Western Carolina Botanical Club

This winter we’ll categorize plants in our database by family. This week’s post is plants in the Apiaceae (Celery, Parsley, & Carrot) family, also known as umbellifers because their umbels resemble umbrellas. Typically, plants in this family are hollow-stemmed with flowers arranged in a central umbel, which branches again to form a compound umbel consisting of many small umbellets. Some umbellifers are fairly straightforward to identify, but sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between those which have compound leaves. You can find more information about umbellifers in our plant key. Photography by Ken Borgfeldt, Richard Holzman, Penny Longhurst, Jim Poling, Lucy Prim, Randy Richardson, & Joe Standaert. Botanical plant names seem to change almost every day, but for now we use those approved by ITIS, the Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Plants that are non-native to North America are indicated by an asterisk (*) placed after the species name. Click on any picture to zoom & enter the slide show.