UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 55 



linear and acute; fruit nearly cylindrical, with a corky base. Plant 

 perennial. This is a species of restricted range, growing in fresh-water 

 marshes and meadows from Notts, Worcester, and Norfolk southwards. Its 

 branches are tubular, and its branched stem two or three feet high. It 

 flowers in June, and its partial involvicres are of many leaves, shorter than 

 the flowers. It has no general involucre. This is the (E. peucedanifolia of 

 some authors. 



5. Hemlock Water Dropwort (LE. crocdta). — Root perennial, the 

 fibres with large spindle-shaped tubers ; root-leaves 2 — 3-pinnate ; stem- 

 leaves pinnatifid ; leaflets stalked, variously cut, those of the upper leaves 

 narrower than the more rounded ones of the lower leaves ; fruit cylindrical, 

 oblong, without a callous base, and longer than its stalk. This plant is 

 pretty generally known by those who are accustomed to observe wild floAvers. 

 It is too tall and large to escape notice, being sometimes five feet, and very 

 commonly three feet in height, and much branched. It has large liroad 

 glos.sy leaflets, various in number and shape, and its large umbels of white 

 flowers appear in July. The juice of its stems, when exposed to the air, 

 often turns yellow, and like most yellow juices in plants indicates noxious 

 properties. 



Many fatal disasters have been caused by this plant ; cows have been 

 poisoned by eating the I'oots, and persons unacquainted with plants have 

 eaten it under the impression that it was wild celery, and have died in con- 

 sequence. Some years since, a number of convicts, working on an embank- 

 ment near AVoolwich, dug up the&o roots, and as there is nothing in their 

 odour which would give the idea that they were deleterious, they impru- 

 dently ate them with their dinner. Seventeen men partook of the I'epast, 

 all of whom were rendered more or less ill, while to four it proved fatal. 

 John Ray asserted, in one of his works, the poisonous nature of this Drop- 

 wort, but his assertion was at that time doubted, though its accuracy was 

 confirmed by some accounts sent him by his friend, "a learned physician," 

 Dr. Francis Vaughan. A case came under the notice of this gentleman, in 

 which seven young men, while fishing in a river, saw and ate the root of 

 the Dropwort; four or five hours after eating it, one of them fell back- 

 wards, foaming at the mouth, and he died next morning. Four more ' 

 were seized soon after, and died on the following morning, without having 

 spoken a word from the time in which the poison had attained its full 

 power in the system ; only one escaped uninjured. Dr. Vaughan also 

 mentions that a Dutchman in his neighbourhood was poisoned by boiling 

 and eating the tops of this plant shred into his pottage; he was soon 

 after found dead in his boat. A little Irish boy had forewarned him of the 

 danger of eating it, but the Dutchman asserted that it was good salad in 

 his country; so that, as Dr. Vaughan observes, he doubtless took it for 

 celery, which its leaves much resemble. 



Dr. Pickells read to the British Association a paper on the CEnuiithe 

 crocafa, in which he observed, that it was one of the most virulent poisons 

 of the British Flora, adding that it grows in great abundance, particularly 

 in Cork. He had collected records of nearly thirty cases of death caused 

 by eating the root, the quantity taken in one instance being exceedingly 



