Parsleys And Ivies (Apiales)

This group gathers Flowering Plants subcategory members belonging to the order Apiales, most of them the carrot family Apiaceae (Umbelliferae), named for the umbrella-shaped flower cluster, or umbel, most of its members produce. It spans familiar culinary herbs and vegetables, parsley, dill, caraway, lovage, fennel and celery among them, the cultivated carrot itself, and the notoriously toxic water hemlock, a reminder that the family's aromatic, often edible members grow alongside some of the most poisonous plants in the flora. The order also reaches beyond Apiaceae to the ginseng family Araliaceae, represented here by common ivy, a woody climber whose small, greenish flower clusters echo the umbellate plan of its herbaceous relatives despite its very different, vine-like growth habit.