302 



UMBELLIFERAE (PARSLEY FAMILY) 



Quite as poisonous as the preceding plant and probably the 

 cause of more fatalities. Roots two to four inches long, thick, 

 fleshy, tuberous, bunched in a cluster (fasciculated) at the swollen 

 base of the stem. These are especially dangerous, for their taste 

 is pleasantly aromatic, somewhat like that of its harmless relative, 

 Sweet Cicely, for which they are sometimes mistaken, generally 

 with fatal results ; or they may be mistaken for artichokes or 



parsnips in the early spring. 

 At this season the roots are fre- 

 quently forced out of the earth 

 by washing or freezing, or cattle 

 and sheep, biting at the young 

 shoots, pull them easily from 

 the wet soil. One of the fasci- 

 cled roots will kill a cow, and a 

 much smaller portion, when 

 eaten by a person, is sufficient 

 to bring a swift and distressful 

 death, unless medical aid is im- 

 mediately at hand. (Fig. 210.) 

 Stems stout, smooth, hollow, 

 two to six feet tall, streaked 

 with brown and purple, the 

 color more pronounced at the 

 junction of stem and branches. 

 Leaves pinnately twice or thrice 

 (Cicuta divided, the segments lance- 

 shaped, thin, sharply and rather 

 coarsely toothed, the veins terminating in the notches instead of at 

 the points. Umbels open and spreading, without involucres, the ped- 

 icels in the umbellets unequal in length, giving the clusters an 

 uneven appearance ; like all the Parsley Family, the flowers are 

 very small, five-petaled with five stamens inserted on the disk 

 that crowns the two-celled and two-seeded ovary. In this species 

 the petals are white. Carpels about an eighth of an inch long, 

 ovoid, smooth, each one striped on the convex side with five 

 corky ribs and four brown oil-tubes and on the flat side with two 

 wide corky stripes and two oil-tubes. 



FIG. 210. Water Hemlock 

 maculata). X *. 



