Water dropwort (Oenanthe javanica) — also called Java water dropwort, Chinese celery, Japanese parsley, water celery, minari or seri — is the crisp, hollow, aquatic leaf-stalk of a marsh-loving perennial in the carrot family, eaten as a stem vegetable across Korea, Japan, China and much of tropical and subtropical Asia. Cut young and snapped raw, the juicy ridged stems are emphatically crunchy and watery, green and grassy with a clean peppery-celery freshness and a whisper of parsley; lightly blanched or stir-fried they turn sweeter and more tender while keeping their bite. Its smell is bracingly green and celery-like — the umbellifer signature of the family — but softer and more herbal than dry-land celery, which is why it is prized as much for aroma as for crunch.