07-June June’s Umbellifer Secrets

Summary

June’s roadsides erupt with towering umbellifers—from edible wild carrots to deadly hemlock with "dead man’s fingers" roots. Meanwhile, a chorus of yellow composites (hawksbeards, hawkweeds, and cat’s ears) tests even seasoned botanists. Return on 07 June to decode these lookalikes and discover why some were once called "dead tongue.

Article

Umbellifers

Several new umbellifers now join a growing list. At the sides of roads it is usually hogweed Heracleum sphondylium, ground elder Aegopodium podagraria and hemlock Conium maculatum that are noticed the most this month. On minor roads cow parsley Anthriscus sylvestris is running to seed and the similar looking rough chervil Chaerophyllum temulentum occasionally starting to take its place. Where road salt is used, wild carrot Daucus carota can often take a hold. In wetter areas it will be watercress, fool’s watercress, dropworts Oenanthe spp. and angelica Angelica archangelica that are noticed. In waste areas the leviathan giant hogweed Heracleum mantegazzianum may be towering above the rest by the end of the month and on downland the yellow umbels of wild parsnip Pastinaca sativa stand out.

07-June June’s Umbellifer Secrets Section Image

07-June June’s Umbellifer Secrets Section Image

Among the umbellifers there is a good mix of edible species and others that are similar looking and dangerously poisonous. The rare corky-fruited water-dropwort Oenanthe pimpinelloides has roots that were made into a flour that tasted of hazelnuts. It can be found at the northern edge of Dulwich woods.

07-June June’s Umbellifer Secrets Section Image

07-June June’s Umbellifer Secrets Section Image

Hemlock water dropwort O. crocata has leaves that are easily confused with celery and roots that look like parsnips. If eaten, death comes quickly after a few convulsions. The roots used to be called dead man’s fingers and the whole plant dead tongue on account of its paralysing effect on speech. It can still be found growing happily along the edges of the Thames. One edible umbellifer increasing in popularity as a garden plant is wild celery Apium graveolens. It also is happy to grow beside hemlock water dropwort along the tidal Thames along with the much rarer knotted hedge parsley Torilis nodosa.

07-June June’s Umbellifer Secrets Section Image

07-June June’s Umbellifer Secrets Section Image

Composites

After the flush of true dandelions early in the spring, there are now several similar yellow composite flowers which can be confusing to separate. The most common ones are smooth hawkshead Crepis capillaris, beaked hawkshead Crepis vesicaria, mouse-ear hawkweed Hieracium pilosella and cat’s ear Hypochoeris radicata.

07-June June’s Umbellifer Secrets Section Image

07-June June’s Umbellifer Secrets Section Image

The first of these has leaves very similar to a dandelion but its flowers are smaller and in clusters on green or purple stems. The second, beaked hawksbeard, flowers earlier than most, perhaps in May, and has very divided leaves and later ‘beaked’ (i.e. pointed) fruits.

07-June June’s Umbellifer Secrets Section Image

07-June June’s Umbellifer Secrets Section Image

The mouse-ear hawkweed is a little easier to identify as its basal rosette of leaves are not toothed i.e. have no teeth-like indentations. Cat’s ear is quite common and usually found on grassy lawns and at the edges of paths. Its small rosettes of bristly leaves are quite distinctive and its flowers are a more eye-catching lemon-yellow than the others. Its flat rosette of blunt leaves seems to survive mowing, as do its small, wiry-stemmed flowers. Its ‘cat’s ears’ refer to the small bracts that spiral up its stems.

Another very common plant with a dandelion-like flower is autumn hawkbit Leontondon autumnalis. This has noticeably round ends to its leaves. Any confusion among these species will get worse when various new hawkweeds Hieracium spp. start to appear. There are twenty thousand of these worldwide, two hundred in Britain and in the region of forty in London.

07-June June’s Umbellifer Secrets Section Image

07-June June’s Umbellifer Secrets Section Image

Other very common, but rather more easily-recognised composites, are the smooth sowthistle Sonchus oleraceus, prickly sowthistle S. asper and the bristly ox-tongue Picris echioides. The first two have big fleshy leaves which climb up the stem and are smooth and prickly respectively.

Bristly ox-tongue is distinguished by the white spots on its leaves which are too bristly to touch. Other composites easy to recognise, which are now common, are nipplewort Lapsana communis, wall lettuce Mycelis muralis, Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon Tragopogon pratensis and the compass plant Lactuca serriola with a habit of constantly changing the direction of its leaves. When trying to decide whether the flower is a hawksbit, hawkweed or hawksbeard it may help that hawksbits tend to have petals which are all the same length and leaves like a dandelion.

07-June June’s Umbellifer Secrets Section Image

07-June June’s Umbellifer Secrets Section Image

Hawkweeds often have pale yellow flowers and hairy leaves, whereas hawksbeards tend to have smaller flowers in clusters on green or sometimes purple stems. The flowerheads of hawksbeards are also often reddish beneath. One of the most handsome of this tribe is the red hawksbeard Crepis rubra which has pinkish-purple flowers. This is confined to London’s gardens.

07-June June’s Umbellifer Secrets Section Image

07-June June’s Umbellifer Secrets Section Image