In article ,
Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:
I stopped by the side of an A-road, and it had some self-seeded wheat
and oilseed rape - easy. But there was a plant that baffled me. It
looked and felt like a giganic sow thistle, with a stem 1 cm or more
thich and a metre high. Its leaves were alternate, c. 20 cm long,
and divided to 2/3 their depth into 5 rough-edged lobes. After handling
it gently, my hand stank until I washed it. But the really puzzling
thing was that its flower-bugs were in a sort of spire arrangment
(line a loose Spirea). I can't even think of what family it might be.

Were the leaves palmately or pinnately lobed?

Pinnately.

Cicerbita crosses my mind, but I don't know anything about its foliage
odour if any.

Thanks but, if the Wikipedia picture is typical, the leaves were wrong.
I really should have unpacked my camera :-(


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.