Peucedanum cervaria

Peucedanum cervaria, the greater hog's-fennel or broad-leaved spignel, is a stout perennial herb in the family Apiaceae, native to southern and central Europe from Spain, Italy and the Balkan Peninsula north and east to central Russia, where it grows on light, chalky, dry calcareous grasslands, woodland margins and scrub between sea level and about 1,200 m elevation. From a thick, woody, deep-set rootstock with overwintering buds just below the soil surface, the plant sends up a single, erect, cylindrical, finely ribbed stem 40 to 120 cm tall (occasionally to 150 cm) that is almost leafless above the basal tuft. The basal leaves are large, slightly glaucous and blue-green, two to three times pinnatifid into broad, ovate, sharply serrate segments. Small white flowers are densely arranged in large, flat-topped compound umbels 5 to 10 cm across from July to September. Fruits are compact, dorsally compressed, broadly winged schizocarps 4 to 6 mm long. Plants usually occur singly or in scattered colonies rather than as dense stands.