Cryptotaenia africana Drude

Perennial herb, 0.5–2 m., with an underground creeping rootstock, sparingly branched above.. Stem ± terete, hollow, striate, generally ± multicellular-pilose above the base and increasingly glabrous upwards, sometimes glabrous almost throughout.. Basal leaves long-petiolate (petiole ± 8–16 cm.), pinnate with 1–3 pairs of pinnae or usually subbipinnate with the lower pinnae again divided; pinnae and lower pairs of leaflets distinctly petiolulate; leaflets broadly ovate to elliptic, the terminal often but not invariably the largest, ± 3–9 × 2.2–5 cm., regular or more irregularly and jaggedly toothed, frequently (especially in the north and west of the range), bi-or tridentate, acute or acuminate, cuneate to subcordate at the base, ± multicellular-pilose; sheaths short and broad, striate; lower stem leaves usually similar but less divided, more shortly petiolate; median leaves deeply dissected, ± regularly dentate, the terminal leaflet frequently long, ± 3–8 × 0.4–1.4 mm., often but not invariably recalling a Cannabis leaflet, sheaths longer and narrower; uppermost leaves rapidly diminishing and often entire, trisect or linear and bract-like.. Umbels numerous, on divergent glabrous peduncles 2.2–7 cm. long; rays 3–5, glabrous (extremely rarely with a few minute papillate hairs), 1.5–4 cm.; involucre absent; flowers (2–)3–5(–7) in each partial umbel, all hermaphrodite and producing fruit or occasionally a few abortive and ?, on glabrous 6–20 mm. pedicels; involucel absent.. Calyx obsolete.. Petals ± 1 mm., white to greenish white.. Fruit ovate, 3–5.5 × 1.5–3 mm., laterally compressed, glabrous even when young, blackish when ripe with greenish ribs, calyx totally obsolete; stylopodia long-conical to narrowly elliptic, equalling or slightly longer or shorter than the recurved styles.