ABSTRACT
Herbaceous annual, biennial, or perennial plants, less commonly woody, with taproots or rhizomes. The stem is finely striped to grooved, fistulous. The leaves are without stipules, arranged alternately, with pinnately divided (rarely palmate or round) lamina and well-developed, channelled or ventricose-inflated sheaths. The flowers are grouped in compound umbel inflorescences; rarely, inflorescences are simple umbels or capitula. The bracts at the base of the umbel are called involucres, and those at the base of the umbellets form the involucel. The flowers are small, hermaphroditic, actinomorphic or slightly zygomorphic, pentamerous in type. The floral envelope consists of 5 small, dentiform sepals, and 5 free petals inserted at the base of the stylopodium, entire, emarginate, or with a sharp tip. The androecium consists of 5 equal stamens, alternating with the petals, and the gynoecium is bicarpellate syncarpous, with an inferior bilocular ovary, continued with 2 styles at the base of which there is a nectariferous disk (stylopodium). The fruit is a dicaryopsis composed of 2 mericarps, which are attached to a central axis (carpophore), often bifid. Each mericarp (semi-fruit) has a flat internal (ventral) face and a convex and longitudinally ribbed external (dorsal) face. The external face of the mericarp has 5 longitudinal ribs (3 dorsal and 2 lateral), alternating with 5 grooves called vittae. Secondary ribs may appear longitudinally at the level of the vittae. The pericarp contains conducting fascicles (along the ribs) and secretory canals (in the vittae). The seed has an endosperm rich in oil and aleurone grains. 1 – 4
