cow PARSNIP 



Heracleum lanatum Michx. 



July This, the king of the parsnips, is a regal plant. 



Low places, roadsides Huge, stout, massive, the corded, hollow stems 



support the great broad umbels of small, snowy 

 flowers. The leaves are among the largest found in our wild flowers, leaves 

 which are deeply cut, hairy, enormously maple-like on a grand scale. 

 The structural gi-andeur of the cow parsnip caused it to be dedicated to 

 the giant Hercules. There is Heracleum, flower of Hercules. 



It grows in wet places. It needs moisture to nourish all those stout 

 Corinthian columns which are stems, all those splendid, classical, 

 acanthus-like leaves, that broad bouquet of tiny blossoms spread almost 

 a foot wide across the top of the flower stalk. 



It is a widely distributed plant. According to Gray, it is found in 

 wet places from Newfoundland to the Pacific and northward to Xorth 

 Carolina, Kentucky, and Kansas. That is indeed a broad range not fre- 

 quently repeated by many American plants. Fe^\• of them are scattered 

 from coast to coast in the numner of this massive plant of Hercules. 



It comes in June, comes at a time when growth is lush and heat 

 grows stronger every day. Now is the weedy time, the time when the 

 small compactness of spring flowers is well past and only the big, the 

 strong, and the lusty sur\^ive in the battle for space and sunlight which 

 takes place in June. Sturdy and able to combat encroachment of other 

 plants, the cow parsnip stands regally alone. 



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