Apiaceae Apiaceae Apiaceae or Umbelliferae is a family of mostly aromatic flowering plants named after the type genus "Apium" and commonly known as the celery, carrot or parsley family, or simply as umbellifers. It is the 16th-largest family of flowering plants, with more than 3,700 species in 434 genera including such well-known and economically important plants such as ajwain, angelica, anise, asafoetida, caraway, carrot, celery, chervil, coriander, cumin, dill, fennel, hemlock, lovage, cow parsley, parsley, parsnip, sea holly, and silphium (a plant whose identity is unclear and which may be extinct). The Apiaceae family includes a significant number of phototoxic species
Celery whether these remains represent wild or cultivated forms." Only by classical times is it certain that celery was cultivated. M. Fragiska mentions an archeological find of celery dating to the 9th century BC, at Kastanas; however, the literary evidence for ancient Greece is far more abundant. In Homer's "Iliad", the horses of the Myrmidons graze on wild celery that grows in the marshes of Troy, and in "Odyssey", there is mention of the meadows of violet and wild celery surrounding the cave of Calypso. In the "Capitulary" of Charlemagne, compiled ca. 800, "apium" appears, as does "olisatum", or alexanders, among