Introduction

I started casually studying herbal medicine and plants in November or December of 2011. One resource I use is HerbMentor.com (about $9/month) which has a variety of information in written, audio, and video forms including several e-courses. I’ve gone through most of the Herbal Basics classes (where I learned about some herbs and how to make various herbal preparations) and started on Learning Your Plants, which is a video course for learning about plant families. As part of this course, I journal about 5 plants each lesson by finding some basic information about them, drawing the plant, leaves, flower, root, seed and fruit. The course usually suggests plants, however I’ve also been adding local plants. To do this, I try to find plants in each family during hikes and walks around San Diego County. I’ve decided to add some of the information I’ve found and photographs I’ve taken to this blog. Please note the disclaimer below.

The Parsley Family

Family: Umbelliferae (Umbel is an umbrella like flowering head) or Apiaceae (from Apium which was what Pliny the elder named a celery plant in 50AD)[i]
Characteristics: They have compound umbels, 5 sepals, 5 petals, 5 stamens, a 2 celled ovary and hollow stems.
Medicinal Information: high in volatile oils; often used to stimulate digestion
Edible Plants: parsley, fennel, dill, cilantro/coriander, carrot, cumin and celery.

Posionous Plants: The parsley family also includes one of the most poisonous plants in North America,[ii]  water hemlock (Cicuta maculata). An important mnemonic device is “Veins to the tip, everything’s hip. Veins to the cut, pain in the gut.” (HerbMentor) Another poisonous member of the parsley family is poison hemlock, famous as the instrument of Socrates’ death.

Plants in San Diego

Poison Hemlock (Conium maculatum (Gr.Konus=to whirl (referring to symptom of poisoning)[iii]: This plant can easily be mistaken for Queen Anne’s lace (the wild carrot). Some differences include: Queen Anne’s lace has a single red flower in the middle and the leaves are a mix of bipinnate (leaflets grow off opposite sides of a stalk) and tripinnate (leaflets grow off opposite sides of a stalk and a second set of leaflets grow off the leaflets growing off the first stalk.) Hemlock only has bipinnate leaves. Queen Anne’s Lace has hairs on the stem while poison hemlock has reddish or purplish spots on the lower half of the stem. I have seen lots of poison hemlock in  the winter and spring in Tecolote Canyon and the Tijuana River Estuary area. However, by the time I got around to journaling the plants (summer), they had all dried up. The poison works by relaxing muscles making the victim lose sensation starting at the feet. Eventually it reaches the heart.[iv] Conium maculatum has been used as a sedative, but therapeutic and toxic doses are so close, it is generally considered too dangerous.[v]

Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare): This plant is all over the place in San Diego. I see it in the canyons, by the rivers, and in people’s back yards. It is invasive and very difficult to remove. The roots are strong and deep. It is a very useful plant and (as I say about the blackberries of the Pacific Northwest) perhaps if people learned how useful it was, it wouldn’t be a problem. The entire plant is edible. The bulb can be cooked or eaten raw. The leaves can be used as a culinary herb or eaten raw or cooked. The seeds are used as a spice and as part of a post meal breath freshener/carminative mix. Fennel pollen is supposed to be an amazing spice. The Wall Street Journal calls it, “Culinary Fairy Dust” and provides examples of how it can be used on meat, in baked goods and on pasta.[vi]I’m tempted to try to find some right now (though the article also says it is found in California markets March through May so perhaps I’m too late to go out to the canyons and start shaking fennel flowers.).

Medicinal: Seeds are a carminative. A tea made from the seeds can be used for digestive disorders. Powdered fennel can drive away fleas.[vii]

Wildlife: Fennel is a food plant for some butterflies and moths including the Anise Swallowtail

Common Celery (Apium graveolens): I saw an umbel plant in a damp area of Mission Trails and took a closer look thinking it might be the deadly water hemlock (Cicuta maculata), a plant I want to see in real life so I can make sure I avoid it. The plant I found looks like the pictures in my CA plant book of common celery (Apium graveolens). Common celery grows in wet places and is considered invasive in California and Utah! Its leaves don’t look anything like Water Hemlock. They look  (and smell) like celery leaves. The umbels grow out of each other and have white flowers. The stem is a hollow pentagon shape and is much smaller than the stalks of domestic celery. Generally wild celery stalks aren’t eaten because they are too acidic (though blanching can fix this) but the leaves can be eaten in salads.[viii]

Uses: Aside from eating it, the seeds can be used as a diuretic and carminative. Celery extract may work as a mosquito repellent. I would like to try it, but with so many poisonous plants in the umbelliferae family, I want to get a second opinion.

Disclaimer: I am new to plant identification and herbal medicine and it is likely that I will make mistakes. Please get an expert opinion before consuming or otherwise utilizing any of these plants. This site is a way for me to document my studies. Please let me know if you find any mistakes or wrong information.