By Jeanne D. Osnas

Candied Angelica

That tendency for a deliciously aromatic and edible plant species to be closely related to an insanely toxic thing is a recursive tendency for the entire charismatic plant family to which angelica owes its existence: the Apiaceae. With 3780 species in 434 genera (according to the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Angiosperm Phylogeny Website), the Apiaceae is the 16^th largest plant family and is one of the most important from a culinary perspective.

Today the botanists in the kitchen tell us about Angelica archangelica, for scientific names of plants associated with the winter holidays, I think it would be hard to beat. Commonly known just as angelica or garden angelica, A. archangelica is one of the few cultivated members among the 60-ish species in the genus that are distributed primarily across the northern reaches of Europe, Asia, and western North America.

Read more at Angelica: Holiday fruitcake from a sometimes toxic family.