Hogweed
Heracleum sphondylium
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Coarser and later than cow parsley — and its sap can still blister you in sunshine.
A robust biennial or perennial with large, coarse, lobed leaves and broad flat umbels of white — sometimes pinkish — flowers on thick, ridged, bristly hollow stems. Hogweed flowers after cow parsley and is common on verges, rough grassland, hedge banks and waste ground throughout the Dumfries area.
Behaviour
The flower heads are among the most productive insect tables in the countryside, covered through summer with soldier beetles, hoverflies, flies and small wasps. The sap contains furanocoumarins that sensitise skin to sunlight and can cause blistering — much less severely than giant hogweed, but strimmer operators are regularly burned by it, and it is worth respecting.
When to see it
Quick facts
- Family
- Carrots (Apiaceae)
- Height
- 50–200 cm
- Status
- Native; abundant — sap can blister skin in sunlight
Photo by Hectonichus, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons