Here are two interesting plants; Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica), edible, nutritious and a useful tonic for the body. The other feathery looking foliage belongs to Fools Parsley which could give you quite an uncomfortable digestive system if you were to eat it, perhaps mistaking it for something such a Sweet Cicely. On an Urban Herbology walk last year, I was told about a group of young Amsterdam children who had a lovely woodland walk with a guide and foraged their dinner. Unfortunately they harvested and ate Fools Parsley, mistaking it for Wild Carrot. They all ended up in the local hospital’s casualty department with dreadful stomach pains and more. Apparently all was well in the end but I’m sure they wouldn’t have wanted that.

There are so many noxious close relatives of Fools Parsley (such as Poison Hemlock, Conium maculatum) that it’s just not worth foraging anything that resembles it – unless you REALLY know what you are doing.