64 THE WILD-FLOWERS OF SELBORNE 



of a red or dull purple colour. In ancient times 

 the poison prepared from this plant, now known as 

 " conia," is said to have been the state poison of 

 Athens, by which Socrates was put to death. It will 

 be remembered that the " root of hemlock digg'd i' 

 the dark " formed part of the ingredients of the 

 witches' caldron in Macbeth — a plant, says our old 

 friend Gerarde, " very evill, hurtful, dangerous, poison- 

 ous, inasmuch that whosoever taketh of it into his 

 body dieth remedilesse." Closely allied to the hem- 

 lock, and almost as baneful, is the water-dropwort, 

 Qinanthe crocata, L., sometimes called hemlock- 

 dropwort. The leaves of this plant, which is abun- 

 dant in ditches and marshes throughout Great Britain, 

 bear a great resemblance to those of the wild celery, 

 while its roots have been sometimes mistaken for 

 parsnips with disastrous results. John Ray relates, 

 on the authority of one Dr. Francis Vaughan, a learned 

 physician in Ireland, how "eight young lads went 

 one afternoon a fishing to a brook in the county of 

 Tipperary, and there, meeting with a great parcel of 

 this plant, did eat a great deal of the roots of them. 

 About four or five hours after going home, the eldest 

 of them, who was almost of man's stature, without the 

 least previous appearing disorder or complaint, on 

 a sudden fell down backward, and lay kicking and 

 sprawling on the ground. His countenance soon 

 became ghastly, and he foamed at the mouth. Soon 

 after four more were seized the same way, and they 

 all died before morning. Of the other three, one ran 

 stark mad, but came to his right reason again next 

 morning. Another had his hair and nails fall off, and 

 the third (Dr. Vaughan's brother-in-law) alone escaped 

 without receiving any harm." Many other instances 



