Cow Parsley

Neither cow nor parsley, but more closely related to one than the other.  Cow parsley, also known as Queen Anne's Lace as well as a multitude of colloquial names, belongs to the carrot family.  At this time of year it flowers in great abundance on roadside verges, as here between Caldbeck and Wigton.

It is an umbellifera (the spell-checker suggests umbrella at this point), of which there are many, the majority being edible, including carrot, parsley, coriander, fennel, celery and dill.  Cow Parsley is edible too - just don't confuse it with hemlock, which most emphatically is not.

Miles Kington, in his book Nature Made Ridiculously Simple, had no time to learn to distinguish between all the different umbelliferae, and grouped them together as 'Hedgefroth', which is what I usually call them now.