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 Datura.

Deadly mix-upNursery

Datura for a mallow

Trumpet flowers in a cottage bed. Datura is a tropane nightshade. Hollyhock is a mallow. Children have eaten the wrong seed pod.

Datura has a spiny capsule and a nightshade smell; flowers are funnel trumpets, often upward or nodding, with a simple calyx. Hollyhock is a column of mallow discs on a tall wand. Do not nibble an ornamental pod.