NY Warning!

[R. Richard]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/agency_warns_giant_plant_that_causes_jvvbCJpwhH3FttpaCyj5BI

Agency warns giant plant that causes blindness, blisters spreading across NY

ALBANY, N.Y. — A monster plant with flowers the size of umbrellas and sap that causes blisters and blindness is spreading across New York.

It's the giant hogweed, an invasive species, and the Department of Environmental Conservation is asking for help locating outbreaks so they can send crews to nip it in the bud.

The agency has a Giant Hogweed Hotline at 845-256-3111 for people to call and report sightings. Callers are asked to provide photos and site information, but avoid touching the plant.

This is DEC's fourth year of controlling giant hogweed. Six crews totaling 14 people will visit most of the 944 known giant hogweed sites. Sites with less than 400 plants will be controlled by hand cutting their roots; sites with more than 400 plants will be controlled with herbicide.

 

[JackLuis]

http://www.nypost.com/rw/nypost/2011/07/05/news/web_photos/ID-PlantHeight151334--300x300.jpg

This is what it looks like.

Ugly sucker isn't it?

 

[Stella_Omega]

WOW!

Wonder what made this weed grow so much bigger in recent years, and spread so suddenly?

Warming trends in the weather perhaps?

Probably just a coincidence.

http://www.nypost.com/rw/nypost/2011/07/05/news/web_photos/ID-PlantHeight151334--300x300.jpg
Actually, it's rather pretty. The leaves look quite classical, and the flowers look like Queen Anne's lace.

 

[Handley_Page]

We get it in the UK.
Until relatively recently, kids would use the stems as a pea-shooter. But the sap tends to cause blisters (we weren't told about blindness), so we keep the kids away when we can.

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Hogweed

 

[R. Richard]

http://www.nypost.com/rw/nypost/2011/07/05/news/web_photos/ID-PlantHeight151334--300x300.jpg

This is what it looks like.

Ugly sucker isn't it?

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Ugly goes all the way to the bone."

 

[voluptuary_manque]

LOL
That plant figured prominently in the first episode of "Rosemary and Thyme", one of HM's favorite Brit mystery series.

There are worse . . .

 

[GrimsPet]

One of my coworkers has a landscaping business on the side and he has come across this a few times already and then called and reported it when he has. Typically he finds only one plant of it so he is told to remove it using caution. He wears gloves, digs it up literally severing the root, which kills it, and then throws it to rot in a place where no one will come into contact with it. I have to have him look at an odd weed in our one garden because it sure looks a lot like this nasty beastie in the leaves.

 

[Boxlicker101]

If this were an endangered species, we would probably be making every effort to save it.

 

[goodgurlgetsbad]

whoa- thanks for the warning

 

[jayce1066]

Thought for a second that I'd fallen into a Night of the Trifids remake.

 

[TE999]

I see by the Wikipedia entry this plant was brought to the US, UK and elsewhere from it's native location in the Caucasus Region and Central Asia as an ornamental. Countless invasive and/or dangerous plants are intentionally brought to other countries because they are pretty. Lacking natural controls, they flourish.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

It's not just plants. " . . . species have been translocated for reasons of “cultural nostalgia,” which refers to instances in which humans who have migrated to new regions have intentionally brought with them familiar organisms. Famous examples include the introduction of starlings to North America by Englishman Eugene Schieffelin, a lover of the works of Shakespeare, who, it is rumoured, wanted to introduce all of the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's plays into the United States. He deliberately released eighty starlings into Central Park in New York City in 1890, and another forty in 1891. Yet another prominent example is the introduction of the European rabbit to Australia by one Thomas Austin, a British landowner who had the rabbits released on his estate in Victoria because he missed hunting them."

 

[manyeyedhydra]

Are you sure it's not Peter Gabriel in disguise

Scary old video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r59Uzgy5GUg

I think that's Phil Collins behind the drums, kind of hard to tell with all the hair...

 

[Stella_Omega]

If this were an endangered species, we would probably be making every effort to save it. eek:

It isn't an endangered species. Your point is pointless.

 

[Darkniciad]

Are you sure it's not Peter Gabriel in disguise

Scary old video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r59Uzgy5GUg

I think that's Phil Collins behind the drums, kind of hard to tell with all the hair...

*Laugh* Yep, that's Phil Collins. Every once in a while, when he's actually in frame and not hidden behind the cymbals, you can recognize the nose.

Hints of the sound that's carried on through the years, and Gabriel's crazy eyes late in the video as well.

 

[MagicaPractica]

The problem with this weed, as I understood it when the warnings came out a few years ago here in NY, is that it causes long term photodermatitis - an allergic reaction to light - with a red itchy rash, including blisters, peeling skin and sometimes nausea.