Spreading hedge parsley
Torilis arvensis
Family · Apiaceae · Irritating
The small white umbellifer of cornfields, whose fruits are covered in hooks and cling to socks and dog fur. It is the most ordinary of the field umbellifers, which makes it good practice for the family.
Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground · Town and roadside · Montado
Also known asfield hedge parsley
How to tell it
Small loose umbels with few rays, of white or pinkish flowers. Leaves twice divided into narrow rough segments. The decisive sign comes after flowering: oval fruits covered in curved prickles, like small burrs.
What it is confused with
Wild carrot
Daucus carota
Both white and of the fields. Wild carrot is much larger, with a dense umbel and a collar of divided bracts beneath, and smells of carrot; hedge parsley is small, with a loose umbel, and smells of nothing edible.
Open sheet →What it is for
None. It is not toxic in any relevant way, but it is not gathered either: it is a white field umbellifer, and the family rule says none of that goes in the mouth without absolute certainty. The hooked fruits are just a nuisance.