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Comment by giarc | Hacker News Reader

Ok it's obvious I can't eat this... but what happens if I touch it?

Nothing serious unless you have an open cut and crush the plant or break the leaves. As long as you respect its integrity you could "pet it" gently perfectly.

Just watch for not shallowing accidentally any part of the plant, and wash your hands later from removing pollen traces

This is part of the problem with the plant. Zero warnings in a beautiful delicate wild flower. Wolfsbane is worse in that sense.

What about honey made by bees who collected the hemlock flower pollen? There's some inception.

Will not happen probably. I doubt that bees would be interested at all.

> Intoxication has also been reported following skin contact with the plant; a case was reported where a family of five people rubbed the plant onto the skin and were poisoned, with two children dying

From Wikipedia

Looks like a tale or a misidentification. Rubbing (applying/firmly pressing) hemlock against the skin would lead to blisters, not to death, unless rubbing is applied directly on skin cuts. If the wikipedia history is true, the real poisoning was secondary and probably inner (Either for breathing in a place with lots of plants, or accidentally shallowing small chunks, or a crime disguised as accident)

My bet would be that they mistoken it for something edible/medicinal and tried to make an antimosquito recipe. Children always take a quick bit of anything that their parents show them as interesting.

The link in the article to a book from 1939 on suicides among the Iroquois tribes is interesting. It contains some accounts of the root being used to make poultices for rheumatism and arthritis.

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