Chinese-celery

Oenanthe javanica, known as Chinese celery, Java water dropwort, or Korean minari, is a glabrous, aromatic herbaceous perennial in the Apiaceae growing 20–80 cm tall, with creeping stems that root freely at the lower nodes in wet soil. Stems are erect or ascending, hollow, finely grooved, and branched above. Leaves are alternate, pinnately to bipinnately compound, the lower with long, sheathing petioles; ultimate leaflets are ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 1–5 cm long, with sharply serrate margins and a pointed apex, mid-green and somewhat glossy. The whole plant has a clean, parsley-celery fragrance. Inflorescences are compound umbels 2–8 cm across, with 5–15 unequal primary rays and very small bracts; the small flowers have five white, notched petals and protruding stamens. Fruits are small, oblong-ovoid schizocarps 2.5–3 mm long, faintly ribbed, splitting into two mericarps. It grows wild in marshes, paddy margins, and stream sides throughout temperate to tropical East and Southeast Asia and into eastern Australia, and is widely cultivated as a vegetable.