C 479 3
C I C U T A virofa.
Water Hemlock. Water Cow-bane.
P E N T A N D R 1 A Digynia.
G en. C har. N o general lnvolucrum. Fruit nearly
ovate, furrowed. Corolla almoft regular.
Spec. C har. Umbels oppofite to the leaves. Stipulae
running up the leaf-ftalks, blunt.
Syn . Cicuta virofa. Linn. Sf. PL 366. Hudf. 12Z.
With. SOS'. Relh. 119.
Sium alteram, Olufatri facie. Rail Syn. 2 12.
H a p p i l y this dangerous plant is not very common. We
received it from Tuddenham-heath, where it was gathered by
the Rev. Mr. Hemfted in Auguft laft. It grows in ditches,
and the margins of rivers, always under water when young,
in which fituation cows and bullocks, to which animals it is a
deadly poifon, fometimes by miftake eat it. By what Haller
has collected it appears to be poifonous alfo to mankind, by
quickly inflaming the ftomach, as well as to the canine genus.
Horfes, hogs, and goats eat it with impunity. Linnaeus in
his Flora Lapponica gives a mod exquifite detail of the reafons
which led him to conclude this plant to be the caufe of a terrible
difeafe among the cattle at Tornoa in Lapland, by which
he rendered an invaluable fervice to that country.
The root is perennial, tuberous, feparated internally into
feveral cavities by tranfverfe partitions. Stem branched, furrowed,
3 or 4 feet high. Leaves twice ternate, the larger pinnate
; their common ftalk bordered a great way up by a membranous
blunt ftipula; leaflets lanceolate, ferrated, fmooth,
bright green. Umbels on footftalks various in length, oppofite
to each leaf, confifting of feveral principal rays (without any
general involucrum), and Hill more numerous Ihort partial rays,
encompafied by an involucrum of many narrow lanceolate leaves.
Calyx fomewhat campanulate. Petals nearly all of a fize, rolled
in, white. Fruit fwelled, of a Ihort ovate figure, ribbed.
The Cicuta virofa can hardly be confounded with any other
Britilh plant, if the form of the leaves and fituation of the
flowers be attended to. Its flavour is foetid and pungent. If it
Ihould unfortunately be taken into the ftomach, a fpeedy emetic
is the belt remedy, or a dofe of oil.