Part XII

Lookalikes

32 named mix-ups — tea leaves, white umbels, autumn cups, and two plants that share a common name. A comparison is not a forage license.

Foxglove and comfrey as a botanical teaching diptych

Foxglove for comfrey in a kettle is the worst garden story in this folio. Poison hemlock for parsley is the worst roadside one. If a plant is not in flower and you cannot name it, it is not tea, salad, or a wild carrot.

Pairs involving Cilantro.

Easy to confuseKitchen

Cilantro for parsley

Two flat-leaf herbs on the same board. One is coriander. The other is Petroselinum. A soapy leaf is not hemlock — but the umbel family still wants a name.

Cilantro leaf is rounded and scalloped; parsley is saw-toothed and denser. Both are green to the crown. The deadly look-alikes are the roadside umbels, not each other — still, label the bunch.