Garden angelica |
Habit, flowers, fruits and leaf sheaths of the garden angelica
| Angelica archangelica L.: | |
| Blooming period: | June–August |
| Height: | 120–300 cm |
| Flowers: | Ø approx. 4 mm, bisexual, stamens: 5, styles: 2 |
| Petals: | 5, white green or yellow-green, the marginal ones not enlarged |
| Calyx teeth: | 5, inconspicuous |
| Stem leaves: | alternate, 2- to 3-fold pinnate |
Plants biennial to short-lived, herbaceous, with a short, branched root or with a thick taproot.
Stem erect, hollow, glabrous, grooved, round, often reddish, sometimes glaucous at base, branched at the top. Not thickened below the nodes.
Leaves alternate, stalked, glabrous, underside bluish green, triangular in outline, the lower leaves 2- to 3-fold pinnate, the uppermost simply pinnate, with strongly widened petioles at the base that surrounding the stem in the form of leaf sheaths. In upper part of the stem are formed sometimes only the leaf sheaths. Leaf sheaths inflated bag-like, leaflets serrated to incised. Terminal leaflet always three-lobed.
Inflorescence: double umbel; umbel spherical, with 20 to 55 rays, calyx usually missing.
Raylet leaves (involucel) 2–13, linear, pointed, as long as the raylets or shorter. Umbellules hemispherical, with 34 to 68 flowers.
The marginal petals are not enlarged. Petals greenish, apices often bent inward.
The two styles are at the fruiting time about 2 mm long and strongly spreading. During the blooming period shorter and upright.
From the inferior ovary, consisting of 2 fused carpels, develops a 2-piece schizocarp.
Fruits 7–9 mm long, oblong, straw colored, slightly flattened, with 10 ribs, the 4 lateral ribs winged, the 3 ribs on the back strongly prominent. Or the fruits are 5-7 mm long with wingless lateral ribs and less protruding ribs on the back.
In Germany 2 subspecies occur: Angelica archangelica ssp. archangelica with winged fruits, a short root and herbaceous leaf sheaths and Angelica archangelica ssp. litoralis with wingless fruits, a taproot and membranous leaf sheaths. Only the latter subspecies is native to the Emsland.
| Floral formula: |
| * K5 C5 A5 G(2) inferior |
Occurrence:
Ditches,
brooks and rivers, wet meadows. Prefers wet and very nitrogenous
locations.
Distribution:
Originally
Northern Europe, Western Siberia, the Himalayas and North America,
naturalized in Central Europe.