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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
11. Daucus, Linn
11. Daucus, Linn.
Annual or biennial herbs, usually hispid. Leaves decompound, ultimate segments narrow. Umbels compound; rays numerous; bracts of the general involucre usually pinnatisect. Flowers white. Calyx-teeth small or obsolete. Petals often unequal, inflexed at the tips. Fruit ovoid or oblong, terete or slightly dorsally compressed; carpels convex, with 5 slender bristly primary ribs, and 4 winged secondary ones bearing rows of hooked bristles. Vittæ 1 under each secondary rib and 2 on the commissural face. Seed flattened dorsally.
Species about 35, chiefly found in the temperate portions of the Northern Hemisphere, and most abundant in the Mediterranean region. The single New Zealand species is also common in Australia and Tasmania.
| 1. | D. brachiatus, Sieb. in D.C. Prodr. iv. 214.—An erect annual or biennial branching herb, very variable in size, 6–18 in. high, more or less bristly with short stiff hairs, rarely almost glabrous. Leaves flaccid, on long slender petioles, 2–3-pinnate; primary leaflets 4–6 pairs; secondary deeply incised or pinnatifid; segments small, linear-oblong, minutely mucronulate. Umbels axillary or terminal, compound; primary rays 4–10, very unequal in size; involucral bracts entire or pinnately divided. Flowers small. Fruit ovoid, about ⅛ in. long; carpels with the secondary ridges much the largest, and bearing a single row of purplish hooked bristles; primary with a double row of finer bristles pointing right and left.— Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 91; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 99; Benth. Fl. Austral. iii. 376; Kirk, Students' Fl. 214. Scandix glochidiata, Labill. Fl. Nov. Holl. i. 75, t. 102.
North and South Islands, Chatham Islands: Abundant in lowland districts throughout. October–December. The allied D. carota, L., the origin of the cultivated carrot, has become naturalised in several localities in both islands. It can be distinguished from D. brachiatus by its greater size, broader leaf-segments, and much larger compact flat-topped umbels. |