A T H A M A N T A Libanotis.
Mountain Stone-ParJIey.
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P E N T A N D R I A Digynia.
G en. Char. Fruit ovato-oblong, convex, ftriated.
Petals uniform, indexed, fo as to feem notched.
Involucrum both general and partial.
Spec. Char. Leaves bipinnated, flat. Umbels he.
mifpherical. Seeds hairy.
S y n . Athamanta Libanotis. Linn. Sp. Pi. ^5x,
Relb. Cant. 113 fig. With. Bot, Arr. 283. Hudf.
FI. An. ed. 1. 100.
A. Oreofelinum. bludj. Fl. An. 1 15 . With. Bot.
Arr. 283.
Apium petrteum feu montanum album. Raii Syn.
218.
A N the time of Ray, this plant was known to grow wild on Gog-
magog hills, Cambridgefhire ; but from that period no botanift
has met with it there till the year 1783, when it was detected
by the Rev. Mr. Relhan, to whom we are obliged for the wild
fpecimen here reprefented. Whether the plant Mr, Hudfon gathered
between St. Albans and Stoney Stratford be the fame,
we have no means of determining: probably it might. That
gentleman rightly referred Ray’s plant to the A. Libanotis in
his firft edition; but in the fecond, milled as it fhould feem by
Linnaeus in Sp. PI. he calls it A. Oreofelinum, a very different
fpecies, as appears from the Linn. Herb. Hence arofe the
miftake of Dr. Withering, who has both plants in his Bot. Arr.
The root is perennial, running perpendicularly down, fome-
what woody, bitterilh, and pungent, bearded at the top with
the fibrous remains of old leaf-ftalks. Stem one or two feet
high, erect, little branched, fmooth, angular, and (as Ray ob-
ferves) often very deeply furrowed. Leaves bipinnate; leaflets
feffile, pinnatifid, with pointed entire lobes, firm, veiny, paler
beneath, fmooth, except a flight hairinefs on the veins and margin,
Footftalks dilated at the bafe, with a membranous border.
Umbels terminal, ere£t, whitilh. Involucra numerous,
fubulate, with a membranous margin, hairy. Flower-ftalks,
calyx, and germen, hairy, as islikewife the fruit. After flowering,
the ftyles and top of the germen become purple, as Linnaeus
remarks. The umbels are fometimes proliferous. T h i s
plant blooms copioufly in Auguft. We have reprefented a magnified
flower to fhew the inflexion of the petals, and the half-
ripe fruit with its purple divaricated ftyles.