Glabrous perennial (?sometimes biennial) herb, 0.9–3 m. tall, the root sometimes slender, usually ± tuberous and smelling of carrot.. Stem terete, finely striate, slender and frequently bowed over in fruit with the weight of the fruiting heads, hollow with a white pith, 5–10 mm. broad at the base, with slender flowering branches above.. Lower leaves broadly deltoid in outline, to 50 cm. or more, bipinnatisect with 2–3 pairs of pinnae; lowest pair of pinnae long-petiolulate (to ± 7 cm.) with 1–2 pairs of leaflets, median pair more shortly stalked or sessile, divided or not, upper pair undivided and sessile; leaflets linear to broadly lanceolate, 4–33 × 0.2–3 cm.; venation of a prominent midrib and a pair of ± well defined parallel veins with intermediate anastamosing veins, in broader-leaved forms these veins more arching-anastamosing and ill-defined, all veins smooth or minutely verruculose-roughened; petiole ± 7–15 cm. long including the short and broad or more gradually tapering, 1.5–3.5 cm., frequently purplish, striate sheath; median leaves progressively less and more narrowly divided, and more shortly petiolate; upper leaves reduced to tapering sheaths subtending the flowering branches, often purplish or brownish, the lamina reduced to a filiform tip or absent.. Umbels large, with (5–)11–21 slender, glabrous, 5–16 cm. rays which often droop in fruit; involucre of up to ± 8 filiform or broad-based bracts up to ± 12 mm. long, sometimes absent; partial umbels nodding in fruit, 11–27-flowered, pedicels glabrous, 11–30 mm.; involucel of up to ± 8 filiform bracteoles, 2–14 mm. long; peduncles ± 5.5–16(–20) cm.. Calyx obsolete.. Petals elliptic to obovate with an acute ± incurved tip, 1.25–1.75 mm., glabrous, yellowish or ± flushed with greenish, brownish or purple; anthers greenish to purplish.. Fruit glabrous, roundish to broadly elliptical or obovate, truncate or shortly notched at the base, deeply notched and ± auriculate at the apex, 7–13 × 6–9 mm. with the fertile centre 2.5–5 mm. wide, primary ribs not prominent; endosperm not deeply sulcate; commissural vittae 2; stylopodia narrowly conical, 1.75–3 mm. at maturity, subequalling or (at least in the smaller range of fruit) exceeding the apical notch; styles 0.6–1 mm., erect or divergent.. Fig. 37.
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