of the most virulent of European vegetables. It seems well entitled to this character in general; but climate, or some other more obscure cause, renders it inert in some situations.
It is said to be liable to be confounded with common hemlock, or Conium maculatum,—a mistake which can happen only in very ignorant hands. It has smooth, dark-green leaves, more fleshy, and much less minutely divided, than those of hemlock; it presents a purplish appearance at the joints only of the stem, and no diffused purple spots; its fruit is oblong and black, not round, rough, and light brown; and its root, instead of being single, long, tapering, and little branched, consists of from two to ten tubers, like fingers, which are white, and terminate in a few rootlets. These tubers are formed annually in summer from the flowering stem of the season, and send out flowering stems the subsequent year. During the first autumn, winter, and spring they are firm, white, and amylaceous; but in their second summer they become more pulpy, less amylaceous, and grayer. At all times they emit, when broken across, an oleo-resinous juice, which quickly becomes yellow; this juice abounds most when the plant, which is growing at their expense, is about to flower; and it abounds much more at this period in localities in the south of England, than in Scotland, especially in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh.
Brotero and some others have attempted to subdivide the species into two, the Œnanthe crocata proper, and the Œ. apiifolia. But the best authorities deny that these can be distinguished; and from what I have now seen in sundry localities, it appears to me that the distinctions pointed out by Brotero, confessedly obscure enough in themselves, are the result of differences in climate, soil, and situation.
The only analysis of this plant with which I am acquainted is one executed in 1830 by MM. Cormerais and Pihan-Dufeillay, who found in the root a resinoid matter, which adheres obstinately to the solid portion of it, and which seems to be the active ingredient.[1] I have subjected the roots to various processes, and among the rest to that by which Geiger detected conia in hemlock, but without discovering any indication of the existence of an alkaloid. My materials, however, were not well fitted for a chemical analysis; because the œnanthe root of this neighbourhood is inert or nearly so. The whole plant contains a heavy-smelling volatile oil, which may be obtained by distillation in the usual way, and most abundantly from the ripe seeds. This oil is yellowish, viscid, and inert.
It is strange that a plant, so universally considered a potent poison, and so frequently the cause of fatal accidents, has not yet been made the subject of physiological investigation. A few imperfect experiments by M. Cormerais and his companion, made with the resinoid matter of the roots, show that this substance produces in animals dulness, convulsions of the voluntary muscles, a semi-paralytic state of the hind legs, and sometimes shortness of breath, vomiting, and fluid evacuations by stool. All the animals experimented on recovered. On repeating these experiments with larger quantities I found the resin of the root, grown near Woolwich, and kindly sent to me by
- ↑ Journal de Chimie Médicale, 1830.
