• wonderingwanderer
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    1 month ago

    Interesting, I’ve never heard that. Is that the same plant as wild carrot/Queen Anne’s Lace?

    • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      I’m not exactly a botanist but as I understand it, hogweed / Queen Anne’s Lace / hemlock are all similar plants, and parsnip is a less similar plant

      I don’t know if other colours are possible, but one differentiating feature I am aware of is that parsnip has yellow flowers and all the others have white. and only Queen Anne’s Lace is not harmful

      but yeah they all generally look very similar

      https://www.ontario.ca/page/giant-hogweed

      https://www.ontario.ca/page/wild-parsnip

      https://www.ontario.ca/document/weed-identification-guide-ontario-crops/wild-carrot

      https://www.ontario.ca/document/weed-identification-guide-ontario-crops/spotted-water-hemlock

      also I just want to point out that do I ever love having a provincial website with resources like this

      • wonderingwanderer
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        1 month ago

        That’s interesting, I did not know wild parsnip was a separate plant. We must not have that where I’m from.

        And yeah, clearly Ontario is doing something right

        • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca
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          1 month ago

          yeah, and I had forgotten that it was actually invasive

          apparently hogweed has been a growing issue for the past decade around here, but I can’t say that I’ve ever noticed any myself. parsnip, on the other hand, practically lines our ditches to the point that I would consider it an actual safety concern for the general public since most people don’t know that you can have severe reactions to the sap. like we’re talking a ditch just completely filled with an 8-ft wide section the whole length right next to a multi-use path. obviously not every ditch, but more common than not it seems