NOTES from. the plant kingdom // cow parsley

There is nothing more synonymous with this time of year than clouds of cow parsley proliferating the countryside, and if you're lucky, creeping into your garden too.

Wanstead Flats is getting busy with it. Drifts of white lacy cow parsley crown the top of the ‘hill’ by the changing rooms, the many-branched, cone-shaped creamy panicles of horse chestnuts turning from yellow to pink within each bloom to signify a consummation (from which a conker may now grow), tassels of hornbeam (on the walk there), sweet-pea-like vetch and broom with landing stage and wings, startling violet and bright yellow accordingly, the diminutive upside-down tutus of clover (petals in repose when bees have visited), the stubby brown florets and delicate stamen circles of ribwort plantain, and legions of daisies, dandelions, and buttercups.

I stumble across a scattering of cornflowers, which I know was not there before. Has someone sown them? Did they creep over from another part of The Flats I am not so familiar with? Discovery day was still steely grey and so their ragged blue petals stood out against the sky. Today they are cut outs of the blue above, within a stage set of grasses, each one with its own flower form.

But still, it is the cow parsley that announces the show as the summer solstice creeps ever nearer. The plant that grabs your attention as you drive past green verges that link human and natural habitats. The sheer frothiness of its clusters of tiny white petals, Anthriscus sylvestris providing a feast of nectar for moths and orange tipped butterflies (also the stem for my eldest son’s name). Another name, Queen Anne’s lace signifies a time when the flowers would apparently bloom for Queen Anne and her ladies in waiting and echo the delicate lace that they wore at collar and cuff. It is a herb too, historically used to treat stomach and kidney, and respiratory problems, and ward off bothersome insects. Some know it as Mother Die, as we called it as children, a moniker designed to stop innocents eating the similarly flowered poisonous hemlock, which can have a fatal effect.

At school, just 100 feet away, cow parsley in also out in force in our liberated lawn, left un-mown for the summer to try and encourage more wildflowers and pollinators. I ask the kids if they can imagine a green corridor from here to there, a lacy one perhaps – a collar or table cloth – rich in native planting, connected in nature. They nod enthusiastically, and we turn our heads to the sun in unison and breathe a little easier for it.