A genus of plants in the carrot family (Apiaceae) that includes celery and parsnips, characterized by small flowers in flat clusters.
From Latin 'apium,' the classical name for parsley and celery, possibly derived from earlier Mediterranean language roots. The genus was formally defined by Linnaeus in the 18th century.
The entire carrot family (Apiaceae) is named after this one genus—imagine if 'dog' was so important to biology that we called a whole animal family 'Dogaceae'!
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