Water Hemlock

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Peanut

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I’ve been meaning to post this, took the photos a couple weeks ago. These photos are of Water Hemlock aka Cicuta maculate. It's still blooming, saw it today.

Experts classify it as one of the 5 most deadly plants in North America. They also claim it causes the most painful death of any plant in North America. (I wonder how they know that?)

Why would I put this in “Natural Remedies”? Simple, it is used as medicine. It’s an extremely powerful pain reliever, similar in strength to morphine. Even better, it’s not addictive. Of course, if you make a mistake in preparation or dosage, you’ll feel no pain forever. Again, an extremely dangerous plant… If you wish to learn to make a medicine from it and how it’s used, I urge you to find someone local who can teach you. This is not a plant to be learning about from you tub.

There are two other plants that are very similar and cause for concern, Elderberry and Hairy Angelica. The one that is cause for the most concern is Elderberry. Elderberry and water hemlock bloom at the same time. Sometimes they grow within feet of each other. Their blooms are similar, both in color and structure.

The leaves of all 3 species are pinnately compound with toothed edges, again, very similar. The leaves of all 3 species vary greatly from plant to plant, sometimes narrow and long, sometimes shorter and fatter. Sometimes the toothed edges are more pronounced, sometimes less so.

I and many other people harvest the blooms of elderberry to make tincture, wonderful for colds or the flu, a powerful antiviral. Elderberry thread… Elder

I avoided this problem for several years. Water hemlock always grows in swampy/boggy areas, never in dry areas. Elderberry will grow in the same locations but also grows in dry areas far from water. I only harvested elderberry blooms from plants in dry locations until I had enough experience with both species to be 100% sure of the identity of each.

Now for Hairy Angelica aka Angelica venosa… It’s in the same plant family as water hemlock and so similar in every respect that its spooky! The leaves, blooms, branches, even the coloration of the stems are almost identical. Even after I identified a patch of hairy angelica it was another couple of years before I would touch the plants without gloves. Hairy Angelica is also a natural remedy I posted about here…

Bo Hog Root

Hairy Angelica tends to bloom later than water hemlock by a month. Also, hairy angelica never grows in bogs.

Anyway, I thought Water Hemlock should be posted if for nothing else as a warning… those pretty white blooms beside the highway just might kill you!

Water Hemlock G  (1)a.JPG
Water Hemlock G  (2)a.JPG
Water Hemlock G  (3)a.JPG
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Some elder bush grow to 36 inches, but most grow 60 to 84 inches & should not be mistaken for the other two, when it is taller then they do.
So if one always cut blooms from a tall elder then they would safe, right?
These photos are of Water Hemlock aka Cicuta maculate, blooms look like wild carrot a little.
 
Water hemlock and wild carrot are cousins, same plant family. Yes, the blooms look very similar but thats were the similarity ends. But, the one that looks almost identical to wild carrot is poison hemlock(Conium maculatum).

Elder also has a woody stem with bark. Elder can grow to 15ft but don't go by the height to judge either species. Are you harvesting elder blooms? If so you should be able to positively identify elder and know why it's different than any other species. If you can't I don't recommend harvesting elder blooms. Find someone local who can take you out and teach you.
 
Water hemlock and wild carrot are cousins, same plant family. Yes, the blooms look very similar but thats were the similarity ends. But, the one that looks almost identical to wild carrot is poison hemlock(Conium maculatum).

Elder also has a woody stem with bark. Elder can grow to 15ft but don't go by the height to judge either species. Are you harvesting elder blooms? If so you should be able to positively identify elder and know why it's different than any other species. If you can't I don't recommend harvesting elder blooms. Find someone local who can take you out and teach you.
I had read that "Queen Anns Lace" was related to carrots. The roots of Queen Anne's Lace look a lot like carrots only white.

Q
Am i correct in understandint that Elder is the plant that grow elderberries?

I ask because The Princess brought home elderberry plants for me to grow for elderberry wine and pies. Dont want poison us.

