PlantFiles: Poison Hemlock
Conium maculatum

This beautiful plant appeared at the corner of my acre
of flowers last year. It grew about 3 ft and was covered
with lacy foilage. I thought it must be pretty hardy to survive our 20 below winters here in Ohio. I decided to keep it to see what it would be. We live in a conservancy
district that consists of black Carlisle muckland. Our
fields flood every spring and I do lose a lot of plants.
This survived, and with the high heat we had this summer,
it grew to eight feet. I was stunned. It was beautiful.
I went online to this site and discovered this was a poison
hemlock. Thanks to all you people for putting your pictures on. I took the plant out before it went to seed.
Sent seeds to the landfill. The root I dug out was huge.
My memories will be in my pictures. We try to keep our
conservancy district plants natural to their habitat.

Poison Hemlock Conium maculatum is Naturalized to Texas and other States and is considered an Invasive plant in Texas.

Instead of looking at the leaves to determine if the plant is poison hemlock or queen anne's lace, observe the stem. Hemlock is smooth, has ribbing that runs the length of the plant much like celery only smoothly. Queen Anne's lace is prickly along the main stem. There are times when you won't see the red pin prick in the center of Queen Anne's lace flowers but the stem is either smooth and poisonous and that is hemlock or it is very prickly for queen anne's lace. If in doubt ever, stay away from it. I pull hemlock out always.

I do not cultivate this plant, it grows wild in my area.

This is a tall plant, usually over 6', with many branches, usually a biennial. It produces a thick rosette of ferny leaves the first year, sends up a multi-branched stem the second that is covered in many umbels of white flowers.

It favors, waste places, weedy roadsides and damp woodland borders throughout the East except for Newfoundland and the Arctic. It is also seen in the West.

It is identified by the deeply toothed compound leaflets. The leaf veins run to the tips of the lobes or teeth, rather than into the notches between them.

As stated above, it is highly toxic and care should be taken when handling it and keep it from grazing farm animals.

Poison hemlock is often found growing wild in marsh and waterside areas here in northeastern Florida. It's a hazard to anyone looking for wild carrots, parsley and the like because of its toxicity and resemblance to these plants. It was used by the greeks to put people to death (the dried roots were made into a toxic "tea")