Weeds Identification Gallery

Wild Celery

  • Cyclospermum leptophyllum
  • Carrot family: Apiaceae
Updated: 09/2025

Wild celery is a winter or summer annual broadleaf plant. It is scattered throughout California to about 500 feet (150 m).

Habitat

Wild celery is found in vegetable crops, orchards, fields, associated with field edges and ditches, gardens, turf and landscaped areas, and other disturbed places such as railroad tracks, roadsides.

A small, green plant with reddish parts on it grows in dry, cracked soil under bright sunlight. Copyright information is at the bottom (Copyright 2007 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.). Credit: Joseph M. DiTomaso, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources
Plant. Credit: Joseph M. DiTomaso, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources

Seedling

Cotyledons (seed leaves) are hairless and linear and about 1/6 to 2/5 inch (4â??10 mm) long and 1/25 inch (1 mm) wide. The first leaf is deeply lobed (3 lobes) with a long stalk.

A small green seedling plant with a few whispy leaves grows from soil. Copyright information is at the bottom (Copyright 2007 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.). Credit: Joseph M. DiTomaso, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources
Seedling. Credit: Joseph M. DiTomaso, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources

Mature Plant

The mature plant forms an erect to decumbent (prostrate stems with erect tips) mound and can grow to 2 feet (0.6 m) in length. However, Â it will adapt to mowing. Like the seedling it is hairless. Its leaves alternate along the stem and are deeply dissected into threadlike segments. The entire leaf ranges from 1-1/5 to 4 inches (3â??10 cm) long and the leaf segments, from about 1/8 to 3/5 inch (0.3â??1.5 cm). Upper leaves are stalkless and more threadlike and lower leaves have stalks ranging from roughly 4/5 to 5 inches (2â??12 cm).

Flowers

Flowers bloom from April though August. Individual white, minute, five-petaled flowers bundle to form clusters (inflorescence) called umbels. The umbles have a flat-topped umbrella shape.. Some wild celery umbels are simple umbels, because the individual flower stalks radiate from a common point, forming an umbrella “shape”. Others are compound umbels, which form when several simple umbels cluster on a stalk. In wild celery, under each umbel are 1 to 3 rays or threadlike green bracts, less than 4/5 inch (2 cm) long.

Close up of a plant with thin, delicate green stems and small clusters of circular buds bunched together against a black background. Copyright information is at the bottom (Copyright 2009 UC Statewide IPM Program, Regents, University of California.). Credit: Joseph M. DiTomaso, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources
Fruiting (left) and flowering (right) stems. Credit: Joseph M. DiTomaso, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources

Fruits

Fruit are oblong to egg shaped, slightly flattened, hairless, and 1/25 to 1/8 inch (1â??3 mm) long. They have about 5 thick, angled ribs.

Delicate green plant with small green or brown bunched buds on thin stems, set against a solid black background. Copyright information is at the bottom (Copyright 2007 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.). Credit: Joseph M. DiTomaso, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources
Fruiting stem. Credit: Joseph M. DiTomaso, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources

Reproduction

Wild celery reproduces by seed. Seeds disperse with water, soil, equipment, and other human activities and possibly as a contaminant in seed or feed.

Brown tan seeds with distinct dark brown ridges arranged randomly on a gray background. The seeds are small, with a scale marker indicating 1 millimeters. Copyright information is at the bottom (Copyright 2007 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.). Credit: James A. O'Brien, University of California
Seeds. Credit: James A. O'Brien, University of California

More Information

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