''Anthriscus sylvestris'', known as cow parsley, wild chervil, wild beaked parsley, Queen Anne's lace or keck, is a herbaceous biennial or short-lived

perennial plant In horticulture, the term perennial (''wikt:per-#Prefix, per-'' + ''wikt:-ennial#Suffix, -ennial'', "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annual plant, annuals and biennial plant, biennials. It has thus been d ...

in the family

Apiaceae Apiaceae () or Umbelliferae is a family of mostly aromatic flowering plants named after the type genus ''Apium,'' and commonly known as the celery, carrot, or parsley family, or simply as umbellifers. It is the 16th-largest family of flowering p ...

(Umbelliferae). It is also sometimes called mother-die (especially in the UK), a name that is also applied to the

common hawthorn ''Crataegus monogyna'', known as common hawthorn, whitethorn, one-seed hawthorn, or single-seeded hawthorn, is a species of flowering plant in the rose family, Rosaceae. It grows to about tall, producing hermaphrodite flowers in late spring. Th ...

. It is native to Europe, western Asia and northwestern Africa. It is related to other diverse members of Apiaceae, such as

parsley Parsley, or garden parsley (''Petroselinum crispum''), is a species of flowering plant in the family Apiaceae that is native to Greece, Morocco and the former Yugoslavia. It has been introduced and naturalisation (biology), naturalized in Eur ...

carrot The carrot ('' Daucus carota'' subsp. ''sativus'') is a root vegetable, typically orange in colour, though heirloom variants including purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist, all of which are domesticated forms of the wild ...

, hemlock and hogweed. It is often confused with ''

Daucus carota ''Daucus carota'', whose common names include wild carrot, European wild carrot, bird's nest, bishop's lace, and Queen Anne's lace (North America), is a flowering plant in the family Apiaceae. It is native to temperate regions of the Old World ...

'', another member of the Apiaceae also known as "Queen Anne's lace" or "wild carrot".

Description

Cow parsley is an upright

herbaceous Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition of ...

(non-woody) perennial, growing to tall. The stems are hollow, striate (striped with parallel, longitudinal lines), furrowed, and green in colour with flushes of purple, with a diameter up to . It has tiny hairs on the stem,

rachis In biology, a rachis (from the [], "backbone, spine") is a main axis or "shaft". In zoology and microbiology In vertebrates, ''rachis'' can refer to the series of articulated vertebrae, which encase the spinal cord. In this case the ''rachi ...

, and leaf stalks which are difficult to see but can easily be detected by touch. The petioles clasp the stem around the base and are broad and flattened with a downy margin. The rachis has a deep grooved channel. The leaves are triangular, 2–3

pinnate Pinnation (also called pennation) is the arrangement of feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis. Pinnation occurs in biological morphology, in crystals, such as some forms of ice or metal crystals, and ...

, roughly 30 cm wide and 45 cm long, green, and fern-like or feathery in appearance with hair on the underside. The lowest primary division is much smaller than the rest of the leaf. The flowers are arranged in compound

umbel UMBEL (Upper Mapping and Binding Exchange Layer) is a logically organized knowledge graph of 34,000 concepts and entity types that can be used in information science for relating information from disparate sources to one another. It was retired ...

s on short

pedicels In botany, a pedicel is a stem that attaches a single flower to the inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branch ...

(<1 cm) with a ring of short, stout hairs at the apex. There are downy oval bractioles with red pointy tips on the umblets, arranged on 4–10 rays 1.5–3 cm long. The rays are

glabrous Glabrousness () is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes, or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of a plant or animal, or be due to loss because of a physical condition, ...

(smooth and hairless), with no

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves in size, color, shape or texture. They also lo ...

present. Peduncles are similar in length to rays, more or less glabrous and furrowed. Each flower has 5 white petals, 2 stamens and 2 styles with an enlarged base forming a swelling at the apex of the ovary ( stylopodium). The main stem meets the roots in a single primary

taproot A taproot is a large, central, and dominant root from which other roots sprout laterally. Typically a taproot is somewhat straight and very thick, is tapering in shape, and grows directly downward. In some plants, such as the carrot, the taproot ...

which can branch further below the surface. From the roots lateral

rhizome In botany and dendrology, a rhizome ( ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and Shoot (botany), shoots from its Node (botany), nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from ...

s can form. Flowering time in the UK is April to early June.

