If you see a plant that looks vaguely like this, DON'T TOUCH IT. We are pretty sure this is the super-toxic poison hemlock. It has many relatives that look similar, some of which are not poisonous, but they're very hard to distinguish from one another, and it is not worth taking any chances. Ingestion of a very small quantity of any part of this plant can cause paralysis which ascends from your feet up to your head and can easily cause death by suffocation. There is no antidote for the poison - the only way to save someone poisoned by hemlock is to put them on artificial ventilation for a couple days until the paralysis wears off.
Terrifying, right?? And it looks so innocent!
You can tell this is poison hemlock, and not its nontoxic relative Queen Anne's lace, because of the way you can see each cluster of flowers come up from a seprate little stalk. The clouds of flowers on Queen Anne's lace look flatter and not like a bunch of separate little flower spheres. The leaves are huge and feathery like a fern, and overall triangular-shaped. It is an imposingly large plant: this one was about as tall as me, and they can grow up to eight feet tall!
Found growing directly next to the stairway around 120th street up to the higher west-side path in Morningside Park, Manhattan.
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