General description:- Herbs, rarely shrubs.
Leaves:- Alternate; lamina usually large and much-divided; petiole often inflated and sheathing at base. Stipules absent.
The primary divisions of the leaves are referred to as segments and the ultimate divisions, cut nearly or quite to the midrib, as lobes. The lobes may themselves sometimes be deeply lobed. The leaves are never truly pinnate, but are described as pinnate, for brevity, when the lamina is divided to the midrib.
Flowers:- Inflorescence usually a compound umbel. Flowers epigynous, small, hermaphrodite or unisexual, the plant rarely dioecious. Sepals usually small or absent; petals 5, usually more or less 3-lobed, the middle lobe inflexed; outer petals sometimes much larger than inner (radiate); stamens 5; carpels (1-)2, usually attached to a central axis (carpophore), from which the mericarps separate at maturity; styles (1-)2, often with a thickened base (stylopodium); ovule 1 in each loculus, pendent.
Descriptions of umbels refer to the terminal, or other well-developed umbel: lateral umbels are often smaller, with fewer rays, and may be entirely male. Bracts are the structures which subtend the primary branches (rays) of a compound umbel, and bracteoles are those which subtend the partial umbel, or the whole of a simple umbel. When the stylopodium is described, the description refers to the stylopodium of a hermaphrodite flower.
Fruit:- Dry; pericarp membranous or exocarp variously indurated; endocarp rarely woody. Mericarps usually joined by a narrow or wide commissure; each mericarp more or less compressed laterally or dorsally, with 5 longitudinal veins, usually with ridges over them, separated by valleculae or sometimes with 4 secondary ridges alternating with the primary; resin canals (vittae) usually present between the primary ridges and on the commissural face.
Descriptions of the ridges of the fruit refer to the primary ridges, unless otherwise specified.
Ripe fruit is essential for the certain identification of some genera, though with a little experience the characters of the ripe fruit can often be deduced from a careful examination of unripe fruit or even the ovary.
SCANDIX
Leaves:- (1-)2- to 3-pinnate, with narrow lobes.
Flowers:- Umbels with few rays, sometimes reduced to one ray only. Sepals absent. Petals white, oblong, often very unequal in the outer flowers; apex incurved or inflexed.
Fruit:- Subcylindrical, slightly compressed laterally; beak up to four times as long as the seed-bearing part. Ridges prominent, slender; vittae very slender.
Key features:-
1) Flowering stem without a flexuous, subterranean part.
2) Leaves arising at or above the ground.
3) Beak of the fruit at least as long as the seed-bearing part.
All species occur in open habitats, often as weeds.