Masterwort

Peucedanum ostruthium, known as masterwort or imperatoria, is a stout perennial of the carrot family (Apiaceae) native to the mountains of central and southern Europe, where it grows in damp alpine meadows, stream banks, and open subalpine woodland. From a thick, aromatic, creeping rhizome arise erect, hollow, grooved stems 0.5-1 m tall. The large basal leaves are divided into three broadly ovate, sharply toothed leaflets, while upper leaves are smaller and sheathing. Compound umbels of small white to pinkish flowers open in summer, followed by broadly winged, flattened mericarps. The rhizome has a strong, pungent, peppery-camphor smell when bruised and was long cultivated in monastic gardens, giving the plant its old reputation as a 'master of all healing herbs'. Outside its native range it occasionally naturalises near old cottages and herbal gardens.