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Its sap can cause nasty burns that can leave permanent scarring and associated discoloring.
Updated: 1 minute agoCow parsnip seed heads ripen in the midsummer season. Photographed in July 2024. There is probably lots of cow parsnip all over the Lower 48 states, but I don’t remember ever seeing it while living there.
You can’t miss it here, that is for sure. It is officially known as Heracleum maximum. Even if you don’t know Latin , you can tell from the the words that I am writing about a really, really big plant given the reference to Hercules and all that. TheOur cow parsnip can rise up to 10 feet as it does incredibly well here.
It has a very distinct flower, always described in the literature as “like those in the carrot family. ” What? Who in their right mind lets the season’s carrots go to flower? Still, if you live here, you know what cow parsnip flowers look like.
There are all sorts of nasty names given to cow parsnip. Many are utterly and unacceptably racist, but one name I can use is “Satan’s celery. ” That name pretty much sums up human interactions with this plant. We don’t have poison ivy or poison oak here in Alaska.
No need to teach youngsters here how to identify those. No, cow parsnip is the one plant you teach young children, new arrivals and even visitors not to fool with. Cow parsnip’s sap causes a nasty burn known as phytophotodermatitis because it contains chemicals, specifically furanocoumarins, that make skin very, very sensitive to UV rays, i.e. sunlight.
I suppose if you brushed up against one of these plants at night and immediately cleaned your skin, you could avoid any rashes and the associated pain. Still, it is a supposition not worth testing, given the pain the blisters caused by contact can inflict.
Apparently, you can even end up with permanent scarring and associated discoloring. I read about one inflicted soul who tried to soothe things with “hydrocortisone cream, calamine lotion, lavender oil, burn relief spray, oatmeal baths, topical steroid cream and Benadryl. ” Nothing seemed to put out the fire. The only thing that brought any relief was ice, either in baths or applied directly to the skin.
Ouch. Amazingly, a plant that can inflict such painful blisters is a traditional, green vegetable that used to be eaten by some of the Native groups in Alaska. Stems were peeled and eaten raw either boiled, or mixed with some sort of animal oil. Given the blisters this plant can cause, you would have to be pretty foolish to try it.
This is not a like a hot pepper eating competition plant. Do not even think about it. All of this by way of answering a reader’s question as to why there is so much cow parsnip around this year. Look how many seeds are on just one single umbel and you have the answer.
In fact, if conditions are right, you can expect even more cow parsnip in the future. : Wine in the Woods, Thursday, July 16 from 6-9 p.m. All manner of great things going on. Members receive advance notice of events. Join.
Deadhead annuals: If you leave flowers on your plants, they will develop seeds and hasten the demise of the plant. Deadhead flowers to delay this. Water what you plant: It doesn’t always rain here. Make sure your plants do not dry out on the occasional beautiful day!
Jeff Lowenfels has written a weekly gardening column for the ADN for more than 45 years. He earned the 2025 Gold Laurel Media Award in the Best Column category. He is the author of a series of books on organic gardening available at Amazon and elsewhere. He co-hosts the "Teaming With Microbes" podcast.
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