Description: Annual, biennial or perennial herbs; stems erect or prostrate, glabrous.
Leaves 1-pinnate or ternately divided.
Inflorescence a compound umbel; bracts and bracteoles absent. Flowers bisexual, white. Sepals minute or absent. Petals ± ovate with a small inflexed tip. Stylopodium short-conical or depressed.
Fruit ovoid, laterally compressed; carpophore thick, shortly bifid; mericarps with 5 prominent ribs.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 20 species, cosmopolitan. Australia: 4 species (1 species naturalized), all States.
Text by S. M. Hastings & J. M. Powell
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Stems prostrate or sometimes more or less ascending; mature mericarps more or less covered by corky ribs, with the seed wall barely apparent between ribs | Apium prostratum |
| Stems erect; mericarps with wide intervals between ribs so that seed wall is visible | Apium graveolens |
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