Honewort

Trinia glauca is a slender dioecious biennial or short-lived perennial herb of the Apiaceae family growing 10-40 cm tall from a slender carrot-like taproot. The whole plant is conspicuously glaucous-blue and glabrous throughout. Stems are erect, solid, finely ribbed and much-branched in a stiff, somewhat zigzag manner from the base upwards. Leaves are mostly basal and lower-cauline, two- to three-pinnate with very narrow linear-filiform ultimate segments 5-15 mm long; the basal rosette often withers by flowering time, and the upper leaves are reduced to sheathing scales. The inflorescence is a sparingly branched compound umbel 2-4 cm across; bracts and bracteoles are absent or vestigial. Flowers are unisexual on separate plants, very small (about 1 mm across) with white to greenish-white petals, the male umbels with longer pedicels and the female umbels denser and more compact. The fruits are ovoid schizocarps 2-3 mm long with prominent narrow ribs, splitting at maturity into two single-seeded mericarps. Native to dry, rocky calcareous grasslands, limestone outcrops and stony slopes from western Europe through the Mediterranean and into central Asia.