Petroselinum (parsley) is a genus of two species of flowering plants in the family Apiaceae, native to western and southern Europe and northern Africa. They are bright green hairless biennial herbaceous plants, rarely annual plants. In the first year, they form a rosette of pinnate to tripinnate leaves and a tap root used as a food store over the winter, in the second year growing a flowering stem up to 1 m tall with sparser leaves and umbels of white or pinkish to yellowish-green flowers.