Thank you

Ben
 
I had read that "Queen Anns Lace" was related to carrots. The roots of Queen Anne's Lace look a lot like carrots only white.

Q
Am i correct in understandint that Elder is the plant that grow elderberries?

I ask because The Princess brought home elderberry plants for me to grow for elderberry wine and pies. Dont want poison us.

Thank you

Ben
"Queen Anns Lace" aka Daucus carota IS carrots. The carrot on your table came from the domestication of QAL. If you let your domesticated carrots reproduce "go to seed" in the same place and stop cultivating it... it will revert to its wild state in 2-3years. I read in a forum someone try to claim that heirloom seeds won't revert. In point of fact heirloom seeds will revert quicker than modern varieties.

Buying elderberry plants is the easiest way to rule out choosing the wrong plants in the wild.
 
"Queen Anns Lace" aka Daucus carota IS carrots. The carrot on your table came from the domestication of QAL. If you let your domesticated carrots reproduce "go to seed" in the same place and stop cultivating it... it will revert to its wild state in 2-3years. I read in a forum someone try to claim that heirloom seeds won't revert. In point of fact heirloom seeds will revert quicker than modern varieties.

Buying elderberry plants is the easiest way to rule out choosing the wrong plants in the wild.
Cool thank you!

Ben
 
I thought I should post this pic. It was taken less than a mile from the above photos. If you look at the right edge you'll see a highway.

This large state highway runs along the edge of a swamp for 20miles. The ditches on both sides of the road are boggy and filled with water hemlock and elderberry. People drive that road everyday. In May or June they are probably thinking "Look at those pretty white flowers!" Never realizing how deadly those pretty white flowers are... I'm amazed that every year passes without some one stopping to pick them.

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There are actually more than one species of water hemlock. The most common is in the photos I've posted here, "Cicuta maculate". It covers most of North America south of the arctic circle.

The one that is most common in the Norhtwestern US is "Cicuta douglasii"

Here are links to a few paragraphs everyone should read if you lived close to swampy, boggy areas. They give very good descriptions of the plants, poisonings and show maps.

https://www.ars.usda.gov/pacific-we...research/docs/water-hemlock-cicuta-douglasii/
https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/cicuta_maculata.shtml
 
As you said Peanut, the Water Hemlock is a herbal stem, not a woody stem in the above picture. Is it about 45 inches high in the ditches?
 
As you said Peanut, the Water Hemlock is a herbal stem, not a woody stem in the above picture. Is it about 45 inches high in the ditches?

I've seen water hemlock 9ft tall and 2ft tall... in the pic on post #8 it's 7ft tall. Height isn't going to help you identify it. In fact height almost never helps identify any herb. Height is a result of soil fertility and water which varies location to location and season to season. To identify rely on the bloom first, its the same no matter how tall the plant is, leaves next, again doesn't change with height... then find something else unique to a species.
 
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I meant to post this photo back in Jun but it got misplaced. It looks like any mass of plant growth, but it's not.

For many years I've seen Elderberry and Water Hemlock growing within yards of each other. However, I've never seen them touching each other.

This photo is of two shrubs intertwined. One is elder, the other hemlock. Both are in bloom. I circled and the blooms and labeled them.

This is why I warn folks who come to the farm so strongly about hemlock when I teach about Elder. People need to know about elder, it's an incredibly versatile medicine, every part is medicine with a wide range of uses.

They should also know water hemlock and be absolutely sure about the identity of any plant they harvest.

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Elderberry is thicker stems & after a year or two the stem of elderberry will be woody, if it is not mowed or cut down.
Is this a correct statement?
 
At my local park last week were some small white flowers clustered together, stems 2-3 ft. tall. I know it is not QAL, and since it is not so similar in appearance to that, I'm assuming it is not hemlock. The leaves are different from what you posted. I used to pick QAL as a little kid all the time in the fields of Virginia and Maryland.
Thank you for the photos. I took photos too out of concern that they'd be poison. They were at the top edges of a ravine-like area where the creek runs through.
I will try to get the photos posted.
 

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