It gave me anxiety watching you handle the plant without gloves on and touching your eyes as you speak. I hope you are okay mate 😟

I can't believe that a "plant expert" is handling Poison Hemlock in this manner! I found out last summer that the incredibly beautiful plant my husband and I had fallen in love with was poison Water Hemlock! Queen Anne's Lace / Yarrow grows wild in the fields around our home so we'd assumed the birds brought it into the plant bed which stretches along the bulk of our terrace because suddenly, there it was in all it's glory...and so damn pretty!! Only when I finally identified it just to be sure did I realize what it was and saw that it was sprouting up in the whole bed! Honestly, I don't know how we managed to avoid death because we'd been brushing past it several times a day...stopping to admire it and i'd even taken photos! So, I did a ton of research and decided to do the Hazmat thing...bought a disposable suit, proper goggles, masks and wore high rubber boots (which I eventually hosed down) and elbow length welding gloves (which I eventually washed in the machine then sun-dried). Taking my time over two full days of cutting the plants down snippet by snippet, carefully laying each one directly into a huge barrel lined with large, extra tough garbage bags that i'd tie up securely and store for a trip to the container park / hazardous materials disposal site. In decades of gardening, this was my first experience with such a situation and I forbid my husband to interfere because his proposed solutions were not responsible, at all. After I got the plants down to just above ground level, I carefully removed the root systems and then covered the entire area with a series of the thick black garbage bags and secured everything with large, heavy stones for the sun to cook the bed down one full month. That took place over June / July, our hottest months, so we won't know until Spring whether or not new seedlings appear but so far so good. Now I know how to identify and (hopefully) eradicate the highly poisonous Water Hemlock with purple-splotched stems in a safe, secure manner.

Like many foragers, this individual considers himself above poisoning. He even touches his eyes and face, the broken stem resting on the back of his hand. The white ichor that seeps from broken stems can easily kill.

I saw two giant hogweeds 😮😮😮

Yeah my father told me as I was kid to NEVER ever ever eat something looking like caraway, cumin, anise etc. outdoors. One of the worst.

Oh my gosh. Everytime you touched the base of the broken stem or when you crushed the leaves to smell and then would unconsciously rub your eye I hoped you were ok...and still do.

If you live in the U.S it might be worth chopping this stuff down because it is invasive here, just not in Europe.

I have seen this plant growing right next to wild carrots here in the US. Thats almost as scary as the deadly mushrooms I see growing in the center of a patch of fun mushrooms.

I saw two giant hogweeds 😮😮😮

Anything that looks carrot top i stay well clear..i just dont want to risk it.

I was not happy to see the presenter handling the hemlock in a cavalier manner. I have just survived being poisoned by the plant, having absorbed the poison just by trying to break a few stems. I was unfamiliar with the plant, but was concerned that my Greyhound would chew it, as she does some other weeds. On bending the stems I noticed a transparent liquid which had lingered on my fingertips. Luckily I survived to tell you about symptoms. The poison starts by attacking the central nervous system and I first experienced a headache. This was followed by extreme pain all along the spine and also in the legs. Sleep was impossible because of the pain and my balance was affected.

Reads about hemlock, dargerous to touch, eat, smell

Thank you, I only googled to check if what I’d seen was hemlock and found your video. Stayed for the whole thing and now subbed as your presentation was so good!

Excellent video! Your botanical knowledge is obviously vast. Thank you for this wonderful and instructive lesson. Apiaceae are indeed fascinating! They help support our organic farm here in Georgia, USA. We all have a dark side.

Netherwent (1 month ago) is absolutely right in their comment. I came on here to make the point that some unfortunates have terrible allergic reactions just from touching it and need hospital treatment. It's best to err on the side of caution and wear gloves - I wear latex ones for pulling up the tiny shoots and gardening gloves for larger ones. I don't think he showed that the stem is a hollow tube. I drip bleach down it to try and kill the roots. The stuff is a determined grower and spreader and horribly invasive - I spend hours trying to keep my garden clear of it.

Great information but would have been better with a couple of close ups when describing the leaves etc but still a great film. Thankyou for sharing, always very informative 🙂👍

Superb. I've just discovered you and your channel. Subbed instantly. Brilliant material. Thank you.

Thanks Marlow. Very useful, and helpful.

Awesome video.. very informative. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

Can never have too many videos on the hemlocks. I am still on an ongoing quest to actually find some and identify it, I keep looking out but any parsley plants I see are almost invariably cow parsley. I did see some impressive plants of Sweet Cicely in the gardens of Leeds castle (haven't spotted it in the wild yet) and immediately recognised it, having grown some before myself, but it never occurred to me the similarity between the leaf shapes. There's no mistaking the smell, though. Interestingly, I am pretty confident in the Leeds castle ground that I actually saw some Hemlock Water Dropwort growing beside a stream, it had broader more flatleaf parsley-type leafs and a very smooth looking stem. Seemed like the ideal place for it.