How to tell the difference between edible cow parsley/ wild chervil and the poisonous hemlock Subscribe for more videos on foraging, bushcraft and wild food cooking 👇 / @ukwildcrafts Check out the UK Wildcrafts Store- ukwildcrafts.t...
I must warn about this. We have a lot of poisoned hemlock in & around Epping Forest here. And they often have no purple spots! But if the stem isn’t hairy but smooth, just take a look at its very bottom base. The ‘legs’ are invariably purplish red, but only if you look carefully - downwards. In short, don’t just look at the upper stems for purple spots. I tell my boy: stay away on forest walks, if on the stems you see that they are smooth & there’s not a hair!
Watched this video months ago on a complete whim (not a forager) Just been out pulling weeds and found one of these in my garden. Thanks to your video I didn’t just pull it out with my bare hands. Cheers!
Is cow parsley actually worth aiming for, given the risk of hemlock confusion? Does it taste good enough to justify the risk? There's a place near me where cow parsley and hemlock grow together, and they look so similar when very young (before the red spotting has appeared on the hemlock) that I'd be very worried if a friend of mine took up cow parsley foraging!
I don’t pick it very much to be honest. It’s definitely one to tell your friends to avoid if they are new to foraging. It doesn’t have an amazing taste in my opinion, a mild parsley flavour but a bit grassy. Having said that it’s very abundant so once you become very familiar with the plant it is good to know. And I like the central flower stem, it’s the tastiest part of the plant.
Thanks for making this vid, finally able to figure out that it was cow parsley growing all over my yard! it didnt match the hemlock description ,but now i know !
Your video is a great help to me. I have plants in my yard in the rosette stage and needed to make sure they weren't poison hemlock - which grows abundantly along the roadsides here. You made it very easy for me to identify - thankfully not poison - wild carrot instead.
Thanks for the info and how to tell the difference between cow parsley and poison hemlock. I've been reading a lot of how to tell the edible apart from the poisonous plants, especially when they have similar leaves.
I think it's always good to know these things, but I would say that there is no point picking cow parsley when unmistakable apiaceae plants like ground elder exist, which I think has a much nicer carroty taste anyway. Too much risk for not that much reward.
Even when you are not planning on doing anything with either plant it simply serves as a great reminder of just how serious you need to take identification, and that your ego should be left at the door. Don’t think you know, know. Warm greetings from the Netherlands🇳🇱.
In addition to their similar appearance, the two often grow side by side, which makes me wonder which benefits from the confusion. Does the chervil avoid getting eaten, or is it that the hemlock seeds get ingested but have a great start in life in a small rotting corpse? The hemlock smell, perceivable in large stands not just when crushed, and sometimes described as "mousy", could also lure the unwary forager.
This is a brilliant video. I'm not goimg to pick or eat cow parsley but I have been worrying about other plants that I do pick growing nearby or amongst it being tainted by it if it is hemlock. Today I was thrilled to be able to confirm the plant I was worrying about is in fact cow parsley. Thank you so much.
Great job contrasting the two plants!! Always wanted to know how to tell them apart. Regarding foraging, nopes, staying away from that one. There's plenty of dandelions, shepherd's purse, wild mustard, lambs quarter, purselane, etc...😋❤🤗
There is a patch of a plant growing in a park near where I live and the leaves look exactly like this (and carrot family like flowers) but it smells extremely strongly of aniseed, you can smell it from ten steps away. I've never found a patch of plants that smell so strong. Do you know what that is? It confuses me a bit because I feel like if it was either of these plants the first thing anyone would mention would be the aniseed. PS. I don't want to eat it, I'm just curious!
Have a Google of sweet cicely (Myrrhis odorata). Did the leaves have a white blotching near the stem? It's most likely as they have a strong aniseed smell
I totally agree to not use the leaves for identification. I have cow parsley (aka QAL) everywhere. But if I were to go by the appearance of just the leaves, I could tell the difference between it and poison hemlock. The stem and smell definitely clench identifying one from the other. Easy.
Thank you. There's a lot of Cow Parsley here, but I was never sure. Now I know it is really Cow Parsley, it is clear! There's also a lot of Ground Elder here, but that's always clear (seven leaves, that's its Dutch name: Zevenblad).
