More roadside flowers

They're beautiful, but ... Look, but don't touch. Even if it's a carrot. Or at least, a typical member of the carrot family. But this one can cause blisters and a rash if the sap that gets on your skin is exposed to sunlight.

Cow parsnip. So called, because it has been used as fodder for livestock; they can touch it with no problems. And parsnips are another one of the carrots.

Cow parsnip umbels. Heracleum maximum. The largest carrot native to this continent.

These are large plants, growing up to 3 metres tall. The leaves may be up to 40 cm. across.

Apart from the size, these are typical carrot plants, like the Queen Anne's Lace that blooms along our shores, the Angelica by my driveway, the parsley that has gone wild in my garden. And parsnips, of course. And celery, if it's allowed to bolt. They all produce these wide clusters of tiny flowers, white or yellow. (Queen Anne's Lace includes a single black or purple flower in the centre of its umbel.)

The much larger relative of these is the Giant Hogweed, an import from Europe. Toxic to humans, invasive, and huge; it grows up to 5 metres tall. Wondering if the one you're looking at is a Giant or a Cow Parsnip? Look at the leaves; the leaves of the Giant Hogweed are deeply toothed, all jagged edges. The Cow Parsnip leaves are more like big, rough Big-Leaf Maple leaves. And the Giant Hogweed's flower umbels can be a metre across.

A polite, sort of tame carrot family member; parsley, in my garden. The same structure, but much smaller. And good in salad and sauces.

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Otra flor que en este mes decoran las carreteras; Heracleum maximum. Míralas, pero no las toques. Aunque es otra de las zanahorias; un miembro típico de la familia Apiaceae. Pero esta planta puede causar urticarias y ampollas si la savia hace contacto con la piel y luego se se expone a la luz solar.

La pastinata de vaca; se ha usado como forrage para el ganado; a las vacas no les causa ningún daño.

    1. Las flores de pastinata de vaca. Esta es la planta de la familia más grande entre las que son nativas en este continente.

    2. Son plantas muy grandes; pueden medir hasta 3 metros, y las hojas se extienden hasta 40 cm. 

Aparte de su tamaño, se parecen a las otras plantas de las zanahorias. tales como la zanahoria silvestre, Daucus carota, (aquí la llamamos Encaje de la Reina Ana), como la Angélica en mi entrada, o el perejil que se ha instalado en mi jardín. O el cilantro, el apio, y otras. Todas tienen esas umbelas con flores pequeñas, blancas o amarillas. (La zanahoria silvestre incluye una sola flor negra o morada en el centro de la umbela.)

El pariente mucho más grande, una planta importada desde Europa, es el Perejil Gigante, Hereacleum mantegazzianum, aquí llamada Hierba de Puercos Gigante. Esta planta es muy tóxica para los humanos, invasora, y enorme; llega hasta 5 metros de altura. ¿Te preguntas si la planta que ves es una de estas o la pastinata de vaca? Mira las hojas; las hojas del Gigante  tienen lóbulos profundamente cortados, muy quebrados. Las hojas de la pastinata de vaca se parecen más a las del arce de hoja grande, pero algo ásperas. Las umbelas de flores del Gigante pueden medir hasta un metro de diámetro.

    3. Un miembro de la familia domesticada, muy gentil. Perejil en mi jardín. Tiene la misma forma que la pastinata grande, pero disminuida. Y va muy bien en ensaladas y salsas.

Hercules

This month, the ditches along the highway going north from Campbell River are full, carpeted in green, yellow, and white. The yellow, unfortunately, is the horribly invasive Scotch broom; the white is cow-parsnip, which belongs here.

Common cow-parsnip, Heracleum maximum, aka H. lanatum.

The genus name Heracleum (from "Hercules") refers to the very large size of all parts of these plants. (Wikipedia)

The flower umbels are usually flat-topped, the leaves large and divided into 3 toothy segments.

