PHELLANDRIUM, WATER-HEMLOCK; a genus of the digynia order, belonging to the pentandria class of plants. There are two species, one of which, viz. the aquaticum, is a native of Britain. This grows in ditches and ponds, but is not very common. The stalk is remarkably thick and dichotomous, and grows in the water. It is a poison to horses, bringing upon them, as Linnaeus informs us, a kind of palsy; which, however, he supposes to be owing not so much to the noxious qualities of the plant itself, as to those of an
Phengites insect which feeds upon it, breeding within the stalks, and which he calls curculio parapedicus. The Swedes give swine's dung for the cure. The feeds are sometimes given in intermittent fevers, and the leaves are by some added to discontinue catarrhs. In the winter, the roots and stem, dissected by the influence of the weather, afford a very curious skeleton or network. Horses, sheep, and goats, eat the plant; swine are not fond of it; cows refuse it.