176 POISONOUS PLANTS 



and Parsnip type. It grows in wet places, and is 

 therefore likely to be eaten by children who are 

 hunting in Spring for the roots of Sweet Cicely. 

 In the United States alone this plant destroys many 

 human victims annually, besides doing untold injury 

 to cattle that drink from pools poisoned by its de- 

 caying roots. 



The Poison Hemlock proper has finer Parsley - 

 like leaves and a biennial root; its stem is purplish 

 and spotted, thus tending to confuse it with the 

 Purple -stemmed Angelica. This Hemlock yields 

 from its seeds and from the leaves at flowering 

 time an alkaloid poison called conine, a drug well 

 known to the ancients, and which furnished the 

 death draught of Socrates. The dried seeds also 

 cause mischief, as they are sometimes gathered by 

 mistake for Anise. 



The fifth plant, Jimson (Jamestown) Weed, or 

 Stramonium, belongs to the Nightshade, or, as it 

 is now called, the Potato family, a tribe contain- 

 ing plants of diverse attributes good and evil the 

 Tomato, Potato, Tobacco, Henbane and all the 

 Nightshades of which the European species yielding 

 Belladonna is the most deadly. Common Stramo- 

 nium is a rank plant of waste places, deserted back 

 gardens and ash heaps, and therefore has many local 



