Ecomare

The umbellifer family has flowers resembling umbrellas, making it easy to identify. In fact, because of this obvious feature, it was the first large plant family to be grouped together many centuries ago. Should you see the most common family members, cow parsley, common hogweed and wild carrot, then this feature becomes very obvious. However, the umbellifer family also contains species which don't look anything like an umbrella. Sea holly, found particularly along the coast, is one such example. Recently, a new classification has removed another unlikely member from this family, pennywort. Pennywort is now a member of the ivy family.