This biennial is native to Europe and not N. America. Cultivated forms are grown as the annual vegetable parsnip. It has escaped from gar...Read Moredens and naturalized throughout N. America except for FL, GA, AL, and MS. The naturalized form has been legally declared a noxious weed in Ohio, and is considered invasive in numerous states. http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=PASA2
Contact with the skin can cause a nasty dermatitis.
I had thought this plant was Heraculeum Maximum or cow parsnip which, I read, is a monster in its own right. We are trying to eliminate/e...Read Moreradicate Sastinaca Sativa from our land. Any help with this project will be greatly appreciated. Presently we are pulling it up, root (or as much as we can get of it) and all and, assuming that the root and plant stem will continue to develop the seeds, banishing it to the roadway where it is being dessicated and crushed by automobile traffic.
Washing with soap and water has removed the juices from our skin. We are also careful to try and work on it when it is cool and cloudy which is also when it's most comfortable to cover up possible exposed skin. I can't seem to work on it without sometime a piece of it brushes my face. Sweat and sunlight are required for the photo-toxin to damage skin...but perhaps not very much sweat. Pulling the plant worked to eradicate from a small test plot I did last year. Few plants grew in this year.
It is a perennial so perhaps an effective means of getting rid of it can be devised working on the first phase/year of it's growth. Once it makes seeds, it dies leaving a hollow, lightweight, gray stalk. I assume the parsnip-like root dies in the ground at this stage.
I thought this might be yarrow coming up wild in my yard, so I wanted to find out about the worm that was destroying it. Turns out both a...Read Morere bad, and I threw the whole mess in soapy water. I read that wild parsnip makes furanocoumarins to ward off the parsnip webworm, and that is what makes it so noxious to humans, too. The worms are so nasty that they've learned to deal with it! It was hard to get the thick root (parsnip, I guess) out; hope it doesn't come back.
Hanover Park, IL (Zone 5a) | December 2003 | negative
At the camp my daughter attends in North westen IL, this plant is considered hazardous. Contact with it not only causes skin irritation b...Read Moreut a photosynthesis like effect by the sun. The children who were chasing a soccer ball into a field of wild parsnip had to be bandaged to limit sun exposure which caused a sun burn like reaction. I was told it was not native to IL.
This biennial is native to Europe and not N. America. Cultivated forms are grown as the annual vegetable parsnip. It has escaped from gar...Read More
Short video about skin toxicity of this plant. Beware!
...Read More
I had thought this plant was Heraculeum Maximum or cow parsnip which, I read, is a monster in its own right. We are trying to eliminate/e...Read More
I thought this might be yarrow coming up wild in my yard, so I wanted to find out about the worm that was destroying it. Turns out both a...Read More
may cause photodermatitis due to xanthotoxin
At the camp my daughter attends in North westen IL, this plant is considered hazardous. Contact with it not only causes skin irritation b...Read More