Poison Hemlock

Poison Hemlock

Conium maculatum

Poison Hemlock may be the most famous poisonous plant.  In ancient Greece, it was the method of choice for the death penalty, Socrates being the most famous of the victims.  Shakespeare referred to it in his works and it is often mentioned in literature and movies when an insidious mention of poison is needed.

It is said that eating 6-8 fresh leaves would be enough to kill a man.  It seems rather unlikely that a man would eat that many leaves, but it is certainly dangerous to grazing animals.

It is not native to North America but is quite common.  I have found it in abundance at Eagle Marsh in northeast Indiana.  It has been suggested to remove it from there due to the danger, but I don't think it has been done.  I doubt that anyone would bother eating it, and brushing up against it wouldn't cause any problems.  They do have an intensive program of spraying for invasive plants at that nature preserve, so it may have been sprayed because of it's invasiveness.

I doubt that many people would even recognize it if they saw it.  It looks like every other Apiaceae.



The leaves are double pinnate and fernlike in appearance

Note the purple spotted stem

It's a fairly tall plant, 3-7 feet tall