Musquashroot

Cicuta maculata, commonly called spotted water hemlock, is a stout, erect perennial herb in the Apiaceae native across most of temperate North America from Alaska and Canada south to Florida and Mexico, growing in wet meadows, marshes, ditches, stream banks and other moist habitats. Plants reach 1 to 2.5 metres tall from a cluster of thickened, fleshy, tuberous roots that house hollow, transversely chambered cavities exuding a yellowish, oily, foul-smelling sap. The stout, hollow, ridged stems are usually conspicuously streaked or mottled with purple. Alternate leaves are two to three times pinnately compound with lanceolate, sharply serrate leaflets 4 to 10 centimetres long; characteristically, the lateral veins of the leaflets terminate in the notches between teeth rather than at the tips. Small white flowers are borne in numerous compound umbels 5 to 12 centimetres across, the rays unequal and lacking conspicuous involucral bracts. The fruit is a small ribbed schizocarp 2 to 4 millimetres long. All parts, especially the roots, contain the highly toxic polyacetylene cicutoxin.