S8G HEMLOCK. 



light shining green, spotted with purple or brown, and often 

 covered with a blueish exudation, from three to five feet high, 

 and much branched upwards. The lower leaves are very large, 

 tripinnate, alternate, on long striated, concave petioles ; the 

 upper leaves are bipinnate, opposite the branches ; the leaflets 

 are pinnatifid, with lanceolate, obtuse, inciso-serrate segments of 

 a shining green colour above, and paler beneath. The flowers 

 are disposed in umbels of many, spreading radii, with a general 

 involucre of about five leaves, and a partial one of three or 

 four lanceolate leaves, placed externally on one side. The 

 calyx is an obsolete margin. The petals are five, white, 

 obcordate, with a short inflexed point, the outer slightly radiant. 

 The stamens are five, with white capillary filaments, and 

 roundish anthers, scarcely as long as the corolla. The germen 

 is inferior ovate, green, crowned by the whitish disk, supporting 

 two filiform reflexed styles, and obtuse stigmas. The fruit is 

 brownish when ripe, ovate, slightly compressed laterally, divid- 

 ino- into two carpels, each of which is marked with five promi- 

 nent undulated or crenate ridges, the channels much striated 

 and without vittae. The seed has a deep, narrow groove in 

 front. Plate, 2i, fig. 4, (a) entire flower magnified ; (6) fruit. 



This plant is not infrequent in waste places, by hedges 

 and road sides, and near dunghills in this and other European 

 countries. It flowers in June and July. 



To discriminate between this plant and those with which it is 

 sometimes confounded, it is sufficient to observe its shining 

 spotted stem, fetid smell when bruised, the waved ridges of the 

 fruit, the pi-esence of involucres, of which the partial is on one side, 

 and not near so long and pointed as in the Fool's Parsley 

 ( Mthusa Cynapium); while it is nearly thrice the size of the 

 latter. The Rough Chervil (Chcerophylhim temulentmn), having 

 a spotted stem, is sometimes gathered for Hemlock, but it is 

 distinguished by its swollen joints, together with other obvious 

 characters. 



The name is derived from >icoyi,c, a top, " whose whirling 

 motion resembles the giddiness produced in the human brain 

 by a poisonous dose of the juice of this plant." 



Common Hemlock is supposed to be the xovfjov and cic?/f« of the 

 ancients, as it corresponds in many particulars with the descrip- 

 tion given by Dioscorides and Pliny in their respective works; 



