a 
N. ORD.-UMBELLIFERE. 65 
GENUS.— A THUSA,* LINN. 
SEX. SYST.—PENTANDRIA DIGYNIA, 
A THOS, 
FOOLS PARSLEY. 
SYN.—AITHUSA CYNAPIUM, LINN.; CICUTARIA TENUIFOLIA, RAIL; C. 
FATUA, LOB.; CORIANDRUM CYNAPIUM, CRANTZ. 
COM. NAMES.—FOOL’S PARSLEY, DOG’S PARSLEY, DOG POISON, GARDEN 
HEMLOCK, LESSER HEMLOCK, SMALL HEMLOCK; (FR.) LA PETITE 
CIQUE; (GER.) KLEINER SCHEILING, HUNDSPETERSILIE. 
A TINCTURE OF THE WHOLE PLANT ASTHUSA CYNAPIUM, LINN. 
Description.—This fetid annual herb. attains a growth of from 8 inches to 2 
feet. Sfem erect, unspotted, striate, and fistulous. Leaves dark green, 2-3-ter- 
nately compound, many cleft; divisions pinnate, wedge-lanceolate, obtuse. Unmbels 
terminal and opposite the petioles; vays very unequal ; zzvolucre none ; involucels 
one-sided, 3-leaved, the leaves erect while the buds are immature, but become long, 
narrow, and pendent when in full flower and fruit. Flowers white; calyx teeth 
obsolete ; petals obovate, appearing emarginate, or even obcordate, by the inflexion 
of the tip. wt ovate-globose, not much if at all flattened either way; carfo- 
phore 2-parted; mericarps, each with 5 thick, sharply-keeled ridges; vitte, single 
in the deep intervals, and 2 in the commissure at its base. 
History and Habitat.—The Fool’s Parsley is indigenous to Europe and Siberia, 
from whence it has been imtroduced into this country where it now grows, still 
sparingly, along roadsides and waste places about cultivated grounds, in New 
England, and from there to Pennsylvania, flowering in July and August. 
On account of the many cases of poisoning by the inadvertent use of this 
herb for parsley, from which it is easily distinguishable,} very little use has been 
made of it by physicians. By the early writers it is so often confounded with 
Conium, that it is very difficult to trace its history. The first author to charac- 
terize it was Hermolaus Barbarus, who called it Gicuta terrestris minore ; it is also 
mentioned by Matthiolus, Jonston, Jungius, Miiller, and others, all speaking of its 
peculiar effects when eaten. Its action has been generally considered like that of 
Conium, but milder, and its principal, if not its only use, was in some forms of 
obstinate cutaneous disorders. It is not mentioned in the U. S. Ph., nor is it found 
in the Eclectic Dispensatory. 
in reference to the acrid taste of the plant. 
* Ai@icow, aithusso, to set on fire ; 
foliage than Parsley, a nauseous smell, white flowers, 
+ AEthusa has much darker-green 
much more acute. 
and the leaf-sections are 
