Botanical atlas

Spreading Chervil

Chaerophyllum procumbens

Spreading chervil is a modest, easily overlooked native of the eastern woodlands, one of several wild Chaerophyllum species that carpet the forest floor before the spring canopy closes in. It is often confused, in name only, with the culinary chervil of European kitchens, Anthriscus cerefolium, but the two are not the same plant and spreading chervil carries no comparable record of kitchen or apothecary use. What history it does have is mostly botanical rather than medicinal, a small, fine-leaved presence noted by early plant surveyors moving through river bottoms and shaded slopes. Its real charm today is the quiet one of early ephemerals everywhere, a soft green and white marker that the woods are waking up.

Safety.

Belongs to the carrot family alongside two of North America's deadliest plants, poison hemlock and water hemlock, which share its lacy leaves and white flower clusters and have fooled even experienced foragers. It has no established history of safe culinary or medicinal use, so it should never be gathered or eaten.