. Seeds imbedded
in the partial involucrum.
S p e c . C h a r . Leaflets awlshaped, spinous, three-cleft
or undivided, entire.
Syn. E chin op ho ra spinosa. Linn, Sp. P I 344. Sm,
FI. Frit. 2 9 3 . Rees's Cyclop, v. 12. Finds. 112,
With. 2 8 5 . Hull. ed. 2 . 7 8 . Cavan. Ic. t. 127.
E. maritima spinosa. Dill, in Raii Syn. 220.
Crithmum spinosum. Ger. em. 5 3 3 . Raii Syn.
ed. 2 . 114. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
O u R plan requires that every plant admitted into the Flora
Britannica should find a place in this work. The present is
one o f those of which we have been obliged to recur to an exotic
specimen ; for though there are numerous authorities for its
having been formerly found, on various and remote parts of tie
English sea coast, nobody can meet with it now. Yet as the
Ligusticum cornuliense was, for a longer space of time, supposed
to be lost, we do not despair of the Echinophora. Its
aspect and characters are too distinct to admit a possibility of
any other plant having been mistaken for this. It flowers in
July- , t.
The root is perennial, long, tapering, fleshy, said to have
the taste of a parsnep, with some saltness, and a stimulatin.
quality. Stem bushy, furrowed, excessively branched, andso
beset with spinous pinnate opposite leaves, as to be nearly inaccessible.
Umbels terminal, with lanceolate, spinous mvo-
lucral leaves, both general and partial. Flowers white, occasionally
with a reddish tinge. Petals of the marginal ones
unequal, with an indexed fringed tip. Calyx spinous. »
diments o f the seeds two, one o f which only comes to] perfection,
lodged in the fleshy centre of the partial umbel.