Family: Apiaceae
Apium
Citation:
L., Sp. Pl. 264 (1753).
Derivation: Latin for celery.
Synonymy: Not Applicable Common name: None
Description:
Annual, biennial or perennial glabrous herbs; stems erect or prostrate, sometimes rooting at the nodes, sulcate with hollow or solid internodes; leaves pinnate, the upper ternate.
Umbels compound, terminal and leaf-opposed, pedunculate or sessile; involucre and involucel absent; flowers bisexual, sepals minute or absent; petals white, ovate, inflexed at the apex, not emarginate; stamens 5; ovary glabrous; stylopodium short-conical to depressed.
Fruit a schizocarp, subglobular, ovoid or elliptic-oblong, laterally compressed, glabrous; carpophore thick, shortly 2-fid; mericarps with 5 almost equal prominent rather stout ribs; vittae solitary.
Distribution:
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A cosmopolitan genus, about 20 species; 3 or 4 species indigenous and 1 naturalised in Australia. (P. Short (1979) J. Adelaide Bot. Gard. 1:205-235.)
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Biology:
No text
Key to Species:
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1. Prostrate biennial or perennial herb; mericarps almost covered by thick corky ribs leaving only very narrow furrows between them |
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A. prostratum 3. |
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1. Erect annual or biennial herb; mericarps with thin ribs leaving distinct furrows (valleculae) between them |
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2. Annual c. 3-15 cm tall; mericarps with ribs about as thick as the valleculae are wide |
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A. annuum 1. |
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2. Stout biennial, c. 30-100 cm tall; mericarps with ribs much narrower than the valleculae between them |
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A. graveolens 2. |
Author:
Not yet available
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