Important: Safety Warning
This page states that certain wild plants are safe to eat. Its identifications and edibility claims are more than a century old and in some cases simply wrong, and deadly look-alikes exist for many edible species. Never eat a wild plant on the strength of this text.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Home › Contents › Sweet Cicely
Sweet Cicely
Osmorrhiza longistylis. Parsley Family.
One to three feet high. Root.--Thick; aromatic; edible. Leaves.--Twice or thrice-compound. Flowers.--White; small; growing in a flat-topped cluster. This is one of the earliest-flowering of the white Parsleys. Its roots are prized by country children for their pleasant flavor. Great care should be taken not to confound this plant with the water-hemlock, which is very poisonous, and which it greatly resembles, although flowering earlier in the year. The generic name is from two Greek words which signify scent and root.