Taxonomy

The species was first described by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

in 1753 as ''Chaerophyllum sylvestre''. It was transferred to the genus ''Anthriscus'' by

Georg Franz Hoffmann Georg Franz Hoffmann was a German Botany, botanist and lichenology, lichenologist. He was born on 13 January 1760 in Marktbreit, Germany, and died on 17 March 1826 in Moscow, Russia. Professional career After graduating from the University of Er ...

in 1814.

Habitat

Cow parsley grows in sunny to semi-shaded locations in

meadow A meadow ( ) is an open habitat or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non- woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as they maintain an open character. Meadows can occur naturally under favourable con ...

s and at the edges of

hedgerow A hedge or hedgerow is a line of closely spaced (3 feet or closer) shrubs and sometimes trees, planted and trained to form a barrier or to mark the boundary of an area, such as between neighbouring properties. Hedges that are used to separate ...

s and

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with woody plants (trees and shrubs), or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunli ...

. It is a particularly common sight by the roadside and with its frothy early-flowering white blooms is regarded as the most important springtime landscape wildflower in Britain. However, the plant is also sufficiently common and fast-growing to be considered a nuisance

weed A weed is a plant considered undesirable in a particular situation, growing where it conflicts with human preferences, needs, or goals.Harlan, J. R., & deWet, J. M. (1965). Some thoughts about weeds. ''Economic botany'', ''19''(1), 16-24. Pla ...

in gardens. Cow parsley's ability to spread rapidly by means of rhizomes and to produce large quantities of seeds in a single growing season has made it an invasive species in many areas of the United States. Vermont has listed cow parsley on its "Watch List" of invasive species, while Massachusetts has banned the sale of the plant. It is classed as a Class B Noxious Weed in the

State of Washington Washington, officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is often referred to as Washington State to distinguish it from the national capital, both named after George Washington ...

since 1989, where its sale is also banned. In

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

, cow parsley has been classified as an alien invasive species.

Uses

All above-ground parts of the cow parsley plant are edible, with a flavour sharper than garden chervil and described as grassy

, with a hint of

licorice Liquorice (Commonwealth English) or licorice (American English; see spelling differences; ) is the common name of ''Glycyrrhiza glabra'', a flowering plant of the bean family Fabaceae, from the root of which a sweet, aromatic flavouring is ...

aniseed Anise (; '), also called aniseed or rarely anix, is a flowering plant in the family Apiaceae native to the eastern Mediterranean region and Southwest Asia. The flavor and aroma of its seeds have similarities with some other spices and herbs, ...

. However, it is suspected of being mildly toxic according to some sources. The plant is an

invasive species An invasive species is an introduced species that harms its new environment. Invasive species adversely affect habitats and bioregions, causing ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage. The term can also be used for native spec ...

in many places outside of its

native range Species distribution, or species dispersion, is the manner in which a biological taxon is spatially arranged. The geographic limits of a particular taxon's distribution is its range, often represented as shaded areas on a map. Patterns of distr ...

. It spreads easily along roads and the edges of woods and fields, so it is not cultivated but instead foraged in the wild. In the UK it is foraged from February to November. However extreme caution is advised when foraging cow parsley because it is easily confused with other species of the

family, such as the deadly poison hemlock, hemlock water-dropwort and

fool's parsley ''Aethusa cynapium'' (fool's parsley, fool's cicely, or poison parsley) is an annual (rarely biennial) herb in the flowering plant family Apiaceae, native to Europe, western Asia, and northwest Africa. It is the only member of the genus ''Aeth ...

. Because the plant's flavour is considered unremarkable and the risk is great, foraging cow parsley in the wild is usually strongly discouraged.

Gallery

Anthriscus sylvestris (Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen).jpg, Illustration from

Köhler's Medicinal Plants ''Köhler's Medicinal Plants'' (or, ''Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen'') is a German herbal written principally by Hermann Adolph Köhler (1834–1879, physician and chemist), and edited after his death by Gustav Pabst. The work was first publishe ...

Anthriscus sylvestris W.jpg Warming-Skudbygning-Fig5-Anthriscus-sylvestris.jpg, The base of a second-year plant in September and a young layer ( Warming 1884)

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Apioideae Edible Apiaceae Herbs Flora of Europe Flora of Western Asia Flora of North Africa Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus