THE COW-PARSNIP — continued. 
have sometimes wondered whether this was the insect from which the name 
had its origin. 
Crowded among other plants in the hedgerow, the Cow-Parsnip cannot well 
display all its dignity of outline ; but Fuchs seems to have recognised the fine 
outline of the large leaves when he called the plant Acanthus germanica ; and it was 
probably in this way that the popular name Bears Breech was transferred to it from 
the true Acanthus. Bear-skeiters , a Scottish name for it, however, has quite a different 
origin, and should, perhaps, preferably be written bere-skeiters , i.e. barley-shooters, 
children blowing ears of barley through the hollow stems. 
The stout tap-root, which is occasionally branched, is slightly mucilaginous and, 
like the whole plant, rich in sugar, and may well have suggested its classification — 
which proves true to real botanical affinity — with the Parsnip ( Pastinaca ), the last 
syllable of which name was mistaken for naep ( napus ), a turnip. Turner, in his 
“ Names of Herbes,” says of it : — 
“Sphondilium is called in duche wylde Patency,* or wylde Berenklawe, in frenche Panate sauage. It may be called in 
englishe Cow-persnepe or rough Persnepe. It groweth in watery middowes and in ranke groundes about hedges.” 
This is the origin of one of the commonest modern names for the plant, the 
prefix “cow-,” perhaps, merely signifying rough or coarse ; but Dr. Prior suggested 
that another name, Madnep , has been entirely misinterpreted, being truly only 
mead-nape or meadow-parsnip, whereas by understanding parsnep or pasnep to be 
the Italian pazzo napo i mad turnip, we have the basis of Gerard’s assertion that 
“if a phreneticke or melancholic man’s head be anointed with oyle wherein the leaves and roots have been sodden, it helpeth 
him very much.” 
The young shoots are said to be very good if boiled and eaten as asparagus ; 
whilst the sugar that exudes from the peeled stems of some Siberian species is 
distilled with cranberries into a liqueur. It is, no doubt, this saccharine quality that 
gives the plant its value for fattening pigs, for which purpose it used to be collected 
and to which it owes such names as Hogweed , Pigweed , Pig's Parsnips Pig's Cole , and 
Eltrot (from elt, a young pig, and root). 
Most of the other popular names of the plant, such as Clogweed , Kesh, and Kex , 
refer merely to the hollow stems. 
In early summer the great inflated leaf-sheaths of a pale green, held aloft like 
balloons, are striking objects in our fields before the umbels burst from them ; but 
when the plant is in full blossom, though it cannot equal the grandeur of its giant 
Siberian congener, the Cow-Parsnip is unquestionably a striking plant ; whilst the 
big clusters of light brown or almost bleached fruits held up against autumn 
skies form a picturesque feature in the chill landscape of that season. 
*i.e. Pasteney ( Pastinaca ). 
