Garden angelica

Angelica archangelica is a tall, stately biennial or short-lived perennial of the Apiaceae family, native to northern and eastern Europe and naturalised in parts of the boreal North Atlantic. From a thick, aromatic taproot it produces in its first season a low rosette of large, bipinnate to tripinnate leaves with broad, dentate leaflets and inflated, sheathing petioles. In the second year a stout, hollow, purplish stem rises to two metres or more, terminating in great compound umbels of small greenish-white flowers that mature into pale, ribbed, winged schizocarp fruits. The whole plant is suffused with a sweet, musky, resinous fragrance owing to a complex blend of furanocoumarins and terpenoid volatiles. It favours moist, fertile soils along streams and in damp meadows.