As the Season Turns March
Mar 1, 2026
Lisa Knapp, folk singer and musician known for reworking traditional songs, performs 'Hares on the Mountain' and provides atmospheric folk-song recordings. The conversation wanders riverbanks and boathouses. It touches on spring wildlife, identify‑with‑care foraging and poisonous umbellifers, moon names and Zodiacal Light, lampreys and river legends.
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Always Identify Umbellifers Before Foraging
- Learn to recognise umbellifers because the carrot family includes both edible plants and deadly lookalikes.
- Lia Leendertz warns to identify hemlock water dropwort by shiny hairless stalks, sweet smell and tubers called dead man's fingers to avoid poisoning.
Campers Nearly Poisoned By Deadly Forage Mistake
- A near-fatal foraging mistake occurred when campers boiled a mixture containing hemlock water dropwort into a camp curry.
- Prolonged boiling and identification by a botanist after hospitalisation saved them from death.
Poison Shaped Words And History
- Hemlock water dropwort's toxicity shaped language and history through extreme effects like the 'sardonic grin'.
- Lia Leendertz links its use in ancient Sardinia and muscle-constricting enanthotoxin to cultural tales and Socrates' execution by hemlock.
