Rounding the Year: Cow Parsley or "Mother May Die"

Cow parsley flowers in hedgerows and wild spaces from late April all through May and into June. The one in the photos self-seeded in a patch of my garden I'd left to grow wild. I'm pleased I did that, as this is just one of the plants providing pollen for bees and nectar for butterflies.

Although I think I'm moderately good at identifying common wild flowers, I got a second opinion over this because it's very similar in appearance to poisonous hemlock. That's supposedly one of the reasons  innocent cow parsley earnt the folkloric name "Mother May Die", to teach children to be very careful if foraging. You don't want to make a deadly mistake. However, I've heard other origin stories, including the idea that it drops petals really fast and your mother will have a fit if you bring it indoors to make a mess all over the place.

The easiest way to tell the difference between cow parsley and hemlock is by looking at the stems. Hemlock has smooth stems with purple blotches, while cow parsley has hairy stems and no purple blotches. 

Magically, cow parsley is useful in spells for protection. Mind you, it's association of being unlucky to bring indoors means you're best growing it around the outside of your house, rather than picking it to make a flower arrangement for your altar. 

Other traditional uses for cow parsley include in herbal remedies for colds, and children making whistles and pea-shooters out of the dried stems. If you want to try that, you really want to make sure you aren't using hemlock by mistake.

There's some more useful information about cow parsley on the Woodland Trust website and on the blog Plant-Lore.

Sharing seasonal photos

Inspired by ideas in my book Rounding the Wheel of the Year, I share seasonal pictures, art, crafts, words and customs as well as a record of what's happening in nature. 

Where to Find my Books

If you want to buy Rounding the Wheel of the Year  and any of my other Pagan Portals witchcraft books, or my Gothic novel Erosion  you can find them via my publisher Moon Books, which is part of Collective Ink: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com

You can also find my books at London bookshop Treadwell's at 33 Store Street, Bloomsbury: https://www.treadwells-london.com/

Other previous related posts
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2025/04/rounding-year-forget-me-nots-in-grass.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2025/03/rounding-year-daffodil-in-my-garden.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2024/03/rounding-year-too-soon-for-silver-birch.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2024/12/rounding-year-wintery-bare-trees-in.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2025/01/rounding-year-wassailing-apple-trees.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2025/03/green-london-japanese-gardens-in.html