Hey welcome to UK Wildcrafts, so in this video and we shown you how to tell apart the edible
cow parsley also known as wild chervil, from the potentially deadly hemlock. The
cow parsley is very common and can be found carpeting the floor of woodlands
and all around the edges of grasslands and roadsides now I'd like to use it instead of
parsley because it's easy to collect and it has a very similar taste to parsley however
if you can't identify wild chervil/ cow parsley and hemlock with 100% certainty
then just leave it alone or make sure you've got someone with you that knows how to you
because if you get it wrong it can potentially be deadly so it's not worth taking the risk.
These are the leaves of cow parsley and they slightly resemble ferns and as you'll see in
the picture they're almost identical to hemlock leaves so I never use the leaves as a source of
identification the most important part of identification are the stems so cow parsley
has very slightly hairy stems, so it's more there's more of it towards the base of the
stem and they're very very fine and just about make them out on camera. The hemlock
however has completely smooth stems and has a usually has a purpley red sort of spotting on
it and another thing with the stems so the leaf stem of the plant the stems leaves on
it has a groove running down the middle and if you look at a cross-section of the stem
it looks a little bit similar to celery and that's a good identifier because cow
parsley has that and hemlock does not. The best leaves to go for are the ones that's slightly
unopened and they're a bit lighter green than the other ones and these ones taste more like
parsley and a bit less bitter and you'll see they even even look a bit like parsley as well
So in spring cow parsley will grow main central stems which will have small white
umbles of flowers on and those stems will be hollow they flower from April to about June
there are usually about 4 foot tall whereas hemlock that grows up to about 7 foot tall, and
the last form of identification is the smell so if you get some of the leaves crush them up in your
hand and smell them will get like a nice pleasant parsley smell it's quite faint but your you'll
notice the parsley whereas if you get hemlock it's kind of quite a harsh of earthy musky smell which
doesn't smell very nice. So yeah these are all members of the umbelifer family which includes
like Alexanders, ground elder, carrot and similar, all have umbelifer flowers on, and there's
some deadly ones in there so be very careful if you're picking any umbelifers, yes it's not one
for beginners so make sure you have someone with you that knows what they're doing if
you're picking this to eat.