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Hogweed

Hogweed

Heracleum sphondylium

Identify the Hogweed from a photo and log your finds with Florapass.

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How common: Common

Hogweed is a tall plant in the carrot family, usually a biennial or a short‑lived perennial. It has big, divided leaves and flat-topped clusters of small white to yellowish‑green flowers in summer. You often see it along roadsides, field edges, gardens and other disturbed places, and in light woodland.

Did you know?

  • The outer flowers are larger, giving the flower head a lacy edge.
  • Botanists split it into two forms: a southern one and a more northern Siberian one.

About the species

Identification

Stout, hollow-stemmed herb about 50–180 cm tall. Stems upright, rough with bristly hairs. Lower leaves very large and deeply divided into 5, sometimes up to 9, pointed, jagged parts; undersides softly hairy. The flower head is a flat-topped cluster made of many small clusters, up to about 20 cm across; the outer flowers often look larger and uneven. Flowers white or pale yellow‑green. Later, it carries flat, roundish seeds about 7–8 mm with a thin wing along the edge. Do not confuse with giant hogweed, which is much taller and bulkier in all parts. Warning: the sap can burn the skin in sunlight. Flowers in Finland in July–August.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

herb-rich forest, meadow, yards and roadsides, shore

Toxicity

Its sap can burn the skin in sunlight – do not touch it with bare hands. Source: HUS Poison Information Centre (Finland), tel. 0800 147 111.

Flowering

Jul–Aug

About the habitat

Grows on roadsides and field edges, in yards and gardens, on waste ground, and along railways and in port areas; also in rich, light woodland. Common in southern and central Finland; rarer in Lapland and absent from the far northwest arm.

Sources

Photo: R Mitchell, CC BY 4.0 https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/5938107264

Text: Pinkka (Luomus), CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39248

Text: Pinkka: IPS-153 Flora of Subarctic Europe - Galeopsis-Koeleria, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39248

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etel%C3%A4nukonputki

See also