Peucedanum

Another Apiaceae family, with umbels of white or yellow flowers, over foliage similar to Angelica.

As with all umbellifers, the heads of numerous tiny flowers provide a huge resource of nectar and pollen for a wide range of insects from small pollen-beetles to large hoverflies. A large genus globally (albeit one that is attracting the attention of generic splitters), the plants contain numerous potentially therapeutic chemicals. In not unrelated news, several specialist lepidopteran herbivores use species in the genus: both British natives have their specialities: P. palustre the dramatic swallowtail butterfly, and P. officinale (more than half of all British plants live naturally within a radius of 25km from our garden) that large, rare fisher's estuarine moth and the smaller micromoth Agonopterix putridella. The one we supply, P. ostruthium (sometimes Imperatoria ostruthium) has been found in the wild in the UK (north England, Northern Ireland and eastern Scotland) since the middle of the 18th century.