This seems to be a relative of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conium_maculatum
(spotted water hemlock vs poison hemlock)
This exists in Europe. Socrates used this plant to kill himself.
Never ever touch this plant. Don't ask me how I know this. :-(
(spotted water hemlock vs poison hemlock)
This exists in Europe. Socrates used this plant to kill himself.
Never ever touch this plant. Don't ask me how I know this. :-(
Recommend reading the article, not only because of this detail and that your "seems" would have become certainty before posting, it has even more nice points ;)
> There are toxic plants that may kill you but will be nice about it. “Poison hemlock is much better,” says “Wildman” Steve Brill, a New York based foraging expert and tour guide with an encyclopedic knowledge of the edible and not-so-edible plants of the Northeast. “You just stop breathing and your heart stops.” Socrates, when choosing death over a life in exile as an old man, chose poisoning by poison hemlock. It was a gentle death.
> Poison hemlock is related to spotted water hemlock, but, um, only taxonomically, not in the way its poisons affect mammals. Here is Brill’s explanation of what happens when you eat spotted water hemlock:
> Every single muscle starts firing and contracting, so you have convulsions, you chew your tongue into ribbons, you vomit but then you can’t open your mouth because the jaw muscles are contracting 10 or 20 times as hard as they normally do, and you die a horrible death
Also, in this terrible plant family is Cow-Parsnip. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracleum_maximum. If touched, it causes your skin to be excessively sensitive to the sun. It is basically reverse-sunscreen.
Also, are there more details on Socrates' intake of the said plant--any particular recipe or precautions?
https://www.leben-und-erziehen.de/kind/gesundheit/riesenbaer...