About Petroselinum crispum (Mill.) Fuss
Garden parsley, scientifically named Petroselinum crispum (Mill.) Fuss, is a bright green herb that grows as a biennial in temperate climates, and as an annual in subtropical and tropical regions. When grown as a biennial, it forms a rosette of tripinnate leaves in its first year. The rosette measures 10 to 25 centimeters long, and bears numerous 1 to 3 centimeter leaflets. It also develops a taproot, which stores food to sustain the plant through the winter. In its second year, it produces a flowering stem that grows up to 75 centimeters (30 inches) tall, with sparser foliage. This stem produces flat-topped umbels 3 to 10 centimeters in diameter, which hold many small yellow to yellowish-green flowers, each 2 millimeters across. The plant produces ovoid seeds that are 2 to 3 millimeters long, with visible style remnants at the apex. Apiole is one of the compounds found in garden parsley's essential oil, and the plant typically dies after its seeds mature. For cultivation, garden parsley grows best in moist, well-drained soil with full sun. It thrives at temperatures between 22 and 30 °C (72–86 °F), and is most commonly grown from seed. Seed germination is slow, taking four to six weeks, and is often difficult due to furanocoumarins present in the seed coat. Plants grown for a leaf crop are typically spaced 10 centimeters apart, while plants grown as a root crop are spaced 20 centimeters apart to give their roots room to develop. Garden parsley draws multiple species of wildlife. Some swallowtail butterflies use the plant as a host plant for their larvae. The caterpillars have black and green stripes with yellow dots, and feed on parsley for two weeks before they mature into butterflies. Bees and other nectar-feeding insects also visit garden parsley flowers to feed.
