Visnaga daucoides

Visnaga daucoides, formerly and still widely known as Ammi visnaga, is an erect annual or biennial herb of the Apiaceae family native to the Mediterranean basin, North Africa and the Near East, and naturalised more widely. It typically grows 30 to 100 cm tall, with a stout, ribbed, glabrous, branching stem arising from a slender taproot. The leaves are 2 to 3-pinnately divided into very narrow, almost filiform segments, giving a feathery appearance reminiscent of fennel. The inflorescence is a large, conspicuous compound umbel 5 to 10 cm wide bearing numerous small white five-petalled flowers; the umbel rays become strongly thickened, hardened and incurved at maturity, producing the dense, bird-nest-like fruiting head characteristic of the species. Fruits are ovoid schizocarps about 2 mm long, splitting into two ribbed mericarps. The species favours disturbed ground, fallow fields, roadsides and dry scrub on limestone or sandy soils.