Cow Parsley

First, we're not 100% sure he actually meant hemlock.

Now yes, Judd and Judd say that they've taken Tolkien literally here, but that, quote, "This species has an unpleasant odor, and it has been suggested that the actual species at Roos in Yorkshire was either hogweed, Heracleum sphondylium, or more likely cow parsley, Anthriscus sylvestris."

Nice Latin, by the way.

I'm, I'm impressed.

"When duty permitted, they," and he's talking about Tolkien and Edith, "would stroll in a nearby wood, which Roos tradition identifies as Dense Garth at the south end of the village, beside the parish church of All Saints.

Here at the feet of the ash, oak, sycamore, and beech trees, tall flowers with white umbels burst into bloom from mid-April until the end of May.

The flowers, Anthriscus sylvestris, are what books might call cow parsley, wild chervil, or Queen Anne's lace, among many other names.

But Tolkien referred to all such white-flowered umbellifers, and not just the highly poisonous Conium maculatum, by the usual rural name of hemlock."