TH UR SDA Y , A U G U S T 4 , 2016
COUNTY WIDE YOUR HOME AND FAMILY NEWS FROM ALL OF KENDALL COUNTY
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KendallCountyNow.com
WATCH OUT FOR WILD PARSNIP By BEN DRAPER bdraper@shawmedia.com hotos of a yellow-flowered plant that can cause severe burns have circulated on social media this summer. The offending plant – the potentially invasive wild parsnip – can be found in every county in Illinois, including Kendall and DeKalb counties. Richard Hentschel, the University of Illinois Extension Service horticulture educator for DuPage, Kane and Kendall counties, says that wild parsnip has been around a long time, and most likely was
Weather in Kendall County has been good for plant with sap that can irritate skin brought over with early settlers coming to North America as a food plant. The root of the wild parsnip plant is edible, just like the domestic variety. “We seem to see a greater presence of wild parsnip than we have had in the past, and that can be contributed to our weather pattern: years where we have had hot and dry weather with excessive
rains in the spring. It has been able to flourish where other competitive weeds have not been, so it’s had a greater chance to establish itself.” Hentschel said wild parsnip is most likely to be found in areas that are less maintained on a regular basis. “It used to be in out-of-the-way, undisturbed areas away from mankind.
Now that I know what it looks like, I see it everywhere: roadsides, edges of woods, it’ll colonize an area of a field. So folks are going to likely run into it.” Hentschel says that the plant poses a risk at any stage of its development. Being able to identify wild parsnip as a young plant is as important as identifying an adult plant. According to the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission, the young plant forms a basal rosette, and its leaves are alternate, pinnately compound – or
See WILD PARSNIP, page 5