Ground elder is considered a stubborn weed. But it is much more than that. It is also known as a medicinal herb and can be of value in the kitchen with its parsley-like taste. What does gout look like?

Ground elder is easy to identify based on its leaves

The leaves - the most distinctive feature

The most distinctive feature of ground elder is its leaves. They are divided into petiole and leaf blade. The stem is up to 20 cm long and the leaf blade is divided into three leaflets.

The individual leaflets are blue-green to medium green in color and hairy underneath. The top is bare. While the shape of the leaflets is ovate-elongated, their edges are jagged and their ends are pointed.

Flowers give little information

The flowers of ground elder appear from May and can be present on isolated plants until September. Ground elder is difficult to distinguish from other plants with its flowers alone. There are plenty of umbellifers that resemble it.

The flowers of goutweed have these properties:

  • terminal on long stalks
  • flat umbels
  • 10 to 20 small umbels per inflorescence
  • white to slightly reddish
  • numerous tiny single flowers
  • without bracts
  • fivefold
  • hermaphrodite

What do the fruits and seeds look like?

After the flowering period is over, the seed pods form. They don't look very spectacular with their initially green and later brownish color. In order to be able to correctly identify the goutweed by its fruits or seeds, you have to take a closer look!

The fruits are split fruits. These are about 3 to 4 mm long. They are ovoid and smooth. Visually, they are reminiscent of caraway. The reason is that goutweed is closely related to caraway.

Other characteristics to be able to recognize the goutweed correctly

But that's not all. There are a few other characteristics that you can use to identify ground elder:

  • cross-section triangular, hollow stalk
  • 1 to 3 mm thick, long, white roots
  • Growth height between 70 and 100 cm (during the flowering period)
  • early budding
  • often evergreen
  • forms a lot of offshoots (usually not just one plant at the location, but several)

Where Giersch can be found more often - Occurrence

Not only the exterior can serve as a key to identification. The occurrence of goutweed also helps with the determination. This weed prefers to grow in hedges and bushes, in deciduous and mixed forests, on streams and river banks, along roadsides, in parks and in gardens. It loves shady locations and nitrogenous, moist soil.

Playing it safe: smell and taste test

If you're nearly 100% sure that the plant in front of you isn't hemlock, dog's parsley, or another poisonous member of the umbelliferae family, you can use the smell and taste test to nail your identification.

Ground elder smells like a mixture of carrots and parsley when rubbed with your fingers. It is extremely tasty and it is not for nothing that it is affectionately referred to as forest parsley. Its taste is reminiscent of parsley or spinach. It is spicy, aromatic and fresh. The blossoms taste sweet and the fruits have an idiosyncratic spiciness.

Do not confuse with burnet, wild carrot, bear's hogweed and Co

There are some plants that look confusingly similar to goutweed. This includes, for example, the elderberry. Its leaves resemble those of goutweed when they sprout.

The burnet and the hogweed also have foliage that looks similar to that of the goutweed. The wild carrot forms flower umbels that look like goutweed. Keep this in mind if you want to fight ground elder!

tips

Do not collect and salvage the goutweed until you have 100% correctly identified it! It has many venomous relatives and confusion is common.

Category:

Herbs