Ground Elder- Edible

 Ground elder  (Aegopodium podagraria)

Gardeners hate this plant but us foragers just love it. It’s part of the umbellifer family (or as now named apiaceae) 

This is a low growing shrub that is very good at covering the ground, hence gardens hate it, it’s quite hard to remove. For foraging, though, it’s one of the easiest umbellifers  to identify. It’s much safer than things like hemlock and cow parsley to try and differentiate and it tastes just as good if not better than cow parsley with that wonderful parsley flavour. 

Identifying features for ground elder

• Three leaves per stem, two in opposite pairs, and one terminal top leaf.

• The terminal leaf is a trefoil leaf and looks a little bit like appointed club of a deck of cards

• The two opposite leaves look like little mittens, the main part of the leaf has a small split away leaf at the bottom. Sometimes it’s attached. Sometimes it’s detached as a separate leaf to give it that mitten appearance.

• The flower is a small, white umbel (if you had to turn it upside down, the stems look like an upturned umbrella) 

• The seeds are small and teardrop shaped with what looks like a jesters hat on the top, and they have a lovely carroty flavour

If you have all of these features than it’s likely you’ve got ground elder