Also known as Early Meadow Parsnip, this is like a cheery golden Queen
Anne’s Lace, with similar compound umbels of flowers, more delicate than
the similarly yellow Wild Parsnip (Pastinaca sativa). It likes a damp open
woods or meadow; these were growing in Frick Park, where they were
blooming in early May.
Gray describes the genus and the species:
ZIZIA Koch. Calyx-teeth prominent. Fruit ovate to oblong, glabrous, with
filiform ribs. Oil-tubes large and solitary in the broad intervals, and a
small one in each rib; stylopodium wanting; seed terete. —Smooth
perennials, with mostly Thaspium-like leaves, no involucre,
involucels of small bractlets, yellow flowers, and the central fruit of
each umbellet sessile. Flowering in spring. (Named for I. B. Ziz, a
Rhenish botanist.)
Z. aúrea (L.) Koch. (GOLDEN ALEXANDERS.) Leaves (except the
uppermost) 2-3-ternate, the radical very long-petioled; leaflets ovate to
lanceolate, sharply serrate, acuminate; rays 15-25, stout, 2-5 cm. long;
fruit oblong, about 4 mm. long. — River-banks, meadows,and rich woods, e.
Que. to Sask., s. to Va., Ark., and Tex.
In Our Common Wild Flowers of Springtime and Autumn, Alice
Mary Dowd describes the plant briefly, and also gives us a brief
explanation of the word “umbel”:
“Not far from the wood betony, on the same grassy slope, and blossoming at
the same time, we may find the early meadow parsnip, sometimes called
golden Alexanders. It is a common plant everywhere from Maine to South
Dakota. The leaves are twice or three times divided at the base, and have
long stems. The small, golden yellow flowers are in little radiating
clusters. A flower-cluster in which the stems radiate from the end of the
main stem, like the ribs of an umbrella turned wrong side out, is called
an umbel. If the radiating stems end in little umbels instead of single
flowers the whole cluster is a compound umbel. The words umbel and
umbrella both come from the Latin word for shade.”
Alphonso Wood, in his Class-Book of Botany, uses this plant (which he
places in the genus Carum) as one of his botanical lessons:
“Description.—The humid river-banks, the meadows behind them, and even the
sunny hills above them, are frequently bedecked in June or May, with
bright yellow umbels, which, with little discrimination, the country
people call Golden Alexanders. We will suppose that our young botanists
return from their morning rambles equipped with these plants
complete—root, leaf, flower and fruit.
“Analysis.—The Leaf Region.—After the lesson on the Cicely, the student
will see in this plant striking analogies, with special differences. Both
are to be carefully noted. The root is perennial, axial, branching, more
woody than fleshy, from which annually arises a plant glabrous (smooth)
and polished. The stems throughout are jointed, branching, with long,
hollow internodes as in Cicely. The leaves are ternate and biternate, the
lower on long petioles and sometimes pinnately 5-foliate, the very lowest
being simple and cordate. The student will compare the leaflets with those
of Cicely, and note their form of outline, base, apex, and margin. The
petioles are sheathing and stem-clasping at the base, as in that plant.
“The Flower Region.—The umbels are axillary and terminal.* Are they simple
or compound? Do you find any involucre and involucels? Of what
description? The flowers are 5-parted. Here also the calyx consists of a
tube adhering to the ovary, with the limb or teeth obsolete. Each of the 5
yellow petals has its slender point inflexed, with the 5 stamens in like
manner inflected. The ovary is inferior— placed below the flower and
crowned by it, in consequence of being immersed in and adherent to the
tubular calyx. The 2 styles are slender, longer than the ovary, and
deciduous, for they are not seen on the full-grown fruit.
“The Fruit is a cremocarp as in Osmorhiza, but with several
remarkable differences. It is oval inclined to oblong, flattened on the
sides. When the carpels separate, they show the forked carpophore between
them. Each carpel has 5 conspicuous, equal, wavy ribs, 2 of which are
marginal, i. e., on the border of the face or commissure. In each interval
between the ribs is an oil tube—an oblong cell containing a fragrant oil.
Botanists call these oil-tubes vittae. None are found in the
fruits of Osmorhiza.
“* Plants in which the inflorescence is arranged in a cyme, corymb,
&c, may be termed the “Social Flowers.” Small flowers thus packed
closely together are necessarily more attractive to insects than if they
were scattered promiscuously over the plant. Besides, these groups of
flowers are generally placed where they are not hidden by the leaves. So
that one can hut feel that this floral arrangement is not an accident, but
designed for a purpose. Self-fertilization is guarded against in these
masses of small flowers by the stamens ripening before the pistils. The
former shed their pollen and wither before the latter have developed
sufficiently to receive the pollen. Sir John Lubbock remarks that the
honey in the flowers of this order is Inaccessible to butterflies, whose
probosces are fitted for deep-throated flowers; but it is easily reached
by other insects.
“The Name in Latin is Carum aureum. It is associated with
Caraway (Carum Carvi) whose native country is Caria in Asia
Minor; hence the name. The specific term, aureum, means golden.
Other plants called also Golden Alexanders, with yellow umbels in June,
may perplex the student. One such, C. cordatum, is smooth all
over like C. aureum, but its root-leaves are generally cordate
and simple, and the stem-leaves never biternate.”