Lacy white umbels and soft, fern-like leaves lining verges in late April and May, on hollow green stems with no purple blotches
Cow parsley — Anthriscus sylvestris.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Cow parsley
Native · flowers Apr–Jun · verges, hedgerows and woodland edges
Anthriscus sylvestris — Apiaceae
Cow parsley is the froth of white that lines British verges and hedge banks in late April and May, made of lacy umbels above fern-like leaves. It is harmless, but it has several dangerous relatives that look similar, chiefly hemlock, and giant hogweed later in the year. The safe way to tell them apart is to read the stem, the height and the calendar.
How to spot them
- ▸Hollow, furrowed green stems up to about a metre and a half, sometimes purple-flushed but never blotched, and softly hairy near the base
- ▸Lacy, fern-like, three-times-divided soft leaves with an alternate arrangement
- ▸Flat-topped umbels of small white flowers, each umbel about 6 cm wide, in April to June
- ▸Hemlock (DANGEROUS, deadly poisonous): hairless stem with purple blotches, up to two metres, foul smell, flowers June to July, after cow parsley
- ▸Giant hogweed (DANGEROUS, phototoxic sap): 1.5–5 m, stout stems with purple blotches and stiff white bristles, huge umbels up to 60 cm, flowers June and July
How to know it
Its folk name Queen Anne's lace recalls a tale that the flowers bloomed for the queen and her ladies-in-waiting, mirroring their lace
Cow parsley.
Children were told that picking this white roadside flower would kill their mother, to keep them from deadly hemlock
Cow parsley — 'mother die' or 'mummy die'.
The harmless white umbellifer of spring verges, told from deadly hemlock by unblotched stems, softer fern-like leaves and an earlier flowering
Cow parsley — hemlock (Conium maculatum) has purple-blotched, hairless stems and flowers June to July.
The modest, green-stemmed umbellifer, no more than a metre or two tall and safe to touch, that is often mistaken at a glance for the five-metre giant with sap that burns
Cow parsley — giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) is the dangerous one; its sap causes severe burns in sunlight.
An early source of pollen for bees and hoverflies, and a nectar source for orange-tip butterflies, from April onward
Cow parsley.
Unlike the poisonous fool's parsley, its umbels have no long bracteoles dangling beneath them, and it flowers in spring
Cow parsley versus fool's parsley (Aethusa cynapium).
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Apiaceae (carrot family); Anthriscus sylvestris — flowering April to June
- •Woodland Trust names Queen Anne's lace, mother die, fairy lace, lady's lace and hedge parsley among its common names
- •Hemlock: purple-blotched, hairless stem, up to about 2 m, foul smell, flowers June to July; all parts are deadly poisonous (Plantlife)
- •Fool's parsley (Aethusa cynapium) has long, downward-hanging bracteoles beneath the flower heads; upright hedge-parsley flowers later, from July
- •Wild carrot may look similar from afar but has a dense umbel, often with a single purple floret at the centre
- •Giant hogweed: a non-native invasive from the Caucasus, first reported in the wild in the UK in 1828; sap causes phytophotodermatitis (Woodland Trust)
- •Common hogweed (the native Heracleum sphondylium) has broader, more rounded, hairy leaves and is much smaller than giant hogweed, but flowers later than cow parsley
- •Young leaves are edible, but the Woodland Trust advises leaving them alone because of the poisonous relatives
- •Seasonal order on the lane: cow parsley April–June, then hemlock and giant hogweed June–July, and common hogweed May–August
Drill it — 8 cards
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Sources
- Woodland Trust — Cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris)
- Plantlife — Hemlock
- Woodland Trust — Giant hogweed: everything you need to know