PENTANDRIA. DIGYNIA. Heracleum. 
375 
H. sphonbyl'ium. (Leaves pinnate: leafits pinnatifid, deeply ser¬ 
rated. E.) 
Kniph. 11— (E. Bot. 939. E.)— Blackw. 540— Riv. Pent. 4. Sphond. — H. Ox. 
ix. 16. row 1. l.f.% — Bod. 307— -Lob. Obs. 401.2; Ic. i. 701.2— Ger. 
Em. 1009— Park. 953— Pet. 24. 1 —Park. 954. Z-Matth. 791 —Fuchs. 
53— J. B. iii. 2. 160-Trag. 437. 
(A coarse, rank plant. Stems four or five feet high, strong, furrowed, 
angular, branched, leafy, rough with white spreading hairs. E.) Leaf¬ 
stalks spreading out at the base into a kind of follicles, membranous, woolly 
at the edges, and in its younger state sheathing and inclosing the fruit- 
stalks and umbels. Stem-leaves winged, large. Leafits about two pairs, 
jagged, and indented, the odd one cloven into three. Outer florets 
radiate, central ones nearly equal. Seeds with three ridges on each side. 
Flovjers white. 
Cow Parsnep. Madnep. Hogweed. (Welsh: Efwr cyffredin; Cron. 
E.) Hedges, meadows, pastures. B. July. 3 * 
Var. 2. ( Angustifol .) Narrow-leaved. Little-leaves spear-shaped. St. 
Jacq. Austr. 174— Pluk. 63. 3— Pet. 24. 2— Park. 954. 2. 
I have found the root-leaves of this and of II. Sphondylium rising from the 
same root. Leaves winged, wings with mostly three lobes; lower-lobes 
long, and standing nearly at right angles give the cross-like appearance ; 
lobes strap-spear-shaped, deeply and doubly serrated. Woodw. 
(LT. angustifolium. Huds. Sm. FI. Brit, not of Linn. E.) Hedges. About 
Harefield. Blackstone. Between Okeover and Ashbourne. Stokes. 
Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire. Mr. Woodward. In woods and other 
places about Hayes, near Oswestry, as common as the first sort. Seeds 
gathered October 4, 1770, were sown January 2, 1771, and produced 
plants which flowered in 1772, and many of their progeny now occupy 
* In Poland and Lithuania, the poor people prepare a liquor from the leaves and seeds, 
which undergoes a fermentation, and is drank instead of ale. The stalks when peeled, 
are eaten by the Kamschatkans. The Russians take the leaf-stalks of the root-leaves, peel 
them, and hang them in the sun to dry a little; then they tie them in bundles, and 
hang them up again till they become yellow: in this state they put them into bags, and a 
mealy concrete like sugar forms upon the surface of them. This they shake off, and 
treat their guests with it as a great delicacy. They likewise distil an ardent spirit from it. 
Gmel. Sibr. i. 214, (which the Scottish editors of Encyc. Brit., with unmerited com¬ 
placency, suggest, may prove “ a good succedaneum for whisky: ” truly a most unde¬ 
sirable acquisition; for as a patriot poet justly deplores, 
“ O’ a’ the ills poor Caledonia 
E’er yet pree’d, or e’er will taste, 
Brew’d in hell’s black Pandemonia, 
Whisky’s ill will scaith her maist.” Macneill. E.) 
Attempts have been made to manufacture sugar from this plant, which the Kams¬ 
chatkans cal] Ratsch , (sweet-herb), but forty pounds of the dried stalks only yielded a 
quarter of a pound of sugar. The peelings of the stalks are acrid. The leaves are a 
favourite food of rabbits, hogs, and asses. Cows, goats, and sheep eat them ; horses are 
fond of them. In cultivation, experimentally, it is said to be an early and productive 
plant, bears mowing well, and is relished by cattle, possessing considerable nutritive 
power. Hort. Gram. Hellodes Pliellandrii; as also the minute Puccinea Heraclei , 
blackish, surrounded by a ferruginous epidermis, Grev. Scot. Crypt. 42, are found upon 
this plant. (Miller adduces several reasons to prove that the common Cow Parsnep of 
Siberia, which the inhabitants make an article of food, is not our plant, but rather 
Sphondylium maximum of Breynius. Pulteney. E.) 
