The sap and outer hairs of cow parsnip, shown here, contain a chemical which can cause sensitivity to light, skin redness and blistering.
Story last updated at 6/23/2010 - 6:22 pm
Years ago when I first moved to Wrangell, I was unfamiliar with a plant known as nettle and merrily roamed around waist-deep in a large patch of it behind my apartment one day. My bare arms brushed against its leaves as I took my time flipping through the pages of a plant book. Eventually, with no luck at identification, I retreated to the cool shade of the house.
About an hour later, I was alarmed to discover my arms were itching and stinging, a frightening predicament until I made the connection to my outing. Nettle can inject irritating compounds into bare skin. Luckily the rash dissipated in a few hours but lesson learned, I am much more careful about rubbing shoulders with strange plants.
Another rash-producing plant, cow parsnip, grows abundantly in Southeast Alaska. A tall plant with huge leaves and hairy stalks, it often grows thickly, covering entire meadows with its innocent-looking, umbrella-shaped white flowers. Intermingled with other colorful flowers, a field of it might look like an enchanting place to explore. But no matter how enticing it looks, one must not succumb to impulsively hopping and skipping through a field of blossoming cow parsnip while scantily dressed, unless willing to risk severe, blistering dermatitis.
As I understand it, the sap and outer hairs of cow parsnip contain a chemical which causes sensitivity to light and a sort of sunburn including redness and blistering that can be quite serious. A friend recently confided how she had learned the hard way about cow parsnip after using her Alaskan lawn mower, the weed wacker, to level her yard one hot day in sandals, cutoffs and a halter top. It wasn't until the next day that symptoms appeared in the form of a painful, stinging rash with blisters.
Other distressful stories from hikers in shorts can attest to the possible insidious consequences of contact with cow parsnip although it varies with individual sensitivity.
Inhaling smoke from burning cow parsnip can be even more dangerous due to the potential for internal blisters. Children should be warned not to pick this pretty flower or toss it on a campfire.
Devil's club, often reaching ten feet tall, has very large, thorny leaves and formidable, spiky stems. Most of us have made the mistake of brushing against or even accidentally grabbing the prickly leaves or stems, a miscalculation that leads to days of nursing tiny, festering splinters. The striking, red berries contain a toxin and are not edible for people.
Several other plants are very deadly if ingested, such as the beautiful false hellebore with its drooping clusters of greenish-white flowers. Growing quickly to over five feet tall, it is an impressive plant, but best left untouched since handling can cause severe itching and all parts of the plant are toxic. I usually find areas of it along rivers.
Monkshood (or wolfbane) is a gorgeous deadly plant with blue-purple flowers which contains the alkaloid aconitine of which three grains of the root can apparently kill a large human. It has made itself useful since ancient times by providing poison for spear tips and rats.
Baneberry, which offers up extremely shiny red or white berries with tiny black dots on one end is reportedly the only deadly poisonous berry that is native to Alaska. It is quite noticeably different from red huckleberries and should be easy to identify with a good plant book.
These and other poisonous plants around Southeast Alaska are not often a problem because most people don't want to eat bitter, unidentified plants, but it doesn't hurt to familiarize yourself in case a pet or child is messing around with a strange plant or you find yourself forced to forage for survival.
I, for one, can do without itching and rashes - the bugs are bad enough!
