Heracleum pubescens

Heracleum pubescens is a stout biennial or short-lived perennial herb of the Apiaceae family growing 1-3 m tall from a thick fleshy taproot. Stems are erect, very stout, hollow, ridged-furrowed, often spotted purplish and densely covered with stiff spreading hairs throughout (whence the epithet pubescens), with leafy bases that may attain 5 cm in diameter. Leaves are very large, the lower long-petiolate with conspicuously inflated sheathing bases; blades are once-pinnate to bipinnate with three to seven broadly ovate, deeply lobed and coarsely toothed leaflets 15-40 cm long, softly pubescent on both surfaces. The inflorescence consists of one large terminal and several lateral compound umbels 15-30 cm across, each with 20-50 stout pubescent rays subtended by short narrow bracts and bracteoles. Florets are white (sometimes pale pink), with the outer florets of marginal umbellules having enlarged irregular outer petals 5-8 mm long. The fruits are flattened obovate to broadly elliptic schizocarps 8-12 mm long, conspicuously winged on the margins and bearing dark longitudinal oil tubes (vittae) visible against the pale surface. Native to mountain meadows, woodland margins and damp open ground of the Caucasus, eastern Anatolia and northwestern Iran.