Astrance - it's a jagged multiple flowered affair clustered in an umbel fashion centered in a hemispherical flower head from a pink centre - is it an umbel family? or an asteracéae composées family?

A plant for people that enjoy pointy, sharp, jagged, angular specimens. It is dramatic. It is eye catching. It is tall and structural.

The light coloured multi flower umbels attract humans as much as bees to approach it and take a closer look.

It protrudes high above shrubs, meadow grasses and flourishes well at altitude growing each summer when the sun shines.

A mix of pale green, pale pink and white adorns the flower head of this composed umbel. There are also pink varieties too but not here, this is a pale green beauty, with slight dashes of pink spliced in.

The height of this specimen was at least 2 meters, with stems out to all sides, flourishing in adulthood with its full growth. It stands as if it had arms and legs enjoying the sunshine long stems splay out like a scarecrow, stems positioned to balance itself perfectly in strong alpine winds protruding at least 2m up, out and across.

Umbel refers to the fact that all growth on a flower head stems from a single point and reach upwards / outwards from that point, in this case in a sort of half hemisphere. Umbel is a family of flowers known as umbellifores or UMBELLIFERAE.

You can easily identify it, it is composed of multiple flowers in the central section which make it a composées number, but it looks like the shape is an umbel stemming from a single point so which family should it be part of? Composées for multiple flowers? Or umbels stemming from a single point?

Astrance - beauty is in the eye of the beholder - a composed umbel affair with a pointy angular twist!

Although this is a common Astrance to most walkers, trekkers or alpine walkers, it is a family affair to a botanist, so the conversation of umbels and composées is just around the corner.

There are multiple flowers in the flower head so it could belong to the asteracées composées family. A difficult choice for a botanist, no doubt. I wonder to myself. It could just as well be a member of the umbel family given the shape, because they stem out from a single point like a spherical fan.

So is it a aster composée or an umbel family?

I believe the fact it is composé or multiple flowers trumps the umbel factor, but I cannot be sure, I cannot remember what the botanist told me either, so I will need to open a book again.

Too much speculation. I need an expert from Kew Gardens.

I wonder if botanist all agree. Possibly. Possibly not. There may be a botanists dispute about this one. Botanists seem to rename and recategorize flowers plants from time to time.

Maybe they could stop reorganising their families of plants and just leave them alone wherever they originally sit and stop renaming things. How they expect an ordinary trekker or alpine walker to remember everything if they keep changing names and families is anyone' guess.

On this occasion it is my fault that I have forgotten though so I will need to go and double check.

A plant detective is needed. Enter stage left the botanist...and a book of plant families.

After further consultation...the answer....

Apparently it used to be part of the ombellifères family and then the botanists decided to make it part of the apiacées family, so there we are, but then it probably depends which botanist you ask, and when they last checked the family list, and how old their reference book is.

https://images.kew.org/gardens/floral-gardens/astrantia-655288.html

Apparently it is related to the carrot family so next time you see one see if it smells of carrots.

Or just enjoy its structural elegance, in this case the plant was large, the grandeur was remarkable, it was so tall and splendid, it may have been nearly 3m tall.

I don't recall whether it was fragrant, I don't think it was otherwise I would recall that fact.

I found this example was grand for the grandiosity yet daintiness of the flower heads.

Do you like Astrantias?

It think I rather do. Not least because they are perennials returning each summer with strong stems.

I wonder if they survive snails, I would imagine given the height there is a chance they might.