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Anthriscus sylvestris
Also called Wild Chervil, Keck, Kecks, Woodland Chervil, Queen Anne's Lace, Bur Chervil, Wild Beaked Parsley
Cow parsley is a hardy, fern-leafed wildflower in the carrot family, usually grown as a naturalising plant rather than a garden showpiece. Its main challenge is that it spreads quickly by rhizomes and seed and can become a weed.
Anthriscus sylvestris, known as cow parsley, wild chervil, Queen Anne's lace or keck, is a herbaceous biennial or short-lived perennial plant in the family Apiaceae (Umbelliferae). It is also sometimes called mother-die (especially in the UK), a name that is also applied to Crataegus monogyna (the common hawthorn). It is native to Europe, western Asia and northwestern Africa. It is related to other diverse members of Apiaceae, such as parsley, carrot, hemlock and hogweed. It is often confused with Daucus carota, another member of the Apiaceae also known as "Queen Anne's lace" or "wild carrot".
Cow parsley grows in sunny to semi-shaded locations in meadows and at the edges of hedgerows and woodland. 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 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 since 1989, where its sale is also banned. In Iceland, where cow parsley is now commonly seen overgrowing lupine fields, it has been classified as an alien invasive species.
All above-ground parts of the cow parsley plant are edible, with a flavour sharper than garden chervil and described as grassy parsley, with a hint of licorice or aniseed. However, it is suspected of being mildly toxic according to some sources. The plant is an invasive species in many places outside of its native range. 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 Apiaceae family, such as the deadly poison hemlock, hemlock water-dropwort and fool's parsley. Because the plant's flavour is considered unremarkable and the risk is great, foraging cow parsley in the wild is usually strongly discouraged.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Anthriscus sylvestris by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