Thanks for the video. I learned in another of your videos (I think) that rubbing hemlock into your skin can cause death. If true wouldn't that make rubbing leaves into your hand to see if they smell of parsley a very dangerous method of identification????
All these plants are phototoxic, which means if you get their sap on your hands and then it's exposed to UV light then people can develop chemical burns on their hands, which in some cases can last for months. You won't die but it will cause harm which your video has not warned against and indeed seems to be encouraging (my convoluted interest in foraging arose from reading an article about a dog having to be put down after running through giant hogweed which is of the same genus).
He hasn’t warned against skin reactions probably because poisoned hemlock can cause death, to be precise, cardiac arrest and breathing difficulties. What is a horrid skin burnt, such as that 2-week burning pain caused by rue’s sap in sunlight, when compared with a potentially fatal heart/respiratory attack? Tribal people, historically, used the sap for their arrow tips against white settlers, when fighting against them. It’s that dangerous. Fortunately, I once pulled off + took a sprig home out of curiosity on a sunny day but was thankfully, unhurt. So maybe he focused on the more serious implications?
That shit is everywhere here in Missouri. I've got a heart defect, but I always have to cut a ton of it out of the wood line every year... the sap sprays in the air and I end up breathing it in... ironically enough, because this a GABAa stimulant, it's treated with GABAa depressant such as benzodiazepine... something else that is a GABAa receptor depressant is alcohol... so I've found that if I've been exposed to it, I take a shot of vodka twice a day for a week after exposure, it eventually works out of my system and the heart palpitations, breathing trouble, and migraines go away with it...
I've found something that has the grooves, height and hair of cow parsley but there are red blotches on the stems and the leaves smell strong and grassy (not very appetising) any ideas? (I'm Berlin, so mainland northern europe)
I have a bunch of one or the other growing in my yard O.o and I'm waiting for confirmation from the master gardener/botanist at the local university for confirmation just so I know how hard I have to go on destroying it or not. One of our dogs was poisoned by something she found in our yard, we assumed a mushroom- last year. She survived but had a really rough 48 hours, so now I'm super paranoid it is hemlock, and that she simply encountered it without really eating it, perhaps licking crushed juices off her paw after stepping on it.
UK Wildcrafts Thanks so much. I actually made bouquets from the flowers it before I realized it was Hemlock! Sooo what about cutting the stems to eradicated it. My friend went to the hospital after weed eating what I think was Water Hemlock. Last question, what if it's growing in your veggie garden. I heard you just pull it out and the veggies will be fine? Even if there's a root or two left in the soil. Thanks. My heart is in deep gratitude to you for this info!
Personally I would try and uproot it completely if was in veg garden. I don't like killing plants normally but in veg garden wouldn't want the risk of it getting mixed up with other edible roots. The hemlock water dropwort root is even more poisonous than the foliage
Do you know if the root of cow parsley edible? Older people in Ireland say that when they were children they ate them and call them "pigmy nuts". I'm assuming their must be small nuts on the roots?
I've never tried cow parsley root and not sure if it's edible. I expect what they were talking about are pignuts (Conopodium majus). A closely related plant to cow parsley. They have leaves similar to carrot and an edible bulb or 'nut' that has a similar taste and texture to chestnut
@@UKWILDCRAFTS Thanks a lot! I'll have to spend some time this weekend looking for that other plant and try it. That must be what they were eating. Absolutely love your videos btw. I'm learning so much and connecting with nature :)
There is posion hemlock here in the USA also, it looks like a plant called queen anns lace ,I have seen a lot of queen anns lace growing in the State of Arkansas hemlock also looks like the posion gaint hogweed plant
Thanks. Been looking for some hemlock but had trouble finding it. Now they'll see. They'll all see! (This is a joke. I'm never foraging anything from the carrot family, too risky for me.)
Thanks for this - but i think you need to re-do it to include Hemlock Water Dropwort!...Because this is the most poisonous AND, as far as i know, shares all the same identifiers that you have cited here for wild parsley/chervil (and parsley)! All good wishes from a cornish fairy.
This video is just for cow parsley and poison hemlock as they look almost identical. Hemlock water dropwort looks very different, I’ve done separate videos for that :)
I hope to survive this deep state takeover and I'm learning what plants not to eat once I'm out there. Thank you for you time you have given to help out others!
