As mentioned yesterday, the karpas is an unknown vegetable. This miמhag is sourced in the Gemara (פסחים קיד ,א), but it only mentions that it should be a vegetable; it is dipped before the meal to arouse the curiosity of the children (שו"ת הרשב"א המיוחסות לרמב"ן סי' ר"ב).
The Mahari"l was the one to say that it should be a vegetable called "כרפס" as it contains the words "ס פרך - sixty (i.e. sixty myriads, 600,000 total) worked hard," a reference to the number of Jews who were enslaved in Egypt (מהרי"ל הל' סדר ההגדה, הובא במג"א סי' תע"ג סק"ד).
Problem is that we don't really know what "karpas" is. The Mahari"l gives a translation ("איפך"), but that is also not clear. R. Nosson Adler, the teacher of the Chasam Sofer, toiled diligently to identify the abstruse vegetable. He concluded that it's celery. The common old word for this was "אפיא" (similar to the original word of the Mahari"l). The Chasam Sofer gave a hint to the signifigance of this vegetable, as the letters are an acronym for the words "א-ל פועל ישועות אתה."
שו"ת חתם סופר או"ח סי' קלב
ועי' שם לעוד רמזים במיני מרור
See here
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