USEFUL WILD PLANTS 



occur, also inhabiting marshy places, and all are 

 possessed of the same deadly properties. 



The famous Poison Hemlock of Greek history and 

 Macbeth's witches {Conium maculatum, L.) — the 

 basis of the death potion of Socrates — is also a mem- 

 ber of the Parsley family, native to Europe and Asia 

 but now extensively naturalized in the United States 

 in waste grounds on both sides of the continent. It 

 is a smooth, hollow-stemmed, much branched, bluish- 

 green biennial, sometimes as high as a tall man, but 

 usually much lower, with large, coarsely dissected 

 leaves, the leaf-stalks dilated at the base and sheath- 

 ing. The stems are often spotted with dark purple. 

 The small white flowers appear in June in compound, 

 many-rayed umbels. The poisonous principle — an 

 alkaloid called conia or conine — is permanently resi- 

 dent in the seeds and only temporarily in other parts 

 of the plant. According to Chesnut, the root is 

 nearly harmless in March, but dangerous if consumed 

 afterwards, and the leaves become poisonous at the 

 time of flowering. The effect of the poison is a 

 general paralysis of the system until death. A drug, 

 conium, prepared from the plant, is a powerful seda- 

 tive and has been used medicinally as a substitute for 

 opium.^ 



2 One wonders why hemlock, which we associate with a forest 



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