Poison hemlock

Definitely a poisonous hemlock. Note the bright purple stem colorations.

Looks like Hemlock

You know, I smelled it, but it wasn't particularly bad-smelling to me. Kind of sweet, maybe a bit musty. But it's pretty early in the season, and rained recently and obviously I wasn't too keen on possibly huffing toxic alkaloids. The literature describes it as "mousy" -- but that seems so specific, and I don't know what mice smell like, so...?

If it has a wierd smell, then your probably right.

The fact that you found it so lushly growing in mid-February, and on fairly dry ground, plus the purple blotches on the stem, leads me to think that you may be correct in believing this to be Conium maculatum. It's not a native plant here, and King County has an interesting web page that talks about it: http://www.kingcounty.gov/environment/an...