This tall herb ("lovage") appears to have originated in central Eurasia, especially Iran and Afghanistan (Spréa et al. 2020). It is widely grown for culinary use and may be occasionally persistent in old gardens across northern states and adjacent Canada (F, K), but it is not known to be truly naturalized in southeastern states (W). Based on recent molecular evidence, the monotypic genus Levisticum should probably be included within Angelica; L. officinale is relatively close to A. sinensis (Oliv.) Diels (Yuan et al. 2015). Its nutritional and medicinal properties have been recently summarized by Spréa et al. (2020): "The essential oil was mainly characterised by the presence of monoterpenes, showing also a high abundance of phthalides. In addition, a total of 7 phenolic compounds were identified in the decoction and hydro-ethanolic extracts, which showed interesting antioxidant properties and bacteriostatic activity, particularly against Gram-positive bacteria."