The seedlings that I thought were Parcel plants, are not according to my recent use of a mobile phone plant identification application; apparently the correct identification is Wild Celery. Seedaholic.com explains more here. At the time I acquired the seedlings I was told that their leaves would have a bit of a celery flavour, and they do.

These days mine are very healthy gorgeous looking plants. Nevertheless my plants do not look like any photo of parcel or wild celery that I can find on the internet. Mine look very much like curly leaf parsley but the firm stalks grow horizontal to the ground not as vertical stems.

I have been wondering when they will go to seed, but there are no signs of that yet. My gardening friend K tells me ‘it is a biennial so should seed in the second year. I keep meaning to try some stalk in the dehydrator for celery salt!’ Great idea for the food dryer, but I must make sure I keep the plant growing until it seeds and I can harvest some for future use.

Apparently an alternative common name for this plant is Angelica although I doubt my plant is one. When I was a child, each Christmas my father would be given a container of dried fruits and nuts and often they would be garnished with a sugar crystallised angelica leaf. I will wait until my plants flower and then use the features of those flowers to confirm an identification.