Rough Chervil - Chaerophyllum temulum

Medium tall rather bristly plant. Stem erect, purple or purple spotted. Leaves 2 or 3 pinnate, dark green, but eventually turning purple, leaflets oval, toothed. Flowers white, 2 mm in compound umbels, which are nodding in bud. With hairy bracteoles, but without bracts.

Similar to many other medium-sized white flowered umbellifers with ferny divided leaves, and found in the same habitats as Cow Parsley, Upright Hedge Parsley and Greater Burnet Saxifrage.  To separate them, details of stems, fruits and bracts/bracteoles are needed.   

Stems solid; fruits ridged (not spiny, bristly or warty) and elongated (c.2.5 times longer than wide).  Bracteoles and sometimes bracts present.

A general photo of the plant in its habitat, plus close up of umbel and fruit

Rough grassland and roadside verges, preferring shady places.

May to July.

Biennial.

Fairly common in England and Wales, less so in Scotland.

Fairly common in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 366 of the 617 tetrads.

In the current Checklist (Jeeves, 2011) it is listed as Native, occasional, but avoiding the more acid soils.