Cicuta maculata. From Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

That the Greek scholar Socrates (ca. 470-399 B.C.) used Cicuta to commit suicide indicates the antiquity of European familiarity with this genus, particularly C. virosa, the Old World species. However, there are seven other species in the genus, including the American plants. Mabberley (1997) thought that possibly Cicuta contains the most violent poisons of all northern temperate plants.