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"High Quality Native Prairie Wildflower Seed, Grass Seed, CRP Mixes and Plants"
Cicuta maculata - Water Hemlock
Drawing copyright Mark Müller
Apiaceae Family - "Water Hemlock, Beaver Poison, Carotte a Moreau, Cowbane, Musquash root, Spotted Cowbane, Spotted Hemlock"
Cicuta from the ancient Latin for poison hemlock and maculata from the Latin meaning "spotted or mottled", referring to the purple mottling of the stem.
Can be biennial or a short-lived perennial, very stout stem, can reach 7 feet tall. Lower portions of the plant are often lined or mottled with purple. Flat-topped flower are 2 to 5 inches across with tiny individual white flowers about 1/16 inch across. They are fragrant. Blooms are present from June through the early part of July.
About the only logical use of this plant by Native Americans was by the Klamath of the Great Basin. The used a concoction from the root of Water Hemlock mixed with other items as a poison on the tips of their arrows. It is extremely toxic - if ingested, a piece of the tuber the size of a pea is enough to cause death in humans.
