Silaum silaus is an erect, glabrous umbellifer[5] with woody, stout and cylindrical tap roots, which are hot and aromatic.

[3] Segments are 10–15 mm long, shaped from lanceolate to linear, the ends are acuminate or obtuse and mucronate, the leaves are finely serrulate, with a prominent midrib; the apex is often reddish in colour.

[9] Silaum silaus is found in western, central and south-eastern Europe[10] (including Great Britain),[3] north to the Netherlands and Sweden but is absent from Portugal.

[13] Silaum silaus is an indicator of agriculturally unimproved meadows,[5] and is part of a group (in the United Kingdom) of flowering plants specially associated with neutral grassland associated with low-nutrient regimes.

[14] This group is declining in the UK due to agricultural improvement, diffuse pollution and habitat fragmentation[5] and hence S. silaus is on the United Kingdom Biodiversity Action Plan.

[15] Silaum silaus fruit has been identified from substage III of the Hoxnian interglacial period (a stage in the middle Pleistocene) in the British Isles.