Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Print Fact Sheet

Apium graveolens

Common name

Celery

Family

Apiaceae

Where found

Garden escape. Moist sites, wetlands, and along streams. Mainly Sydney area. Occasionally elsewhere.

Notes

Introduced biennial herb to 1 m high or prostrate. Stems ribbed, hairless. Plants aromatic. Leaves opposite each other or in whorls at branching points on the stems, to 15 cm long, compound, usually with one pinna with 3–5 leaflets, occasionally with more than one pinna. Leaflets to 5 cm long, often deeply 3-lobed and the lobes again divided; margins scalloped to toothed. Upper leaves much smaller. Flowers white, the petals often with a reddish midrib, with 5 petals each 0.5–0.7 mm long, in few to many-flowered clusters 1–4 cm diameter. Flowers Sep.–Feb.

Cultivated as a vegetable.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Apium~graveolens (accessed 3 January, 2021)