Cow Parsnip

Cow parsnip is a very different plant from the former.

Cow parsnip grows with three or four large spread-winged, rough leaves, lying often on the ground, or raised a little from it, with long, round hairy foot-stalks under them, in five divisions, the two couple standing each against the other; and one at the end, and each being almost round, yet much indented at the edges in some leaves, but not so deep in others, of a whitish green colour, smelling strongly; from which springs a round, crusted, hairy stalk, two or three feet high, with a few joints and leaves thereon, and branched at the top, where stand large umbels of white, sometimes reddish flowers, and after them whitish winged seeds, two always joined together.

The root is long and white, with two or three long strings growing down into the ground, smelling unpleasant. It grows in moist meadows, near ditches, and field corners.

The seed, galen says, is of a sharp and cutting quality, a fit medicine for a cough and shortness of breath, the falling-sickness and jaundice. The root is available to all these purposes, and of great use to take away the hard skin that grows on a fistula, if it be but scraped upon it.