Celery
Celery
Food Plant
A crunchy, watery vegetable whose stalks reveal the tiny tubes (xylem) that carry water up a plant.
💡 Fun Facts
- If you stand a celery stalk in coloured water, you can watch the colour travel up its tiny tubes!
- Those tubes, called xylem, carry water from the roots all the way up the plant.
- The crunchy stalks are mostly water.
📅 Through the Year
- Flowering:June to August
Name Story
Apium graveolens
means “the strong-smelling celery”
likely meaningThe second word, meaning ‘strong-smelling’, is certain, but the first word’s deeper origin isn’t settled — so part of the name stays a little uncertain.
What does its name mean?
- Apium — celery (an old plant-name)Latin — the old name for celery and its leafy relatives
- graveolens — strong-smellingLatin gravis ‘heavy’ + olere ‘to smell’
‘Strong-smelling’ is the heart of this name — wild celery has a famously powerful, pungent aroma. The first word is an old Latin name for celery and its leafy relatives, and where it first came from, scholars aren’t sure.