Arum
“There are two kinds of hemlock. One, called the great hemlock, is found in damp and uncultivated places. It is very like chervil. Its stems are marked with black or reddish spots. The other, called the little hemlock, resembles parsley. It grows in cultivated fields, hedges, and gardens. Both have a nauseating odor.
“Now here is a poisonous plant very easy to recognize. It is the arum, or, as it is commonly called, cuckoopint or calves’-foot. The arum is common in hedges. The leaves are very broad and shaped like a large lance-head. The blossom is shaped like a donkey’s ear. It is a large yellowish trumpet, from the bottom of which rises a fleshy rod that might be taken for a little finger of butter. This strange flower is succeeded by a bunch of berries as large as peas and of a splendid red color. The whole plant has an unbearable burning taste.”
“Let me tell you, Maître Paul,” put in Mathieu, “what happened one day to my little Lucien. Coming home from school, he saw in the hedge those large flowers you are speaking of, like donkey’s ears; the fleshy rod in the middle looked to him like something good to eat. You have just compared it to a little finger of butter. The thoughtless creature was taken with its looks. He bit into the deceitful finger of butter. What had he done! In a moment his tongue began to burn as if he had bitten a red-hot coal. I saw him come home spitting and making faces. He won’t be taken in again, you may be sure. Luckily he hadn’t swallowed the piece. The next morning he was all right.”
“A similar burning flavor is found in the white milk-like juice that runs from the euphorbia when cut. The euphorbia are plants of mean appearance, very common everywhere. Their flowers, small and yellowish, grow in a head, the even branches of which radiate at the top of the stem. These plants are easily recognized by their white juice, their milk, which runs in abundance from the cut stems. This juice is dangerous, even on the skin alone, if it is tender; its acrid, burning taste is its sufficient characteristic.
Aconites
“The aconites, like digitalis, are fine plants which for their beauty have been introduced in gardens, notwithstanding the violence of their poison. They are found in hilly countries. Their blossoms are blue or yellow, helmet-shaped, and grow in an elegant terminal bunch of the finest effect. Their leaves, of a lustrous green, are cut out in radiating sprays. The aconites are very poisonous. The violence of their poison has given them the name of dog’s-bane and wolf’s-bane. History tells us that formerly arrow-heads and lance-heads were soaked in the juice of the aconites, to poison the wounds made in war and to make them mortal.
“There is sometimes cultivated in our gardens a shrub with large shiny leaves, which do not fall in winter, and with black, oval berries as large as acorns. It is the cherry-bay. All its parts, leaves, flowers, and berries, have the odor of bitter almonds and peach kernels. The leaves of the cherry-bay are sometimes used to give their perfume to cream and milk products. They should be used only with great prudence, for the cherry-bay is extremely poisonous. They even say one has only to remain some time in its shade to become indisposed from its exhalations of a bitter-almond odor.