Apium graveolens var. secalinum Seeds | Leaf Celery

Leaf Celery (Apium graveolens var. Secalinum) foliage — Leaf Celery (*Apium graveolens var. Secalinum*): native to the wild smallage stock of Mediterranean coastal marshes, leaf forms kept in cultivation across Europe and, with slender stems, throughout East Asia.

LATIN NAME: Apium graveolens var. Secalinum

COMMON NAME: Leaf Celery

Plant Profile

Leaf celery is a biennial that behaves like a generous herb. From a short crown it raises a dense, upright clump of slender, ridged stems carrying small, deeply cut, glossy leaves, the whole plant far darker and more aromatic than any market celery. In its second year, if allowed, it sends up branching stems to loose compound umbels of tiny white flowers, and every part of that flower head smells of the leaf.

Set it beside a stalk-crop row and the difference is proportion. Where the blanched market petiole is a fat water organ, the leaf-celery petiole is a narrow, green, strongly ribbed stalk whose job is to hold foliage up to the sun. The leaf blade dominates, the aroma concentrates, and the plant stands in the rain without the pampering its fat-stalked cousin demands, a holdover from the marshy margins where smallage still grows wild.

The varietas name secalinum has a practical ring, and the form has been a fixture of northern European market gardens, where Dutch growers raised cutting celery in rows to bunch whole young plants for the soup trade. East Asian breeders pushed the same form toward long, slim, green petioles eaten stir-fried, so the leaf celery of a European herb row and the thin Chinese celery of a wok house are one botanical variety wearing two regional coats.

Science & Biotechnology

The genus left its name in the chemistry: apiin, the major apigenin glycoside of celery foliage, was first characterised from these leaves, and flavonoids of the apigenin and luteolin groups run through the green tissue. The scent itself comes from phthalides, the characteristic volatiles of celery and its kin, with the seed oil adding limonene and related terpenes to the profile. Seed of the species has been a spice-cupboard item since antiquity, and its volatile chemistry remains a standard subject for extraction and aroma work.

Uses & Benefits

Crush a leaf and the phthalides flash off at once, which is why the plant seasons a pot from so small a handful. The same compounds give the root and seed their deeper note, and the leaf form, grown fast and cut young, carries them at the freshest, sharpest pitch you will ever get from the species.

Use it where parsley would be timid and stalk celery too coarse. The chopped leaves finish stocks, stews, and fish dishes; the young inner leaves go raw into salads and sandwiches; the thin stems, especially of the Asian strains, are stir-fried whole with pork or tofu. A few leaves dropped into pickling brine do what celery seed does, fresher. It pairs with tomato, shellfish, egg, and almost any white sauce, and it dries well enough to keep the kitchen supplied through winter.

Growing from Seed

Sow on a fine, moist bed of loam, compost, and sand, pressing the dust-fine seed onto the surface with only the lightest cover, and keep the tray or row from ever drying out. Thin at the two true-leaf stage first, then again to final plants 20 to 25 centimetres apart, or transplant once seedlings stand about ten centimetres tall. Full sun with a moisture-retentive root run suits it best; the plant tolerates more cold and more neglect than the stalk crop but repays steady water with twice the leaf.

Cut from the outside of the clump as you would parsley, and the crown keeps producing through the season. Pinch out any flower stems that rise, since blooming ends the leafy life, or leave one plant to umbel and seed for the spice jar if you want the second harvest. Slugs shelter at the crown in wet weather, and aphids gather in the leaf folds, so check the centre regularly. Overwintered crowns regrow early in spring, the first fresh herb of the year. Celery covers the fat-stalked version of the same species, and Chinese Celery narrows the form further for the wok.

Our Take

Once you grow it, buying celery for a soup recipe feels absurd; three leaves of this and you are done. I keep one clump by the kitchen door in the moist corner and cut it all year.

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