Can someone help me identify this plant? [poison hemlock or close lookalike such as cow parsley]

Hi I live in south of France and have a small permaculture farm. I have a sheet mulched bed that I tried out this year and suddenly I have a ton of these plants growing. I have not seen many on the property and the only seeds I dropped were clover cover. My friend says they are legumes and to chop and drop them but I want to make are they are not invasive or could cause problems. They have a small root and are very easy to pull out. Some are red at the bottom and they have very very very fine little white prickly see through pieces on bottom (looks like hair but goes in your skin ).

Can someone tell me what they think this is..

Not one I recognise from here in Anjou

I'm pretty sure it's an umbel of some sort. It looks a lot like poison hemlock; but the stem has more solid (as opposed to mottled) purple than what you'd normally expect, more akin to the stem color of Angelica atropurpurea. Unlike Angelica, though, the leave shape is similar to carrot/parsnip/parlsey cousins. Hopefully someone can chime in with something more definitive.

I believe that is what we call cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris), but I wouldn't attempt to eat it or do anything other than dig it up and get rid of it somewhere away from your garden if I were you. It is in the Umbelliferae family (now Apiaceae) and that family is notoriously difficult to correctly ID. The problem is that cow parsley looks practically identical (to the untrained eye) to poison hemlock -- which is deadly . Since there is no antidote to or cure for hemlock poisoning, I would be very careful with that plant until you are 200% sure what it is. Check out this very informative video if you'd like to learn more about it.


Edit -- I just wanted to add that other possibilities may be angelica, chervil, wild parsnip, etc. Like I said it is a tough family to identify. Here is a good place, with tons of good photos, to start ... Ohio Plants: APIACEAE