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.
AMMI
Leaves:- 1- to 3-pinnate or -ternate.
Flowers:- Sepals very small or absent. Petals white or yellowish, obcordate, the outer larger; apex inflexed.
Fruit:- Ovoid or ovoid-oblong, slightly compressed laterally, constricted at the commissure. Primary ridges filiform, prominent; vittae solitary.
Key features:-
1) Upper leaves pinnately divided into linear to oblong lobes, or without lamina.
2) At least some bracts 3-fid or pinnatisect.
3) Fruit not more than 2·5 mm.
4) Most leaf-lobes 10 mm or more.
APIUM
Leaves:- Pinnate, or the upper ternate.
Flowers:- Sepals minute or absent. Petals whitish, not emarginate; apex sometimes inflexed.
Fruit:- Ovoid, or elliptic-oblong, laterally compressed. Ridges usually stout; vittae solitary.
Key features:-
1) Leaf-segments ovate.
2) Bracts 0, or few and entire.
3) Lowest leaves at least 2-pinnate or 2-ternate.
4) Finely divided submerged leaves present at flowering time.
5) Rays 1-3.
6) Rhizome 0.
7) Most umbels sessile or subsessile.
BIFORA
Leaves:- Submerged, 2- to 3-pinnate, with linear lobes; aerial leaves usually pinnate, with broad lobes.
Flowers:- Sepals present, sometimes very small. Petals white, obcordate; apex inflexed.
Fruit:- Sub-didymous, slightly compressed laterally. Ridges slender or broad, the lateral not marginal on the mericarps; vittae deeply embedded; stylopodium conical.
1) Bracts numerous, large, pinnatisect, persistent.
2) Stylopodium conical
BUBON
Leaves 2- to 5-pinnate, with narrow lobes. Sepals small. Petals white or perhaps rarely yellow, emarginate or 2-lobed, sometimes pubescent beneath or ciliate; apex inflexed, long. Fruit oblong-ovoid to ovoid, scarcely compressed, pubescent, narrowed to a short beak. Ridges low; vittae 1-2.
Key features:-
1) Bracteoles free.
2) Fruit distinctly narrowed below the stylopodium.
3) Rays 5 or more; nodes not swollen.
BUNIUM
Stock:- A more or less globose tuber. Subterranean part of the stem flexuous.
Leaves:- 2- to 3-pinnate with narrow lobes.
Flowers:- Sepals small or absent. Petals white, obcordate; apex inflexed.
Fruit:- Oblong-obovoid or oblong, laterally compressed. Ridges thick and prominent or slender; vittae 1-3. Stylopodium abruptly contracted into the style. Cotyledon solitary through abortion.
Key features:-
1) Sepals entire or 0.
2) Partial umbels with more than1 flower.
3) Ovary bilocular.
4) Flowering stem with a flexuous, subterranean part.
5) Basal leaves with partly subterranean petioles.
6) Stylopodium abruptly contracted into the styles.
BUPLEURUM
Leaves:- Simple.
Flowers:- Sepals usually absent. Petals yellow, not emarginate; apex inflexed.
Fruit:- Usually ovoid or oblong. Ridges usually conspicuous; vittae 1-5.
Key features:-
1) Leaves not septate and fistular.
2) Flowers in compound umbels; petals yellow.
Sect. ISOPHYLLUM
General description:- Annual or perennial.
Leaves:- Leaves sessile, linear, rarely wider and petiolate; veins 3-many, more or less parallel, the lateral usually few, short, inconspicuous; marginal vein more or less distinct.
Subsect. JUNCEA
General description:- Annual.
Leaves:- Narrow, 3- to 11(-19) veined; veins more or less parallel.
Flowers:- Bracteoles herbaceous, flat, acute, 3-veined.
Fruit:- Not papillose.
Subsect. TRACHYCARPA
General description:- Annual.
Leaves:- Narrow, 3- to 7-veined; veins more or less parallel.
Flowers:- bracteoles herbaceous, flat, acute, 3-veined.
CACHRYS
Leaves:- 2- to 4-pinnate, with linear lobes.
Flowers:- Sepals conspicuous to obsolete. Petals yellow, ovate; apex involute.
