Got a weird boil looking thing on my leg after being outdoors at wcj this week, sort of ignored it and assumed it was a weird bite. But after some medical googling it looks like a giant hogweed burn. Apparently there’s some of this stuff spreading in millers dale. Take care out there, can be pretty nasty
Giant hogs weed @ water cum jolly
- Thread starter matt463
- Start date
Help Support UKBouldering.com:
Is this definitely the giant variety? The only GH I've ever seen in the peak was in the grounds of Chatsworth house. Where exactly was the plant?
Bonjoy said:
Think it must have been between kudos wall and rubicon right. I walked between those two spots with my climbing shoes on and trousers rolled up. Which was stupidly lazy of me and the time spent cleaning my shoes could've just been spent taking them off.
I'm 99.9% certain there is no giant hogweed in that vicinity. I was there last week.
Giant Hogweed is a huge plant, typically reaching 3m in height, but can get up to 5m tall! The stems of the plants I saw at Chatsworth were easily 10cm across at the base. Common Hogweed gets quite big (usually not higher than 1.5m) for an annual herb, but is not as easily confused with GH as alarming media articles would have you believe.
Giant Hogweed is a huge plant, typically reaching 3m in height, but can get up to 5m tall! The stems of the plants I saw at Chatsworth were easily 10cm across at the base. Common Hogweed gets quite big (usually not higher than 1.5m) for an annual herb, but is not as easily confused with GH as alarming media articles would have you believe.
In the scouts I was always told that the sap makes the skin really vulnerable to sunlight and that causes the burns, not the sap itself, so if you get it on you wash it off and cover the area with a thick cloth and it'll prevent the worst of the burning.
Wellsy said:
From my brief Googling (after being shocked by some of the photo results of bad cases!) washing the area and avoiding direct access to sunlight does indeed seem to be the best beta. So well done on your Scout troop for educating you with that knowledge!
petejh
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2008
- Messages
- 5,891
There's a crag in N.Ireland full of the stuff - Moorhill Quarry. The topo has some pics: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QCuRdFZWSJ4ADA3Vxn6w4yTJqoV7M2mt/view
Personally I've been more concerned by thewild stallions fairly tame ponies that haze me whenever I've climbed there.
Personally I've been more concerned by the
I dropped into Rubicon today while passing through the area with work.
I had a good look around and while there is lots of Common Hogweed including some large examples, there is no Giant Hogweed. I took some photos if anyone wants make their own judgement.
I kept an eye out for GH for the rest of the journey (to a site near Manchester airport) and did actually see two locations where it is growing. One in an uncultivated field adjacent to the new bypass near the airport. The other was in and near the garden of the house on the A6/A623 roundabout between Doveholes and Chapel-en-le-Frith. The second location is almost in the Peak and there were quite a few plants. I had a look on the the UK Giant Hogweed map (thanks for the heads-up on this Carlos https://whatshed.co.uk/hogweed/map.html )and this site has already been reported. Which does beg the question, why has in not been destroyed, why let this stuff get a foothold when it's so nasty and very hard to deal with.
I had a good look around and while there is lots of Common Hogweed including some large examples, there is no Giant Hogweed. I took some photos if anyone wants make their own judgement.
I kept an eye out for GH for the rest of the journey (to a site near Manchester airport) and did actually see two locations where it is growing. One in an uncultivated field adjacent to the new bypass near the airport. The other was in and near the garden of the house on the A6/A623 roundabout between Doveholes and Chapel-en-le-Frith. The second location is almost in the Peak and there were quite a few plants. I had a look on the the UK Giant Hogweed map (thanks for the heads-up on this Carlos https://whatshed.co.uk/hogweed/map.html )and this site has already been reported. Which does beg the question, why has in not been destroyed, why let this stuff get a foothold when it's so nasty and very hard to deal with.
Indeed. Best caught early, and hammered hard. It was starting to grow on the banks of the burn just north of us, and SEPA took immediate action and luckily wiped it out in 2 years. I've seen it rife in other places, especially post pandemic.
My uneducated guess would be insect bites, caterpillar spines, or an allergic reaction to something generally innocuous.
GH is pretty distinctive and is only really similar in appearance to common hogweed in the UK. Cow Parsley is much smaller with slender fern like leaves.
The main difference between the two hogweed is size. Even an immature giant is a hefty plant with large robust leaves and stems. Other than that the shape is different, but that's hard to describe simply. GH has rusty purple/red spotting on the stems CH has purple blending into green, any spotting is very minor.
The difference is akin to that between a panther and a domestic cat. They are superficially similar but on a different scale, plus some subtle shape differences.
GH is pretty distinctive and is only really similar in appearance to common hogweed in the UK. Cow Parsley is much smaller with slender fern like leaves.
The main difference between the two hogweed is size. Even an immature giant is a hefty plant with large robust leaves and stems. Other than that the shape is different, but that's hard to describe simply. GH has rusty purple/red spotting on the stems CH has purple blending into green, any spotting is very minor.
The difference is akin to that between a panther and a domestic cat. They are superficially similar but on a different scale, plus some subtle shape differences.
Makes me wonder if the Chatsworth Estate did anything about the patch of GH on a compost heap I found up near the Hunter's Tower. Reported it to them by email but never got a reply. It was right by a fairly busy path too.
