Posted on 07/05/2011 10:11:32 AM PDT by Scythian
Edited on 07/05/2011 10:13:16 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
We have Wild Parsnip here that looks identical although it doesn’t get more than 8’ tall. I once mowed a small field of this stuff while wearing shorts. Sunlight interacted with the sap which got on my legs. Where this happened large burn blisters formed, the last signs of these things lasted almost a year.
Do they where this plant originated? I’ve never heard of it before.
I’m glad you finally recovered!
My experience was in the mid nineties and I got the impression then that it was a new arrival in Southern Wis. We’re now in Central Wis and it is advancing in this direction.
It does look like queen anne’s lace. Only a lot bigger...
What’s even worse is the Giant Parsnip. Look it up. If you live in NY (and many other places) you have seen this thing everywhere. Looks similar to the Giant Hogweed but is much smaller and has yellow flowers. If you get the fluid it contains on your skin, forget it. You can look forward to a a few weeks if intense iching and then a few MONTHS of nasty blisers and scarring. I know first hand. Beware!
I stand corrected - Wild Parsnip, not Giant Parsnip. I feel you pain, literally. It’s NASTY stuff.
I remembered the song from the first Genesis Live album... “this song is called...Return of the Giant Hogweed”
What?? That picture looks like Queen Ann’s Lace. What’d they do? Or as we call it down here in KY—Chigger Weeds. Chiggers love ‘em.
Just throw in picture up and say that’s the “monster plant”?
Thanks for the warning about the effects of wild parsnip. I have it here and there in my pastures. The horses won’t eat it.
I saved some of my garden parsnip seed for the first time this year. I hope these things didn’t cross.
Strange that you never hear about the Wild Parsnip. I’ve gotten poison ivy as well, and that sure is no picnic. At least with the parsnip, you have to break it and get the fluid on you so it’s somewhat manageable but honestly, it looked like I had some flesh eating disease when I got into it. And it lasted about 6 months on me.
The plant somewhat reminds me of castor bean plants.
Incredibly tall with huge tropical looking leaves. And this thing has huge flowers too.
I never gotten around to getting rid of the wild parsnip plants. Imagine if I had tried to yank them out of the ground with my bare hands! It would have broke into pieces and I would have simply yanked leaves etc. getting juice all over my hands. Of course I would be smacking deer flies off my shaved head and touching my face now and then.
YIKES !!! I would have looked like I had been to The Island of the Mushroom People.
But do they have Canadian Thistles..........
That is exactly what I was going to say! Queen Anne’s Lace is along every roadside and fence row across the South.
I have wild parnip on my land right now. I don’t mind, though, it keeps my jerk of a neighbor off my property, and at the right stage it’s really quite tasty!
(Note: wild pansips are genetically the same as garden parnsips, just wait until a good freeze has killed the tops, and dig up the first-year roots. They look like white carrots, smell like bananas, and are wonderful roasted in the oven until tender.)
It is further distinguished by a stout, dark reddish-purple stem and spotted leaf stalks that are hollow and produce sturdy bristles. Stems vary from 3–8 cm in diameter, occasionally up to 10 cm. The stem shows a purplish-red pigmentation with raised nodules. Each purple spot on the stem surrounds a hair, and there are large, coarse white hairs at the base of the leaf stalk. The plant has deeply incised compound leaves which grow up to 1-1.7 m in width.
Giant Hogweed is a short lived perennial (lasting typically between 5-7 years) with tuberous rootstalks that form perennating buds each year. It flowers in its final year from late spring to mid summer, with numerous white flowers clustered in an umbrella-shaped head that is up to 80 cm (2.5 ft) in diameter across its flat top. The plant produces 1,500 to 100,000 flattened, 1 cm long, oval dry seeds that have a broadly rounded base and broad marginal ridges. After seeds have set the individual plant dies. Plants in earlier stages of growth die down in the autumn. Tall dead stems may mark its locations during winter.
Daucus carota is a variable biennial plant, usually growing up to 1 m tall and flowering from June to August. The umbels are claret-coloured or pale pink before they open, then bright white and rounded when in full flower, measuring 3–7 cm wide with a festoon of bracts beneath; finally, as they turn to seed, they contract and become concave like a bird's nest. The dried umbels detach from the plant, becoming tumbleweeds.
Very similar in appearance to the deadly poison hemlock, Daucus carota is distinguished by a mix of bi-pinnate and tri-pinnate leaves, fine hairs on its stems and leaves, a root that smells like carrots, and occasionally a single dark red flower in its center.
Example, young trees need clear areas to grow and dead wood needs to be cleared out. We can do that by active management which means harvesting older trees and clear cutting some areas or we can let nature do it. She burns the place to the ground.
I agree with you that one of the things we need to start doing is actively managing the "wilderness". It is better for the wilderness and better for us.
No, nature is prone to catastrophic events. Humans use prospective disturbance to break that regularity. The result can be BOTH more variety and more productive density. Now, such has not been the record of humans over recent millennia, but it is neither beyond our capability nor our better inclinations. Nature doesn't give a crap if all life on earth went extinct.
Example, young trees need clear areas to grow and dead wood needs to be cleared out. We can do that by active management which means harvesting older trees and clear cutting some areas or we can let nature do it. She burns the place to the ground.
Or we can burn it once a year and you'll get a mosaic fire.
I agree with you that one of the things we need to start doing is actively managing the "wilderness". It is better for the wilderness and better for us.
Yup.
The poison Hemlock looks much like Queen Anne’s lace also.
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