N. ORD.-UMBELLIFERZ. 68 
GENUS.—CONIUM,* LINN, 
SEX, SYST.—PENTANDRIA DIGYNIA. 
CONIUM. 
POISON HEMLOCK. 
SYN.—CONIUM MACULATUM, LINN.; C. MAJOR, BAUH.; CORIANDRUM 
CICUTA, CRANTZ.; C. MACULATUM. ROTH.; CICUTA MACULATA, 
LAM. (not Linn.); C. VULGARIS MAJOR, PARK.; CICUTARIA VULGA- 
RIS, CLUS. 
COM. NAMES.—WILD OR POISON HEMLOCK, STINK-WEED,+ SPOTTED 
POISON PARSLEY, HERB-BENNET; (FR.) GRAND CIQUE, CIQUE OR- 
DINAIRE; (GER.) SCHIERLING, 
A TINCTURE OF THE FRESH PLANT, EXCLUDING THE ROOT, OF CONIUM 
MACULATUM, L. 
Description.—This large, unsavory, biennial herb, grows to a height varying 
from 2 to 6 feet. Root fusiform, sometimes forked. Stem erect, hollow, smooth, 
and striate, stout below, corymbosely branching above, the whole dotted and 
splashed with crimson beneath the white, pulverent, easily detached coating that 
pervades the whole plant except the leaves and flowers. Leaves generally large, 
decompound, somewhat deltoid in outline; common petioles with broad striate 
sheathing bases; segments lanceolate pinnatifid ; /obes bright green, acute and 
regularly serrate. Jnflorescence terminal, flat-topped, compound umbels ; zxvolucre 
about 3-leaved ; eaves lanceolate, acuminate, deflexed; zzvolucels about 5-leaved, 
shorter than the umbellets, and situated to the outside of them; eaves lanceolate ; 
rays numerous, straight ; flowers small, white. efa/s obtuse or somewhat obcor- 
date, the apices incurved. Calyx teeth obsolete, the limb forming a thickened 
crowning ring in fruit. Stamens but slightly longer than the petals ; axthers white, 
Fruit orate, turgid, laterally flattened, the crown retaining the divergent styles, 
each of which, together with its dilated base, greatly resembles the depicted head- 
gear of the medieval court jester. Carpels with 5 prominent, nearly equal, papil- 
lose ribs, the lateral ones marginal; v7/¢e none; seed with its inner face marked 
by a deep and narrow longitudinal sulcus. 
History and Habitat.—Conium is indigenous to Europe and Asia. It, how- 
ever, has become thoroughly naturalized in this country, where it grows in waste 
places, usually by river-sides. It blossoms during July and August. 
* Kvewv, Roneion ; from x:ivos, Ronos, a top, judged by Hooker to be so named on account of the whirling vertigo 
caused by the poison. 
+ A name more commonly applied to Datura Stramonium. 
