Poison Hemlock
Conium maculatum
Description: Hairless biennial from whitish taproot, with unpleasant odour. Stem is blothed purple, hollow 0.5 to 3m tall, leaves are pinnately divided, fern like, green with purple tinges. Numerous small white flowers in umbels, flattened egg shaped fruits 2mm long with wavy ribs.
Ecology: Found in wet ditches, waste places, and moist disturbed areas at low elevations, locally abundant around human settlement.
Notes: CAUTION! this plant is deadly poisonous. Sickness and death can result from ingesting leaves, roots or seeds. This plant was introduced to BC from Europe during the time of European settlement and has widely naturalized in our region.
Cow Parsnip
Heracleum lanatum
Description: A very large hairy perennial with huge (10-40cm wide) compound leaves that are coarsely toothed and palmately lobed, maple leaf-like. The leaves are woolly when young, base of leaf is inflated and winged where it attaches to stem. Stems are single, leafy and hollow and grow from 1-3m tall. White numerous flowers grow in large flat-topped terminal clusters. Produce aromatic sunflower-seed like fruits.
Ecology: Found growing on streambanks, moist clearings, beach edges (away from salt water), marshes, meadows and thickets from sea level to subalpine elevations.
Notes: This one was found at the edge of a tiny creek emptying into Sechelt Inlet, July 2003. Coastal native groups commonly used the young stalks and leaf stems as a green vegetable which were peeled and eaten raw or boiled. Note that Cow Parsnip does contain a compound known as furanocoumarins which can cause skin damage in sensitive individuals). Do not confuse this species with an even larger one, the Giant Cow Parsnip which is a garden escapee I have seen growing along the Upper Levels freeway in Vancouver, BC, it grows up to close to 5m tall, and it contains high levels of furanocoumarins which cause acute photo-toxicity including skin rashes and blisters if you are exposed to sunlight during/after handling the plant.
Sweet Mountain Cicely
Osmorhiza chilensis
Description:A tap-rooted perennial usually with a solitary stem25-100cm tall, leafy and branched on the top portion. Leaves are twice divided into 3's, coarsely toothed. Several long stalked basal leaves. Flowers are small and greenish white in loose umbels, no involucral bracts. Produces black needle like fruits that are 1-2cm long.
Ecology: Grows in open mixed or coniferous forests, forest edges, and thickets at low and middle elevations.
Notes: This one was found at middle elevation in August, 2001.
Pacific Water Parsley
Oenanthe sarmentosa
Description: A fibrous rooted perennial on soft, reclining hairless stems that grow to 1m tall. Leaves are oblong or egg shaped, 2-3 times pinnately divided, toothed with lateral veins. Small white flowers in compact clusters. Stems often found rooting at nodes when they lie on the ground. Produces barrel shaped fruits to ½ cm long.
Ecology: Found alongside of streams and sloughs, in marshes, ditches, wet meadows and clearings at low or middle elevations. Common.
Notes: This one was found in a moist ditch at a forest edge in July, 2001 in Sechelt, BC.
