Be sure you know the difference between sweet cicely and
the poisonous water hemlock before tasting the former's spicy
root.
Was there no more important genus - containing, if possible, red,
white, and blue flowers - to have named in honor of the Father of
his Country?
Another member of the Carrot family, the SANICLE or BLACK
SNAKEROOT (Sanicula Marylandica), found blooming from May to July
in such rich, moist woodlands and shrubbery as the sweet cicely
prefers, lifts spreading, two to four rayed umbels of
insignificant-looking but interesting little greenish-white
florets. At first the tips of the five petals are tucked into the
center of each little flower; underneath them the stamens are now
imprisoned while any danger of self-fertilizing the stigma
remains. The few hermaphrodite florets have their styles
protruding from the start, and incoming insects leave pollen
brought from staminate florets on the early-maturing stigmas.
After cross-fertilization has been effected, it is the pistil's
turn to keep out of the way, and give the imprisoned stamens a
chance: the styles curve until the stigmas are pressed against
the sides of the ovary, that not a grain of pollen may touch
them; the petals spread and release the stamens; but so great is
the flower's zeal not to be fertilized with its own pollen that
it sometimes holds the anthers tightly between the petals until
all the vitalizing dust has been shed! Around the hermaphrodite
florets are a large number of male florets in each hemispheric
cluster.
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