The plant has many synonyms, having also subsequently been described by other botanists, after Linnaeus, including Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Richard Anthony Salisbury, Conrad Moench, Emanuel Mendes da Costa, and Albert Thellung among others.

The plant was known about before being formally described, it is mentioned by the name stone parsley in the 1684 book Aristotle's Masterpiece, which claims it is useful for "cleansing the womb", suggesting it may have been used as an abortifacient.

Another plant species, Cryptotaenia japonica is also known as stone parsley among many other names, it too is a member of the Apiaceae family with small white flowers, like Sison amomum, but it is native to East Asia.

[11][5][7] Homotypic synonyms that have been used to describe the species include Cicuta amomum by Heinrich Johann Nepomuk von Crantz in Classis cruciformium emendata cum figuris aeneis in necessarium instit.

[7][5] Heterotypic synonyms that have been used to describe stone parsley include Sium aromaticum by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in Flore françoise, ou, Description succincte de toutes les plantes qui croissent naturellement en France in 1779, Sison erectum by Richard Anthony Salisbury in Prodromus stirpium in horto ad Chapel Allerton vigentium in 1796, Sison heterophyllum by Conrad Moench in Methodus plantas horti botanici et agri Marburgensis: a staminum situ describendi in 1794, Reutera gracilis var.

catalaunica by Emanuel Mendes da Costa in 1864 and 1874, Reutera albiflora by Emanuel Mendes da Costa in 1877, Sison amomus by Jean Baptiste Saint-Lager in 1880, Apium catalaunicum by Albert Thellung and Vittorio Calestani in Contributo alla sistematica della Ombrellifere D'Europa, Webbia in 1905 and Sison amomum var.

Sison amomum is an erect hairless plant, its stem is solid with fine ridges,[9] and it produces a foul odour if crushed,[9][8] which has been described as smelling like petrol or nutmeg.

[12] The plant has pinnate leaves arranged in five to nine pairs of rectangular toothed leaflets,[9][15] which are often lobed,[9][15][13] lanceolate toward the end,[15][13] and are hairless on widely branched stems.

[15] The smaller leaflets nearer the top of the plant are attached by short petiole,[15] and are oval to lanceolate and serrate, having teeth with forward curving points.

[7] On Continental Europe Stone parsley is present in Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and other countries of the Balkans,[7][4][5] and is also found in France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland,[16][7][5] and a very small presence in Belgium,[16][5] Germany, and Norway.

[5] The plant also appears around the coast of the Black Sea, in Crimea, the Caucasus region,[16][7][5] and both European and Asian parts of Turkey,[7][8] as well as Algeria in North Africa.

[5] By the mid nineteenth century the plant was detected in greater numbers across much of France and Britain, including Cornwall, and had also had a small presence in Spain, Belgium and Corsica.

[21] Moths which feed on Sison amomum whilst in the larval stage include, Depressaria daucella, Cnephasia incertana, and Epermenia chaerophyllella, the larva of the fly Phytomyza chaerophylli are also parasites of the plant.