Start the week with a wildflower No 56. Stone Parsley, Sison Omomum. Carrot family

This delicate, rather straggly plant has appeared on the verge at far end of Eastrip Lane. Quite why it has acquired the name “stone parsley” or it’s other common name “bastard parsley” is obscure. It is a native plant of Southern England, more commonly the southeast, so it was nice to find it making its home on one of our lanes. 

As you can see it isn’t easy to photograph!  The various members of this family which include cow parsley, hogweed and wild carrot, helpfully flower in sequence making it easier to sort them out.  It likes a rather damp hedge and is most easily confused with upright hedge parsley (Torilis japonica).  This flowers at the same time of year but unlike Stone Parsley has rough hairs on the stem. The best way to recognise Stone Parsley though is the smell from a scrunched up leaf which is said to resemble a cross between petrol and nutmeg. Not sure about that but it is an interesting smell. The third photo shows the more obvious lower leaves. 

Unlike many of this often very poisonous plant family, it is edible and has some history of medicinal use to promote sweating, reduce flatulence or as a diuretic. The 1684 midwifery manual known as Aristotle's Masterpiece talks about Stone Parsley's usefulness for cleansing the womb, suggesting possible use in times past to promote abortion.

The flowers are tiny, so not much visited by bees of butterflies, but the leaves can host the larvae of leaf miner moths.