Found at last

Until recently, I’d been anxious about the true identity of an umbelliferous plant in our backyard, because it might be Water Hemlock. A neighbour, confirming it was indeed (fide an allegedy knowledgeable visiting friend), made me worry even more.

Nevertheless, I didn’t quite give up on our plant. It just didn’t quite fit what the field guides said about Water Hemlock, and I still hoped it’d be one of that king of toxic plant’s more delicious relatives.

Indeed, it turned out that the plant was instead the delightful Sweet Cicely, which I’ll feature in another post, once I’ve made the delicious licorice/anise tasting candy from its root (now that I’m confident it won’t kill me).

Never one to be happy for long, though, I was newly anxious (by which I mean eager to the point of anxiety) to see real Water Hemlock in the flesh. One carrot-like plant after another passed my eyes, but none of them fit the bill. In particular, all lacked the purplish stems that was just about the only field mark of hemlock that I could remember (or understand, for that matter, among all that talk of marginal edendations, sheathed bracts, etc etc)..

It figures that this deadly plant would finally appear to me at a swimming hole we took our grandtoddler to (along Lake Bannook in Dartmouth). The miraculous app, iSeek, confirmed it: the very plant, or close to it, that Socrates tanked out on. I checked it out on wikipedia (where else), expecting to find the rumours of its toxicity to be greatly exaggerated, but no, this one’s a doozy. Check it out for yourself.