Friday, May 14, 2010

Poison Hemlock in my Backyard!!

I just killed and disposed of one of the most poisonous plants in North America in my back yard!!! We basically have a wild forest in our backyard complete with Poison hemlock!! It is gone now. It is quite a pretty plant, part of the carrot family with feathery fern like leaves. It grows to be about 2-5 ft. high and flowers white umbel flowers. The stem is spotted with purple dots or stripes. My specimen was about 2 feet tall, not flowered yet. I'll post a picture of it sometime. The Romans used it to kill prisoners. It works pretty fast destroying the nervous system. It is most often confused with wild carrot. So glad to be rid of it!! Know your plants!!

1 comment:

Joy For Your Journey said...

Oh, my! That is a bit scary. I don't think we have any poisonous plants in our yard (that I know of) but we have a lot of poisonous critters we need to look out for. Good thing you knew what the plant was. How tragic it could have been otherwise.