I know, all of the carrot family of plants look the same when in flower, just compare this to photos of hogweed! The obvious thing about hemlock water-dropwort is that you always find it with its roots in water; ditches, drainage channels, marshes and so on. It also has leaves that are very different from hogweed and other similar species.
Hemlock water-dropwort is another very common umbellifer flowering from May through to the end of July and it can be found almost anywhere the ground is usually wet, it does not grow in water as such, it loves mud.
As with its cousins it is a very popular food plant for insects, mainly beetles and flies, and each flower head is a mini habitat of its own.
As the name perhaps implies with its 'hemlock' label this is a poisonous plant and is best left alone. There have been instances of dogs being poisoned by the plant leading to calls for it to be eliminated ... which would be a certainly impossible task!
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