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Deadly☠️ To avoid

☠️ Poison hemlock

Conium maculatum · Apiaceae

🌳 Temperate Europe🫒 Mediterranean🍁 North America
🧠 To remember it“Spotted stem, mice in your nose” — purple on smooth, stink in the air: hemlock is there.
Poison hemlock — Conium maculatum

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Large umbellifer of ditches and wasteland that looks from a distance like parsley, chervil, or wild carrot, but is recognized by its smooth purple-spotted stem and an unpleasant mousy odor when crushed. This is the plant that killed Socrates, and it remains the most dangerous point of confusion for anyone harvesting wild parsley or cow parsley without expertise.

  1. hollow, smooth, glaucous stem marked with irregular purple spots or streaks
  2. foul, mousy or urine-like smell when crushed, very different from the anise odor of chervil
  3. finely divided leaves, resembling parsley but larger and more delicate
  4. compound white umbels, without a ring of bracts under the main umbel
Size1 à 2,5 m
Floweringmai-juillet
Habitatditches, wasteland, roadsides, rubble, nitrogen-rich soils

⚠️ Not to be confused with

Wild chervil / cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris)none for cow parsley (edible when young)

To tell them apart: cow parsley smells like anise when you crush the leaf and its stem is hairy and unspotted; hemlock smells like mouse and its stem is smooth and purple-spotted

Cultivated parsley or wild carrot (Daucus carota)none for these two

To tell them apart: wild carrot has a hairy stem and often a reddish central flower in the umbel; hemlock has a smooth spotted stem and no colored central flower

Garden angelica (Angelica archangelica)hemlock is deadly, angelica is edible

To tell them apart: angelica gives off a pleasant, musky aromatic smell, never the foul mousy odor of hemlock; its stem is never purple-spotted along its entire length (at most tinted at the base)

Hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium)mortelle

To tell them apart: hemlock has a smooth, hairless, purple-spotted stem and gives off an unpleasant odor recalling mouse urine, whereas hogweed is hairy all over and lacks this odor

Wild fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)hemlock is deadly, fennel is edible

To tell them apart: hemlock has a purple-spotted stem and a foul (mousy) odor compared to the clear anise scent and lack of spots on fennel

☠️ What kills

nomConiine and related alkaloids (gamma-coniceine, N-methylconiine)
dose letale estimeeabout 0,5 to 1 g of coniine, or 6 to 8 fresh leaves or a small handful of seeds for an adult (Toxinz, approx)
delai30 min to 2 h before first signs
symptomessalivation, tremors, ascending muscle weakness from legs to thorax, progressive respiratory paralysis while consciousness remains intact until the end
antidoteno specific antidote; only assisted ventilation can save the person while the toxin is eliminated
morts documenteesyes, historically (death of Socrates, 399 BC, reported by Plato) and in modern toxicological literature, notably through confusion with parsley or chervil

First steps : Call the poison control center immediately: respiratory paralysis may require artificial ventilation even before consciousness is affected. Do not induce vomiting. Keep a piece of the plant for identification.

Sources (3)

No entry replaces a certain identification in the field, or medical advice. When in doubt: don't eat it. If ingestion is suspected: poison control or 112/911.