Crop Type: Garden Crop
Breeding system: Predominantly allogamous
Apium graveolens L. belongs to the Apiaceae family; it originated from the Mediterranean basin and it is cultivated worldwide. It comprises three distinct taxonomic varieties, var dulce (celery), var. rapaceum (celeriac) and var. secalinum (smallage) (Fu et al. 2013). Celery is the most cultivated one and it is characterised by a rich content in many nutrients such as vitamins, minerals and antioxidants (Kooti and Daraei 2017). This aromatic plant is cultivated for the consumption of the leaves, petioles, stems and roots as an annual. Anyway, celery is a biennial plant, meaning that only at the end of the second season it is able to produce seeds. It is a predominant allogamous plant, characterised by an outcrossing rate of about 70%. The cross pollination is mediated by both insects and wind and it can vary according to particular environmental conditions.
References- Fu N, Wang Q, Shen H (2013) De Novo Assembly , Gene Annotation and Marker Development Using Illumina Paired-End Transcriptome Sequences in Celery (Apium graveolens L.). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0057686
- Kooti W, Daraei N (2017) A Review of the Antioxidant Activity of Celery (Apium graveolens L.). J Evid Based Complementary Altern Med 22:1029–1034. doi: 10.1177/2156587217717415