Cnidium monnieri

Cnidium monnieri is an annual herb of the carrot family (Apiaceae) growing 10 to 80 cm tall from a slender taproot. The solitary, striated, branching stem bears alternate, bipinnate to tripinnate leaves divided into narrow, linear, somewhat hairy segments. From spring into summer the plant produces compound umbels of small white five-petalled flowers, each umbel subtended by slender bracts. The fruit is a small, ribbed, ovoid schizocarp (the so-called 'seed') that splits into two mericarps bearing corky wings. Native across much of temperate and subtropical Eurasia, including China, Korea, Mongolia, Vietnam, India, Russia and parts of eastern Europe, it grows in riparian grasslands, damp meadows, field margins and disturbed moist ground, and has naturalized locally in North America.