Fruit:- subdidymous. Ridges thick, undulately winged and papillose, or wide and smooth; vittae numerous.
1) Stout perennial.
2) Bracts numerous.
3) Dorsal ridges of fruit with wings as wide as the lateral.
4) Leaf-lobes not fleshy, filiform or linear-obovate.
5) Fruit 7-25 mm., almost or quite smooth; ridges very wide, corky, ± confluent
CHAEROPHYLLUM
Leaves:- 1- to 3-pinnate or ternate.
Flowers:- Sepals obsolete. Petals white, pinkish or yellow, distinctly notched at the apex (emarginate); and curved inwards (inflexed).
Fruit:- Narrowly oblong to very narrowly ovoid, more or less gradually narrowed towards the scarcely beaked apex, slightly compressed laterally. Ridges wide and rounded; vittae solitary.
Key features:-
1) Fruit with low, rounded ridges; at least 5 times as long as wide.
2) Bracteoles numerous.
3) Leaf-lobes linear to linear-oblong.
4) Most cauline leaves with lamina.
5) Plant without a ± globose subterranean stock.
CONIUM
Leaves:- 2- to 4-pinnate; lobes serrate or pinnatifid.
Flowers:- Sepals absent. Petals white, obcordate; apex inflexed.
Fruit:- Subglobose, laterally compressed. Ridges prominent, often undulate-crispate; vittae absent.
Key features:-
1) Leaf-lobes linear-lanceolate to ovate.
2) Ridges of fruit strongly undulate.
3) Stem purple-spotted.
CORIANDRUM
Leaves:- Lowest lobed, others 1- to 3-pinnate.
Flowers:- Sepals conspicuous, unequal. Petals white, the outer larger and deeply 2-lobed; apex inflexed.
Fruit:- Ovoid or globose, hard; mericarps not separating at maturity. Ridges low; vittae solitary, inconspicuous in fruit.
Key features:-
1) Fruit globose, smooth, except for the longitudinal ridges.
2) Mericarps not separating at maturity.
DAUCUS
Leaves:- 2- to 3-pinnate.
Flowers:- Bracts several, usually pinnatisect. Sepals small or obsolete. Petals white, yellowish or purplish, the outer often radiate; apex inflexed.
Fruit:- Ellipsoid to ovoid, cylindrical or somewhat compressed dorsally; primary ridges thread-like (filiform), fringed with hairs (ciliate); secondary ridges with a single row of spines.
Key features:-
1) Both mericarps similar.
2) Fruit with broad, or tubercle-based prickles arranged in 1-3 rows on the ridges.
3) At least some bracts 3-fid or pinnatisect.
Sect. DAUCUS
Leaves:- Leaf-lobes petiolulate.
Flowers:- Umbels pedunculate. Styles medium to long, erecto-patent.
ECHINOPHORA
Leaves:- 2- to 3-pinnate.
Flowers:- Sepals pungent, persistent, often unequal in the outer flowers. Petals white or yellow, oblanceolate, emarginate, the outer often larger; apex inflexed.
Fruit:- Ovoid-oblong; styles long, persistent, woody. Ridges low, indistinct; vittae solitary.
Key features:-
1) Leaves 2- to 3-pinnate
ERYNGIUM
General description:- Glabrous herbs.
Leaves:- Entire to 3-pinnatisect, at least the upper softly to pungently spiny.
Flowers:- Inflorescence usually branched; flowers sessile in hemispherical to cylindrical capitula, at the base of which are 3 or more softly to pungently spinescent bracts; entire, 3- or 4-cuspidate (abruptly tipped with a sharp rigid point) bracteoles present at least near the edges of the capitula. Sepals rigid; petals less than 4 mm erect, distinctly notched at the apex (emarginate), shorter than sepals.
Fruit:- Ovoid to subglobose nearly always sparsely or densely covered with scales; mericarps flat on one side, convex on the other (plano-convex), slightly ridged; vittae usually slender; carpophore absent.
Key features:-
1) Leaves deeply and repeatedly divided, or sometimes crenate or dentate
2) Flowers sessile or subsessile in capitula.
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.