During our Zoom meeting last night, one of our members asked how to identify a plant. She was trying to determine if the plant she found in her yard was Elderberry or Deadly Water Hemlock. The leaves look rather similar and they are both good sized plants. The reason to know the difference is that Deadly Water Hemlock is very poisonous and it is native in our area. We all may have seen both growing along fences or in ditches along the road.
There are some good YouTube videos that may help with the differentiation between these two plants. A couple videos that seemed to be most helpful can be found at:
https://youtu.be/tBpBzgxRh6k (which shows close ups of the leaves and stems and flowers for comparison, especially the veining of the leaves as well as the stems leading to the leaves) and
https://youtu.be/dsVR9Y3ysZk (which goes into additional detail)
NOTE: When you click to YouTube links, you may first be required to watch an advertisement. Today I got a guitar related ad, so give it a chance and then view the videos.
Perhaps the most helpful information from the videos is that:
1. Water Hemlock is part of the carrot family and unfortunately also looks like Queen Anns Lace flowers (but not Queen Ann’s Lace leaves). Water Hemlock is normally smaller than the mature Elderberry.
2. Both plants have white flowers made up of tiny little petals, but the array of the flowers is different. Water Hemlock tends to have “dome” shaped blooms (think domed umbrellas) versus the more flat shaped bloom of elderberry (think of an umbrella turned inside out and flat).
3. Elderberry flowers form berries; Water Hemlock flowers form seeds, not berries.
4. Most things poisoned from Water Hemlock are animals who graze on it. The root is the most poisonous and evidently cattle like to pull them up and eat that part of the plant. That said, dogs and other animals have been known to chomp on the plant to play with it, versus eat it, and that in itself is very poisonous. Also, though one of the videos shows the person holding the Water Hemlock with their bare hands, you can get the sap on your skin or in your eye which can cause problems. Be cautious when eradicating it from a place where you do not want it (for example, in your yard).
5. The leaves on the two plants are somewhat similar, which makes it more difficult to identify without flowers, however the stalk and stems leading to the leaves are different. The YouTube videos show these differences to help with that distinction.
There are several additional YouTube videos that may further help someone trying to tell the difference between the two plants or trying to tell the difference between Water Hemlock and other carrot family related plants we might find growing in your yard (like Queen Ann’s Lace). When trying to tell the difference between Queen Anns Lace and Deadly Water Hemlock a tell tale distinction is that the poisonous Water Hemlock does NOT have the little burgundy flower in the middle of the blossom and Queen Ann’s Lace does have this tiny burgundy flower in the middle of the blossom.
Happy learning more about our native plants, the good, the bad and the really nasty (despite how pretty their flowers look)!
