Look up “Sardonic Grin”. It’s one of those things that makes you think this is interesting, and also never going to eat wild plants again.
Comment on Celery
FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io 5 months agoYeah, I am not botanical enough to get this, but presumably it's something poisonous?
Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
flora_explora@beehaw.org 5 months ago
Well, if you are just avoiding Apiaceae (the carrot family) plants aren’t that hard to ID safely and the likelihood of you poisoning yourself should drop by a lot. But yeah, you’d need to learn a bit about plants in the first place and not a lot of people are motivated enough to do that.
xantoxis@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Or hallucinogenic? Although if there were an easy-to-forage hallucinogen that looked like celery I’m pretty sure I’d know about it.
fossilesque@mander.xyz 5 months ago
A trip down the river Styx
Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
The roots of the common reed contain dimethyltryptamine. Not sure if it’s enough to make a tea, never heard of anyone doing it.
Chuymatt@beehaw.org 5 months ago
Hemlock, I believe.
flora_explora@beehaw.org 5 months ago
Apparently it is indeed referring to hemlock (Oenanthe crocata):
Contains oenanthotoxin. The leaves may be eaten safely by livestock, but the stems and especially the carbohydrate-rich roots are much more poisonous. Animals familiar with eating the leaves may eat the roots when these are exposed during ditch clearance – one root is sufficient to kill a cow, and human fatalities are also known in these circumstances. Scientists at the University of Eastern Piedmont in Italy claimed to have identified this as the plant responsible for producing the sardonic grin, and it is the most-likely candidate for the “sardonic herb”, which was a neurotoxic plant used for the ritual killing of elderly people in Phoenician Sardinia. When these people were unable to support themselves, they were intoxicated with this herb and then dropped from a high rock or beaten to death. Criminals were also executed in this way.
(From Wiki page on poisonous plants)
But the main wiki page on Oenanthe crocata doesn’t even mention this.
idiomaddict@feddit.de 5 months ago
Holy fuck, Sardinia. Being dropped from a great height or beaten to death by people I held as babies while tripping sounds like one of the worst ways to go.
flora_explora@beehaw.org 5 months ago
Sounds like the movie Midsommar may have taken some inspiration from it haha
rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Hemlock water-dropwort looks like celery. It causes muscle spasms, which at times results in the victim dying with a grin on their face.
Veritrax@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Looks pretty similar to hemlock.
apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Apiaceae, the carrot family, is full of wild species that are incredibly poisonous. Basically if it looks like a carrot in the wild dont eat it or you might die.
PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 5 months ago
Same goes for if it looks like a Tomato, those are nightshades and the only ones I know about that aren’t deadly to eat are tomatoes and peppers, and the peppers only because the poison they developed doesn’t kill you it just makes you feel like your entire digestive tract is on fire.
apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Eggplants, potatoes, ground cherries, tomatillos, huckleberries are all edible too. That said you are right, if it is growing in the wild assume it will kill you. Don’t eat it.
Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
Huckleberry varieties are all Nightshades? Does that mean blueberries are Nightshades?
Pat_Riot@lemmy.today 5 months ago
Potatoes, believe it or not, are also nightshades.
PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 5 months ago
Actually I’m pretty sure those can poison you if you don’t grab them at the right time
ryannathans@aussie.zone 5 months ago
And tobacco
FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io 5 months ago
Ah ok, so like Queen Anne's Lace and Poison Hemlock?
apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Yeah, water hemlock, cowbane, fool’s parsley, wild parsnip, etc, etc.
fossilesque@mander.xyz 5 months ago
Yes
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Yep. Hemlock is one of them