A metaphorical postcard #4
The glory of wild fennel
South Devon, August 2024
Umbellifers generally can cause an awful lot of trouble for the uninitiated, though not always if you know what you’re looking for.
Wild fennel.
For alongside the hogweeds, wild parsnip, wild carrot and hemlocks, we have the majestic wild fennel.
Though as they mostly all look the same there are no indicators of safety, as wild parsnip can be easily confused with fennel as the flowers are both yellow but the parsnip is photo-toxic to the skin, so don’t do as I have once before, asking my wife to pull out a handful, through the car window as we drove past a glorious patch near the beach of what I was quite sure was Foeniculum vulgare and actually wasn’t at all.
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