Parsley
Parsley, common name for a large family of herbaceous flowering plants, containing many important foods and flavorings, and for one of its genera. This family of dicots contains about 3,000 species and is nearly cosmopolitan in distribution, although most common in temperate areas. The family is well known for its characteristic inflorescence (flower cluster), called an umbel. The individual pedicels (flower stalks) arise from the same point on the peduncle (one of the inflorescence stalks) and are of such lengths that all the flowers are raised to the same height above their point of common attachment; thus the umbel is flat-topped. The basically five-parted flowers are rather uniform throughout the family. The fruits, however, which develop from the two-parted ovary, which is inferior (borne below and fused to the other flower parts), vary remarkably. Members of the family have many uses. The carrot and parsnip are important root crops; celery is the petioles (leafstalks) of one