The others being bled and vomited immediately, were secured
from the approach of any bad symptoms. Upon examination of the plant
which the French prisoners mistook for wild celery, Mr. Howell discovered
it to be this plant, which grows very plentifully in the neighbourhood
of Haverfordwest.
Although the above account, which Mr. Wilmer has so minutely described,
seems well attested, and corroborated by the above gentleman, yet I was
informed by the late Mr. Adams, comptroller of the Customs at Pembroke,
that the Oenanthe does not, that he could find, grow in that part of the
country; but that what the above unfortunate French officers did
actually eat was the wild Celery, which grows plentifully in all the wet
places near that town. I take the liberty of mentioning this
circumstance; as it will serve to keep in mind the fact, that celery,
when found wild, and growing in wet places, shold be used cautiously, it
being in such situations of a pernicious tendency. For such whose
curiosity may lead them to become acquainted with the Oenanthe crocata,
it grows in plenty near the Red House in Battersea fields on the Thames'
bank. The water-courses on the marsh at Northfleet have great quantities
of the Apium graveolens growing in them.
Plantae affines.
Cultivated celery differs from it when young, first in the shape and
size of its roots.
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