DICOTYLEDONS 



95 



poisonous juice, which becomes yellowish on 

 drying. 



Every year men and animals are poisoned on 

 the Continent, and not infrequently here also, by 

 their inadvertently eating the roots of this plant. 

 The leaves have been eaten instead of celery, and 

 the roots instead of par- 

 snips. 



Cattle have been poison- 

 ed by eating the plants 

 thrown upon the land when 

 the ditches have been 

 cleared out. It is said 

 they eat them without 

 repugnance, domestication 

 having weakened their 

 instinct. 



All parts of the plant 

 are poisonous, but the 

 roots are much more so 

 than the stem and leaves. 



Drying only destroys the Fig, 24. CEnanthe crocata ; Hem- 

 . lock Water-Dropwort. 



poison in some degree, 



and cooking weakens it still more, but does not 

 eliminate it altogether. Of animals, though all 

 kinds are poisoned by it, carnivores are less sus- 

 ceptible to the action than the herbivorous. 



A writer records how a number of convicts work- 

 ing near Woolwich came across a quantity of the 



