Visnaga daucoides Gaertn.

This species has reputed medicinal value.

This species of the East Mediterranean region is naturalized at Peshawar and other places in the Frontier region. The fruit contains khellin and visnagin and the drug prepared from it is used for heart diseases and asthma.

Plants biennial, ca. 1 m. Basal leaves petiolate, petioles ca. 10 cm; blade pinnate; ultimate segments slender, linear, 20–30 × 0.5–1 mm, entire, divergent, apex setaceous. Upper leaves 2–3-pinnate. Umbels 6–10 cm across; peduncles elongate, 6–20 cm; bracts many, 1–2-pinnate, equaling or longer than rays; rays 60–100(–150), slender, 2–5 cm, unequal, spreading when young, in fruit becoming thick, rigid, erect and constricted on discoid torus (thickened base of rays); bracteoles numerous, subulate, 3–10 mm, entire, equaling flowers; umbellules many-flowered; pedicels 1.5–10 mm, base thickening in fruit into a discoid torus similar to rays. Calyx teeth inconspicuous, minute, ca. 0.2 mm. Petals white. Fruit 2–2.5 × 1–1.5 mm. Carpophore entire. Fl. Jun–Jul, fr. Jul–Aug.

Glabrous, 1-2 m tall, branched; nodes swollen. Leaves pinnately to ternate¬ly dissected; segments filiform to linear. Peduncles 5-12 cm long. Involucre of divided bracts, deflexed; segments filiform. Umbel receptacle enlarged. Rays up to 50, contracted in fruit, stout. Involucel of linear bractlets. Calyx teeth minute. Fruit ovoid to oblong, 2 mm long.

Provincial distribution unknown [native to the Mediterranean region].

Distribution: North and South America, North Africa, Europe, Asia.

Cultivated in some specialist gardens and medicinal farms, adventive in alkaline grasslands and on dry mountain slopes; below 500 m.