Angelica polymorpha

Angelica polymorpha is an aromatic herbaceous perennial in the family Apiaceae, native to eastern Asia including China, Korea and Japan, where it grows in moist woodland, thickets and stream margins. It produces a stout, branching, often purple-tinged hollow stem that can reach one to one and a half metres in height, arising from a thick aromatic rootstock. The large leaves are two- to three-pinnately or ternately compound, the ultimate segments ovate to lanceolate with toothed margins, borne on petioles with conspicuous inflated sheathing bases. Numerous small white flowers are arranged in compound umbels with many rays and slender bracteoles, blooming in summer to early autumn. The fruit is a flattened, dorsally compressed schizocarp with broadly winged lateral ribs, characteristic of the genus. The whole plant is strongly aromatic, the thickened root being the part valued in traditional East-Asian medicine.