Hogweed or giant hogweed and dangerous? ASAP plz

[Cutyourshakehole]

As above does anyone know if this is giant hogweed?? BBy has just grabbed it from pram

It's not hemlock either. Or any other umbellifer you care to name.

Hogweed leaves (giant and common) can be harmful when new and small sized yes. But giant hogweed gets bigger before it flowers and this is noway big enough for giant hogweed in July.

Ah I took too long typing! BarbarianMum has it :)

OP you need to make sure your baby is in the shade now, just in case. It’s not the big scary one, but, because of the way the whole plant family works, you need to stop thinking of the plant as the source of risk now, and think of the sun as the source of the risk... the harm comes from the plants making the skin more vulnerable to the suns rays, so the burns come from the sun, not the plant itself.

It’s highly unlikely there’s any harm been done, but just in case, do make sure your baby is out of the sun now for the rest of the day at least.

Also, wipes are better than nothing, but pouring water over the site is best as any toxins will get washed away from the skin.

Having said all that, I do think your baby is probably fine, so try not to panic too much!

This bit i think it must have been but whether stem of it then flowers I don’t know

I would think the flowers then - far more interesting to little hands than the leaves. So stop worrying but look for shade.

You described it as white, in which case it's the flowers. That is a perfectly normal looking common hogweed, Giant hogweed at this time of year would be a lot taller, the leaves are more "spiky", and the number of whorls in the inflorescence is greater.

It's a difficult family, in that some of them are poisonous, and you need to be sure about which one you are looking at. But it's the same family as carrot, parsnip, dill, fennel etc.

Thank you all. Have shaded him in buggy andwill try find a different way to walk back. Got a fright 😞 had seen pics of those awful blisters and thought my god, I’m in the middle of god knows where with no one around

Well, one of the most shocking things about these giants is their rate of growth, they really do appear to spring up almost overnight, so you’d be pretty darned unlucky to catch one just at the exact stage of growth that made it the same size as our native plant...

After a quick check, the giants have a lot more flower clusters around the stem, so even if you have the bad luck to have run into one at the same size as the ones we’re used to seeing in our countryside, it would look a lot more flowery and a ‘big’ head of flowers. On steroids basically...

Again, hard to tell from the photos, but those look kind of scrawny to me?!

Now, I think you’re panicking really beyond any need to. Easy to do of course.

I prescribe shade for the baby and a stiff drink for you. I’m not any kind of doctor whatsoever btw

Thanks, sorry he’s just only little and Im on my own here. He’s snoozing away and no harm seems to be done. Plant was smaller than me and there seems to be a lot of them by the river I have seen similar by motorways that have been sprayed and died and I thought these were similar

My first thought was cow parsley - when I lived in a village close to fields it would spring up and go mental overnight in the garden. I've always hacked it down and pulled it out without any problem.

I've just googled the hogweed though and I can see why you would be worried - ps I'm not certain it's cow parsley. That's no help - sorry!

Another one saying it's ordinary hogweed - and neither Giant hogweed nor cowparsley. And cheers to PP who said it's the sun wot causes the damage in most hogweed cases. And that's if the sap has got onto the skin - petals won't hurt.

Lardy as some gardeners say - if cow parsley weren't so common, people would be paying a fortune to plant it!

Got a lift home. he’s been fine , sat down to bottle and this appeared. One leg , ear , chest , one side of face but not any arms or fingers that he would have grabbed it with?? Note I have edited the pic so you can see the pattern of rash clearer.
Tell me it’s heat rash so I calm down. He isn’t bothered

Heat rash tends to be smaller dots. But that’s not to say this rash is something terrible. Babies are generally rashy beings and it’s nearly always nothing, but if you have concerns about ANY rash in a small baby you should seek medical advice. Hope the little ones ok

No idea. But not the hogweed anyhow. Any reaction to that would be exactly where he touched it.

It's not giant hogweed. Once seen, never forgotten.

I saw it numerous times as a teenager, there was a bit of a plague of it in the area I was living in 1975/6 and the council had to go in to cordon them off. They are like triffids - huge. It grows to 2 metres + before it even starts to develop flowers, and it keeps on growing. The flower heads are the size of an umbrella.

I think the picture is ordinary hogweed, hard to tell from the photo though as there isn't a close-up of the flowers.

I think there's some giant hogweed along the rail-line I take. At least, I've never see cow parsley/hemlock grow over 2m.

But not in July. Or when it's flowering.

Sounds like you've maybe touched some common hogweed then. As explained above, that'll burn you too.

I’m not sure what that rash is, but it does look a bit like the kind of rash DS would get when he’d got too hot and sweaty in the summer. He was a bit prone to bouts of eczema in the summer as he wasn’t really made for the summer though.

But if it’s not where he grabbed he plant, them it’s not from the plant, as it doesn’t magically leap over the main contact points leaving no marks to get other bits of skin that weren’t within reach of the stems or leaves at all...

But you know what? If it’s worrying you I’d get it checked out, just in case. No one on the internet can say for definite that your little one is ok, because we’re not actually there with you.

And with babies, no one seems to mind taking that big extra time just to check, as they can’t talk to tell us how they’re feeling and their little bodies are more delicate and change rapidly.

OP I would phone 111.

WE have lots of giant hogweed around here- the council constantly cut it down and spray if, but at any time there are not so giant plants trying to re-grow, so the fact it wasn't metres tall is not significant.

He was perhaps rubbing his ear after touching the plant.

Thanks for replying. I am hoping it was a strange coincidence.. the rash vanished soon after and he wasn’t affected by it at all. I’m not sure why it came up.. he would have been warm from me putting his jumper on to keep the sunlight of his arms , so maybe that. He’s had a good wash in the bath and is not showing any other odd signs so hopefully that’s an end to it!
Found my self googling plants now.. so difficult to tell them apart?! Cow parsley , hemlock, water hemlock, hogweed, giant hogweed

The umbeliifers are really hard to tell apart unfortunately. It's taken me a long time to get my head around them and it is really hard from just a photograph.

Your picture looks like common hogweed. Giant hogweed is huge - flowers the size of plates huge.