Apium (including celery and the marshworts) is a genus of about 20 species of flowering plants in the family Apiaceae, with a subcosmopolitan distribution in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America and Australia. They are medium to tall biennials or perennials growing up to 1 m high in the wet soil of marshes and salt marshes, and have pinnate to bipinnate leaves and small white flowers in compound umbels. Some species are edible, notably Apium graveolens, which includes the commercially important vegetables celery, celeriac and Chinese celery. Apium bermejoi from the island of Menorca is one of the rarest plants in Europe, with fewer than 100 individuals left.[1]
The genus is the type genus of the family Apiaceae and the order Apiales.
Species include:
- Apium annuum P.S.Short[2]
- Apium australe
- Apium bermejoi
- Apium fernandezianum - johow
- Apium filiforme
- Apium graveolens L. - celery, wild celery[3]
- Apium inundatum - lesser marshwort
- Apium insulare P.S.Short[4] - Flinder's Island celery
- Apium leptophyllum - marsh parsley, or fir-leafed celery
- Apium nodiflorum - fool's water cress
- Apium prostratum Vent. - sea celery[5]
- Apium repens - creeping marshwort
Apium species, including garden celery, are eaten by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including angle shades, common swift, Hypercompe icasia, the nutmeg, setaceous Hebrew character and turnip moth.
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