I have some difficulty distinguishing the smaller members of the carrot family, such as Queen Anne's lace, Angelica, etc., all with similar flowers and small leaves, but usually growing in different environments. Cow-parsnip is like them, but the leaves are large to huge, coarse, with a swollen base to the stalk. The plant can be anywhere from 1 to 3 metres tall, taller where the ground is damper. It grows on stream banks, in wet ditches, water meadows. And alongside roads in this damp climate.

To the casual observer, many members of the parsley family (Apiaceae) look similar. Many have white umbels of flowers and dissected leaves. Close inspection, however, shows noticeable differences in leaf shape (amount of dissection), flower (umbel) size, and habitat preferences. When identifying species in this family, habitat should be the first separator (wet or dry sites). In southwestern BC, cow parsnip is most easily confused with smaller plants of giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum), but may be separated from that species by its generally smaller size, leaf shape (it sports 3 distinct leaflets), and fruit shape. It may also be mistaken for poison hemlock (Conium maculatum). However, poison hemlock is generally much smaller than giant hogweed, with fern-like leaves and smaller flower umbels. Cow parsnip may also be mistaken for other wet-loving members of the Apiaceae, so care should be taken in the identification. (E-Flora BC)

The young stems are edible: coastal peoples peeled them and ate them raw or boiled. It was important to peel them; the leaves and the outer peel of the stems contain furanocoumarins, which can cause skin irritation and blisters on sunny days. (It needs the combination: exposure to the poison, plus ultraviolet light.)

Flower head, from above, with assorted flies.

Either there are no furanocoumarins on the flowers, or the flies aren't bothered by them.

Wet feet

Campbell River is a long strip of a town; it stretches some 20-odd kilometres along the shore, but at its widest spot, it's barely 2 km. wide. Going east from my place, within minutes I'm off the pavement, driving on meandering, pot-holed gravel roads, seemingly going somewhere, but as often as not petering out into trailheads or just stopping in the middle of the bush, as if the road builders finally ran out of gas.

I love these roads. Even when the potholes are deep enough to hold goldfish, even when I have to crawl along at barely walking pace to keep my teeth in my head, even when I have no idea where I am -- I forgot my GPS again! Because the slower I have to go, the more I get to see. Birds and plants and beckoning trails and unexpected viewpoints; I keep having to park and walk about a while before I drive on.

On the Iron River Road ( I could never find the Iron River on the map, but for a while the road parallels something called the Lower Lost Frog. I couldn't find the poor frog, either; maybe he's in the Iron River.) ... the road is built up to cross a shallow, muddy pool, mostly mud on one side of the road, deeper water on the other. There, a celery-like plant grows in abundance, with its feet in the water, or entirely underwater.

These are completely submerged.

And these have their feet in water.

Zooming in. I think these are Pacific water-parsely, Oenanthe sarmentosa.

This is a perennial in the carrot family. Later it will have clusters of white flowers, similar to those of Queen Anne's Lace, but it's a water lover, growing in bogs and sloughs, along creeks and marshes.

Closer to home on the same road, but out in the open at the edge of the road, I passed a clump of another carroty plant, the cow-parsnip, Heracleum lanatum.

(UPDATE) Dave Wenning, on Twitter, identified this as Petasites frigidus var. palmatus, the Palmate Coltsfoot. The stem leaves and the hint of pink in the flowers fit the coltsfoot better, although the plants were taller than the 20 cm. given as the maximum height. The photo on Wikipedia doesn't look right, but the drawing does.

The tallest of these were only knee-high. It's early in the season.

But they're all blooming already.

And the soldier beetles are busy pollinating.

This plant is sometimes confused with the extremely poisonous water-hemlock. Plants of Coastal British Columbia gives a helpful tip: the lateral leaf veins of the hemlock end at the base of the teeth along the edge of the leaves; in cow-parsnip and other "carrotty" plants, they end at the tip. (Look at the first photo, above.)

More roadside plants, tomorrow.