The giant hogweed articles are becoming more alarmist and sensational. As a gardener/landscaper with experience in this region over the past 40 years, I have never come across the true giant hogweed.
It may exist here, as an escapee from a garden. We probably should eradicate it if we find it.
But what we actually see along the rivers, wet forest edges, meadows and roadside ditches is not giant hogweed (heracleum mantegazzianum), but heracleum lanatum (or maximum), also known as cow parsnip or Indian celery, a native plant.
Cow parsnip can also cause phytophoto dermatitis -- a painful, blistering, scarring rash if any sap on the skin is exposed to the sun. Some people may be more sensitive than others.
These dramatic plants are chiefly distinguished from each other by the shape of their leaves: the larger leaf of giant hogweed has much deeper cuts (deeply palmate); the cow parsnip leaf is a more simple palmate, not as heavily divided.
Cow parsnip is generally shorter. The multi-branched flower-heads can be quite broad at 2.5 feet, but not the four-foot breadth giant hogweed can achieve.
Plants can be opportunists and cow parsnip has rapidly spread, chiefly by man's determination to travel and to lay bare large, connected tracts of the landscape, an open invitation for such plants to 'move in.'
If we garden, hike or have children, it is prudent to learn to identify the amazing plants in our environment. Teach caution before handling an unknown. Learn to control the seeding of noxious weeds.
Here are a couple of the many informative books available at the library: Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest, Lewis Clark; Plants of Coastal British Columbia, Pojar and Mackinnon et al.
Maureen Hoole
Metchosin
