Annual to 60 cm high, pubescent or glabrescent. Leaves 2–3-pinnate or pinnatisect; lamina 3–16 cm long, 1–7 cm wide; segments 1–8 mm long, linear to lanceolate; petiole 3–12 cm long. Common peduncle 0.5–5 cm long; bracts absent or 1, linear; rays 1–4, 5–20 mm long; umbellules 2–7-flowered; bracteoles c. 5, lanceolate, elliptic or ovate, ciliate, entire or incised at apex, 5–10 mm long, 1.5–4 mm wide; pedicels 1.5–8 mm long. Flowers c. 3 mm diam. Fruit linear-oblong, shortly pedicellate, 3-8 cm long usually with bristly margin, prominently 5-ribbed; fertile portion 8–15 mm long; sterile beak 2–7 cm long. Flowers Sep.–Dec.
VVP, GipP. Naturalised in SA, NSW, Tas. Native to Europe and western and central Asia.
A garden weed in the earlier part of the century in Hawkesdale, Geelong and Kyneton, but with recent collections from a garden in Malvern (in 1994) and a 2017 collection from a nature-strip in Coburb.
This speies is easily recognised by the elongate beak portion of the fruit. This structure acts as a spring dispersal mechanism for the seed.
