Northeast Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Angelica atropurpurea L.
- Family: Carrot (Umbelliferae)
- Flowering: May-September
- Field Marks: This species is recognized by its giant stature (up to 12 feet tall), its large umbels of white flowers up to 1 foot across, the smooth, purplish stems, and the broadly winged fruits.
- Habitat: Swamps, bottomland forests, damp thickets, wet woods.
- Habit: Robust perennial herb with thickened rootstocks.
- Stems: Upright, stout, purple or purple blotched, smooth or sparsely hairy, branched or unbranched, up to 12 feet tall.
- Leaves: Basal leaves 2- or 3-pinnately compound, the leaflets lanceolate to ovate, toothed, smooth or minutely hairy on the lower surface, up to 4 inches long; stem leaves alternate, less divided than the basal leaves or reduced to sheaths, the sheaths inflated, up to 2 inches wide.
- Flowers: Many in huge umbels up to 1 foot across, each flower white, minute, on short-hairy stalks.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 5, free from each other, white, minute.
- Stamens: 5.
- Pistils: Ovary inferior.
- Fruits: Flattened, conspicuously ribbed, elliptic to oblong, 1/4-1/3 inch long, smooth, with broad wings.
- Notes: This family is Apiaceae according to Gleason and Cronquist.
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