Hymenidium stellatum - Starry Milk Parsley

Starry Milk Parsley is a dwarf plant, 3-20 cm, essentially hairless. Root is stout, branched. Stem is shortened or elongated, simple or 1-branched above; base with papery remnant sheaths. Basal leaf-stalks are slender, 1-8 cm, sheaths oblong; blades oblong to oval, 2-10 x 1-3 cm, 1-2-pinnate; ultimate segments stalkless, ovate to round, 3-20 mm, incised-pinnately-cut. Flower umbels are 2.5-4 cm across, carried on stout stalks up to 10 cm. Bracts are 2-8, oblong to round, 1-6 cm, pinnately cut, margin broad, white-scarious; rays are 2-10, spreading-ascending, 2-20 cm; bracteoles 8-12, oblong to obovate, about 1 cm, longer than flowers, entire, 3-lobed to pinnatifid, margin broad white-scabrous; umbellules are 15-40-flowered, flower-stalks unequal. Sepal teeth are ovate, minute. Petals are obovate, white, tip inflexed. Stylopodium short-conical. Fruit is oblong-ovoid, 4-6 x 2.5-3 mm, papillate; ribs all broadly winged. Starry Milk Parsley is found on open grassy slopes in the Himalayas at about 3500 m altitude. in Kashmir, C and W Nepal, Pakistan. Flowering: June-August.