Conium

"Poison hemlock" redirects here. For other uses of "hemlock", see Hemlock (disambiguation).

Conium
Conium maculatum
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Asterids
Order:	Apiales
Family:	Apiaceae
Subfamily:	Apioideae
Genus:	Conium L.
Species
Conium chaerophylloides (Thunb.) Sond. Conium maculatum L.

Conium (/koʊˈnaɪ.əm/ or /ˈkoʊniəm/) is a genus of one or two species of highly poisonous perennial herbaceous flowering plants in the family Apiaceae, native to Europe and the Mediterranean region as Conium maculatum (known popularly as Hemlock), and to southern Africa as Conium chaerophylloides.

Conium maculatum

19th-century illustration of Conium maculatum

By far the more familiar species is Conium maculatum (Hemlock or Poison Hemlock). It is a herbaceous biennial plant that grows between 1.5–2.5 metres (5–8 ft) tall, with a smooth green stem, usually spotted or streaked with red or purple on the lower half of the stem. The leaves are finely divided and lacy, overall triangular in shape, up to 50 centimetres (20 in) long and 40 centimetres (16 in) broad. The flowers are small, white, clustered in umbels up to 10–15 centimetres (4–6 in) across. When crushed, the leaves and root emit a rank, unpleasant odour often compared to that of parsnips.

Name

C. maculatum is known by several common names. As well as the English "Poison hemlock" and the Irish "Devil's Bread", there are also Beaver Poison, Herb Bennet (not to be confused with Herb Robert), Musquash Root, Poison Parsley, Spotted Corobane, and Spotted Hemlock. The seeds are sometimes called Kecksies or Kex.

Hemlock seed heads in late summer

Conium comes from the Greek konas (meaning to whirl), in reference to vertigo, one of the symptoms of ingesting the plant.

Distribution

C. maculatum is native in temperate regions of Europe, West Asia, as well as North Africa. It has been introduced and naturalised in many other areas, including Asia, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. It is often found on poorly drained soils, particularly near streams, ditches, and other surface water. It also appears on roadsides, edges of cultivated fields, and waste areas. It is considered an Invasive species in twelve U.S. states, including California.

Ecology

C. maculatum grows in damp areas.^{[citation needed]} It is used as a food plant by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Silver-ground Carpet. Poison hemlock flourishes in the spring, when most other forage is gone. All plant parts are poisonous but once the plant is dried, the poison is greatly reduced, although not gone completely.

Biochemistry

C. maculatum is a weed known almost worldwide by its toxicity to many domestic animals and to human beings. It is an Apiaceae, characterized by long, hollow stems, reaching up to 2 m (6 ft 7 in) height at maturity, producing a large amount of lush foliage during its vegetative growth. Its flowers are white, grouped in umbels formed by numerous umbellules. It produces a large number of seeds that allow the plant to form thick stands in modified soils, sometimes encroaching on cultivated fields, to the extent of impeding the growth of any other vegetation inside the C. maculatum area of growth.

Eight piperidinic alkaloids have been identified in this species. Two of them, gamma-coniceine and coniine are generally the most abundant and they account for most of the plant's acute and chronic toxicity. These alkaloids are synthesized by the plant from four acetate units from the metabolic pool, forming a polyketoacid which cyclises through an aminotransferase and forms gamma-coniceine as the parent alkaloid via reduction by a NADPH-dependent reductase.

Poison

Conium contains the pyridine alkaloids coniine, N-methylconiine, conhydrine, pseudoconhydrine and gamma-coniceine (or g-coniceïne), which is the precursor of the other hemlock alkaloids.

The most noted of these chemicals is coniine, which has a chemical structure and pharmacological properties similar to nicotine. Coniine disrupts the workings of the central nervous system through action on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. In high enough concentrations Coniine can be dangerous to humans and livestock. Due to high potency, the ingestion of seemingly small doses can easily result in respiratory collapse and death. Coniine causes death by blocking the neuromuscular junction in a manner similar to curare; this results in an ascending muscular paralysis with eventual paralysis of the respiratory muscles which results in death due to lack of oxygen to the heart and brain. Death can be prevented by artificial ventilation until the effects have worn off 48–72 hours later. For an adult the ingestion of more than 100 mg (0.1 grams) of coniine (approximately 6 to 8 fresh leaves, or a smaller dose of the seeds or root) may be fatal.

Isolation of the alkaloids

Of the total alkaloids of hemlock isolated by the method of Chemnitius and fractionally distilled, the portion boiling up to 190 °C (374 °F) contains most of the coniine, gamma-coniceine and N-methylconiine, while conhydrine and pseudoconhydrine remain in the higher boiling residues. For the separation of coniine from coniceine, Wolffenstein recommends conversion into hydrochlorides. These are dried and extracted with acetone, which dissolves coniceine hydrochloride, leaving the coniine salt, from which the base may then be regenerated. For final purification the coniine is converted into the D-hydrogen tartrate. It is sometimes necessary to start crystallisation by adding a crystal of the desired salt. Von Braun distills the crude mixed alkaloids until the temperature rises to 190 °C (374 °F), benzoylates the distillate, extracts the tertiary bases by shaking an ethereal solution with dilute acid, pours the concentrated ethereal solution into light petroleum to precipitate most of the benzoyl-δ-aminobutyl propyl ketone formed by the action of benzoyl chloride on coniceine, distills the solvent from the filtrate and collects from the residue the fraction boiling at 200–210 °C (392–410 °F)/16 mmHg (2.1 kPa), which is nearly pure benzoylconiine (bp. 203–204 °C (397–399 °F)/16 mmHg). From this a mixture of D- and L-coniines are obtained by hydrolysis, the former predominating.

