Poison Hemlock: toxic beauty! 

A bit risky handling it with bare hands.

What I've learned from a morbid interest in dangerous plants of north America is that anything that looks like Queen Anne's Lace is probably trying to kill me. Between this and giant hogweed, I just avoid even getting near any plant that looks kind of like that.

Decades ago, I tossed out a retail assortment of wildflower seed into a prepared garden bed. Everything came up great but dead center was what looked like a single Queen Anne’s Lace plant. Only it never stopped growing. I know plants much better, now. Back then, not so much. I was in the yard checking out the gardens when a garbage truck broke down across the street. Huge billows of black smoke poured out from the engine drifting into the backyard where I was admiring an almost 9 foot plant that had taken over the garden bed. There was no internet so I couldn’t just run and Google up a definitive answer to what this was. I had edible crops interspersed within most flower beds and often “snacked” while gardening. I pulled off a small portion of leaf, crushed it up and, not smelling anything objectionable, put it in my mouth like an absolute moron. I chewed it, didn’t care much for the taste and spit it out. At that very same moment, a cloud of burning hydraulic fluid passed around me thick enough I couldn’t see for a few seconds. I came out of the cloud coughing and, immediately, not feeling well. I thought I was having a reaction to the hydraulic fumes. Nausea, stomach cramps, lassitude, just feeling like absolute crap. Crawled into bed and watched my vision narrow down to a point until everything was dark. I was out for a couple of days and couldn’t actually manage to get around for almost a week. As soon as I could function, I found the horticulture section and started looking up plants based on what I had but I already knew the answer. So, I pulled that puppy out of the ground, cut it up, bagged it and sent it to the dump. I had touched it many times but I guess the thicker skin of the hand might thwart the toxins maybe? Not sure. Not my first experience with near death but that’s probably the closest I’ve come. Idiot.

Great video. Now to eliminate I have to dig it all up. How to dispose of foliage? Can I burn it?

You're touching it? Should I remove it from our urban garden?

It's an invasive species. Wherever it establishes one plant, it takes over, crowding out native plants.

So confused. All the online sources basically say you should never touch it, but you and few others with RU-vid videos on poison hemlock are holding it without issue. So it’s not crazy irritating to the skin like poison ivy?

Quick check if you're still alive??

I don't like the fact she is breaking off stems potentially exposing herself to the toxic sap.