Smyrnium olusatrum, common name Alexanders, is an edible cultivated flowering plant of the family Apiaceae (or Umbelliferae). It is also known as alisanders, horse parsley, and smyrnium.
Alexanders is a stout biennial growing to 150 centimetres (59 in) high, with a solid stem which becomes hollow and grooved with age. The leaves are bluntly toothed, the segments ternately divided the segments flat, not fleshy. The plant is common on waste ground and field margins, especially near the sea, where it may also be found on cliff paths and near the shore.
Alexanders is native to continental Europe and has long been naturalised in Britain and Ireland where it is widely dispersed and - in addition to other disturbed habitats - commonly found on the sites of medieval monastery gardens as a persistent relic of former cultivation. Irish localities include: Counties Down, Antrim and Londonderry and throughout most of Ireland.
Every part of the plant is edible. The flowers are yellow-green in colour and arranged in umbels, and its fruits are black. It flowers from April to June. Alexanders is intermediate in flavor between celery and parsley.
This plant is useful.
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