Trouble with poisonious plants

Its looks all sweet and innocent but dont be fooled

Something in the garden is out to get me!! I arrived in after a week of wearing shorts and clearing beds to find emerging hot spots like odd shaped sunburn, first on my arms, then on my legs and now on my stomach. As the days passed they got redder, angrier and blistered up like water balloons in spectacular fashion. It felt like I had burnt the skin badly with a hot dish from the oven and the blisters were painful to the touch but other than that (and looking like I had a biblical plague) I was fine.

hot weird blisters

 I did try telling her but my poor mother in law was so concerned at the sight of me that she abandoned her pancakes at breakfast on Sunday to ring my long suffering sister in law the GP. Catherine says it might be caused by giant hog weed, an introduced plant which commonly causes nasty looking blisters like these on contact with the skin in sunshine. My husband had something similar when he strimmed the front bank months ago.I know it's across the road in the ditch but I didn't think I had any in the garden. Could it really cause this much trouble from across the road? or have some of its seeds snuck into my garden to germinate in my vegetable beds?

It's height is the main identifying factor

Nettles can cause rash, sometimes people can have an adverse reaction to the fine hairs on the comfrey leaves and stems, even rhubarb leaves can cause photo sensitivity (they are also poisonous-don't eat them!) but I have never had anything like this with any of these plants in the 6 years I have had a garden here. Mind you since I moved to this part of Limerick I have heard several horror stories of  people getting "attacked" by Giant hogweed, especially along the banks of the Mulcair river (echos of the flesh eating plant in "Little shop of horrors"). It is one of the only plants Tara pointed out to me one day walking with the dogs and told me to give a wide berth to. Another person told me it was, and I quote, "deadly" for children. I didn't believe them-until now.

not my idea! but it made me laugh!

So should any of you be in doubt here is what it looks like. It's an imported plant from the 19th century, a perennial that dies back in winter. It has huge leaves, tall stems up to 5 metres in height with big white flower heads not unlike cows parsley (but much, much bigger) in June and July.It likes damp places and you will find it near river banks, streams and the edges of drains. It's a bastard of a thing, so give it a wide berth.

more info here; Giant Hogweed

funny mock movie poster by happy russia at www.deviantart.com

PS; although it produces a dramatic skin reaction Catherine tells me it usually clears up without scarring after a week. I went to hot sweaty yoga last night and felt all my blisters react violently to the temperature and the sweating, but funnily enough they are all much calmer today, so perhaps another session of Bikram yoga might speed up the healing and return me to normality in a few more days.