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Thread: Giant Horror Plant That Causes 3rd Degree Burns Has Spread to Yet Another US State

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    Default Giant Horror Plant That Causes 3rd Degree Burns Has Spread to Yet Another US State



    (NYS DEC/Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

    Giant Horror Plant That Causes 3rd Degree Burns Has Spread to Yet Another US State


    DO NOT TOUCH.

    SIGNE DEAN
    18 JUN 2018


    If Hollywood wanted to make a movie about a horrifying plant invasion, giant hogweeds would make a great candidate for the lead role - they are absolutely massive, incredibly toxic, and readily spread wherever their seeds take root.

    Listed as a noxious weed in at least eight states, last week the giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) was spotted in Virginia for the first time.

    According to reports from the Massey Herbarium at Virginia Tech university, about 30 of these towering plants have been found in Clarke County, and locals are warned to keep an eye out for sightings.

    Today I helped ID VA's first giant hogweed population! Its sap causes severe burns. One plant was found in Clarke County. Report sightings to your extension agent! ID help: https://t.co/VMkYqyaccB Thanks to @herbariumkeeper and @VTAgWeeds for ID help and report! pic.twitter.com/4BM9RhyMem
    — VT Massey Herbarium (@MasseyHerbarium) June 12, 2018

    Native to the Caucasus region, the statuesque plant looks like a huge mutant version of the benign common hogweed - but it can cause severe skin burns if you so much as brush against the bristles on its stalks.

    Those bristles, along with the rest of the plant, emit a nasty sap that chemically irritates the skin causing phototoxicity - severe damage to the skin through exposure to sunlight and UV rays.

    As a result, one can get huge, oozing blisters that can leave behind scars and photosensitivity for many years (you can see some NSFW photos of giant hogweed-caused blisters here.)

    But unless you're familiar with its nasty secret, you might think the giant hogweed looks cool - these large plants can grow more than 4 metres (14 feet) tall, spreading their huge leaves and producing massive umbrella-shaped clusters of white flowers.

    After Britain first made the mistake in the 19th century, as an "ornamental" garden plant it was also introduced to North America just a few decades later, and since then it's been a battle to stop the flowering monster's march across the continent.



    Hogweed warning sign in Ontario, Canada (Gavin Edmonstone/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0)
    Once you have an infestation, it takes a lot of work to control the giant hogweed to prevent its spread, as its seeds - each plant can shed thousands - remain viable in the soil for several years.

    "In some cases, a giant hogweed infestation is best controlled using several different methods in combination or in succession - in other words, a two, three, or even four-pronged attack plan," explains the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (NYDEC).

    Those methods involve cutting the plant roots, removing seed heads, mowing them down when they're still small, and even dosing the whole thing with herbicide. Of course, going anywhere near a giant hogweed requires protective gear.

    Weirdly enough, H. mantegazzianum isn't even the only horror weed that's come to plague the world from its Caucasus origins.

    The closely related H. sosnowskyi species, discovered in Georgia in the 1930s, was brought into the Soviet Union for growing as cattle feed.

    These days, it is by far the scariest plant you could find in the Baltic States and Poland, where it's considered highly invasive.

    It's easy to imagine that one day far in the future, when humans are all dead, whole swathes of our planet could be overgrown with this incredibly toxic, fast-growing plant. Movie writers, you're welcome.

    To learn about the identification of giant hogweed and compare it to common look-alikes, check out the NYDEC site here.

    https://www.sciencealert.com/invasiv...-clarke-county
    ”The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” - Margaret Thatcher

  2. #2
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    Oh oh this so called flower is about to bloom. Once every 7 to 10 years an does it smell Horrible in fact it stinks. And they call it The Corpse Flower and it blooms up to 36 hours, every 7 to 10 years



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    Feed Me, Feed Me The plant that liked human Blood. Feed Me.


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    The Day of the Triffids is a 1951 post-apocalyptic novel by the English science fiction author John Wyndham


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    I've never heard of giant hogweed much less ever seen any. It must not grow this far south. It sounds quite nasty.

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    Can you imagine the harm you could do with this plant?
    Put sap in someone's coffee/food, etc.
    Very bad.
    Remember the Prepper's Motto: "Panic early and avoid the rush!"
    Everything I post is Fiction and shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Samuel Adams View Post
    Looks and sounds just like our "poison parsnip".....only parsnip is not quite as big, and the flower is yellow.
    Water hemlock.
    Every year someone dies mistaking it for regular parsnip.
    Remember the Prepper's Motto: "Panic early and avoid the rush!"
    Everything I post is Fiction and shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone.
    88 = Heil Hitler


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    Quote Originally Posted by Samuel Adams View Post
    Looks and sounds just like our "poison parsnip".....only parsnip is not quite as big, and the flower is yellow.

    Same modus operandi......
    Except about 10x the potency!!

    This stuff will give you THIRD DEGREE burns! That's full thickness... through the skin and into tendons and bones... NOT something you want, believe me!

    Plus, affected areas, even those "mildly" affected (you know, the ones you got the sap washed off from fairly quickly, which "only" had second degree burns and blisters) will sunburn BADLY for years to come. If you get it on your face, you essentially will be permanently disfigured. This is one NASTY plant.

    Hoppalong... not sure what you're implying with your silly, off topic posts, but if you are attempting to say that the concern over Giant Hogweed is overstated... you are DEAD WRONG.

    The only plant that concerns me more locally is the highly poisonous Poison Hemlock that has inexplicably taken over our township (and county... and probably adjacent counties as well) within the past 10 years. I honestly can't ever remember seeing a plant or patch of the stuff up to about 6 years ago... since then, it's everywhere. This is the plant they used to execute Socrates... it is one of the most poisonous plants on Earth. Children have died from simply cutting a stem (they're hollow) and using it as a whistle! A single leaf eaten can kill an adult. There is no antidote, and no treatment.

    We spend more money than we can afford every spring running around spraying patches of the stuff on our farm. A big part of the problem is the local highway departments have gone from mowing roadsides twice in a summer, once in early June and then again in August, to simply one late August mowing. This keeps saplings and large brush from growing up (somewhat), but it also spreads the seeds of the PH, which are nicely ripe about then. If they cut in June like they used to, the plants are in full bloom and they'd eliminate most of the seed production.

    The only saving grace is that the seeds are exceptionally short lived... only 2-3 years. We figure if we can keep patches and even individual plants from going to seed for 4 years, we can eradicate it from our farm, except for the inevitable plants that will spring up from seeds brought in by animals and the wind.

    Since it doesn't lose toxicity when dried in hay or made into baleage, it's especially concerning. It only takes a few ounces in hay to be fatal to a cow or horse, and I especially worry about our miniature horse- all 300# of her!- getting a mouthful in a flake of hay.

    This is one more plant that was brought in by stupid people, who "loved the way it looked", and never thought for a second about potential harm to others. I get SO SICK of stuff like that!

    BTW, the biggest danger from this plant, or Cow Parsnip (the above mentioned "poison parsnip"... it's also called Wild Parsnip) is if you're weed whacking, especially when the plants are young and you don't recognize the leaves. If you are wearing shorts, or even if you get enough sap on long pants to soak through, you can end up with nasty burns, even from the much-less potent Cow Parsnip...

    Summerthyme

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