Farmers in N.D. have always tried to protect themselves from dangers that lurked in everyday life – like lightning, tornadoes, raging bulls, power-and take-off-shafts. One little-remembered menace for farmers and livestock alike was a common plant named cicuta maculata, which also goes by wild parsnip, muskrat weed, or spotted parsley. It’s also more-ominously known as water hemlock, snake root, cowbane, snake weed, and beaver poison.