Conium chaerophylloides

The Southern African type C. chaerophylloides (resembling Chaerophyllum, Cow parsely) is very similar in appearance to C. maculatum, however the stems of C. chaerophylloides are more frequently unspotted. It is found in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa, in similar habitats to C. maculatum. Not all authorities recognize C. chaerophylloides as a separate species and the Southern African representatives may be a relatively recent introduction from Europe.

Uses and effects

Socrates

The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David (1787)

Main article: Trial of Socrates

In ancient Greece, hemlock was used to poison condemned prisoners. The most famous victim of hemlock poisoning is the philosopher Socrates. After being condemned to death for impiety in 399 BC, Socrates was given a potent infusion of the hemlock plant. Plato described Socrates' death in the Phaedo:

The man...laid his hands on him and after a while examined his feet and legs, then pinched his foot hard and asked if he felt it. He said "No"; then after that, his thighs; and passing upwards in this way he showed us that he was growing cold and rigid. And then again he touched him and said that when it reached his heart, he would be gone. The chill had now reached the region about the groin, and uncovering his face, which had been covered, he said – and these were his last words – "Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Pay it and do not neglect it." "That," said Crito, "shall be done; but see if you have anything else to say." To this question he made no reply, but after a little while he moved; the attendant uncovered him; his eyes were fixed. And Crito when he saw it, closed his mouth and eyes.

Although many have questioned whether this is a factual account, careful attention to Plato's words, modern and ancient medicine, and other ancient Greek sources point to the above account being consistent with Conium poisoning.

Effects on animals

C. maculatum is poisonous to animals. In a short time the alkaloids produce a potentially fatal neuromuscular blockage when the respiratory muscles are affected. Acute toxicity, if not lethal, may resolve in the spontaneous recovery of the affected animals provided further exposure is avoided. It has been observed that poisoned animals tend to return to feed on this plant. Chronic toxicity affects only pregnant animals. When they are poisoned by C. maculatum during the fetus's organ formation period, the offspring is born with malformations, mainly palatoschisis and multiple congenital contractures (MCC; frequently described as arthrogryposis). Chronic toxicity is irreversible and although MCC can be surgically corrected in some cases, most of the malformed animals are lost. Since no specific antidote is available, prevention is the only way to deal with the production losses caused by the plant.

Control with herbicides and grazing with less susceptible animals (such as sheep) have been suggested. C. maculatum alkaloids can enter the human food chain via milk and fowl. Such losses may be underestimated, at least in some regions, because of the difficulty in associating malformations with the much earlier maternal poisoning.

Medicinal uses

Poison hemlock has been used as a sedative and for its antispasmodic properties.^{[citation needed]} It was also used by Greek and Persian physicians for a variety of problems, such as arthritis.^{[citation needed]} It was not always effective, however, as the difference between therapeutic and toxic amounts is very slight. Overdoses can produce paralysis and loss of speech, followed by depression of the respiratory function, and then death.

In literature and media

In the 1958 Soviet film The Penkov Affair (Дело было в Пенькове) Larisa can be seen making a hemlock "tea" for the attempted murder of rival Tonia.

Crowned with rank fumiter and furrow weeds,

With burdocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,

Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow

In our sustaining corn.

“

”

King Lear, Act V, Scene VI

Hemlock is referred to in both Shakespeare's King Lear and Hamlet. In King Lear it is mentioned by Cordelia where she describes her missing father, who has become insane, to the Doctor. In Hamlet the old Danish king is revealed to have been murdered with a drop of a substance which may be hemlock dripped into his ear.

Hemlock appears in John Keats' 1819 poem "Ode to a Nightingale":

"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,"

In Agatha Christie's 1942 Five Little Pigs (Poirot Series) "spotted hemlock" is referred to in Poirot's investigation.

Hemlock is mentioned in the 1986 US action film Top Gun, in the bar-scene towards the end of the film, where Charlie finds Maverick drinking and asks jokingly if it's hemlock.

In a 1996 episode of Star Trek: Voyager, "Death Wish," the alien Quinn commits suicide by consuming hemlock.

In 2012 noted Bengali director Srijit Bannerjee directed the film Hemlock Society, the theme of which is suicide and self-destruction.^{[citation needed]}

External links

• "Conium". USDA Agricultural Research Service – Germplasm Resources Information Network. 
• "Conium". Flora Europaea. Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.