Giant Bear Claw, beautiful violator

The giant bear claw, officially known as Heracleum mantegazzianum, is not native from home. He comes from the Caucasus and has long ago been brought to Western Europe as a special crop to decorate castle parks. There he easily got away, so that in some forests he began to conquer his own ecological place. Now we can hardly imagine that he has been popular as an ornamental plant. Now you're almost considered a little killer if you like him.

A few years ago, the calculus first took England by storm, initially as a deliberately planted gardener, then as an overly willing colonizer with imperialist tendencies. “Careful with giant calculus “and “The giant calculus threatens our country “were the alarming headlines in some newspapers. Not only as weeds one fears the big umbelous, but even more so because of the photosensitizing property that makes people hypersensitive to sunlight and can get ugly burns with even scars.

Memories

Yet for me it remains a particularly fascinating plant, if only because of the beautiful memories of my early days as a herbalist and herbalist. My first acquaintance with it was in the wooded villa districts near the Dutch city of Breda. Escaped from such a large villa garden he stood along the road, it was as if I met a prehistoric plant from the dinosaur era. I almost caused an accident, when I brutally stopped my car on the road in order to admire these apparitions with respect but also a little dazzled.

Later I planted them in my wild garden at Weelde Statie, where they gave body to the border on the most humid part of the garden. The neighbours also had some, albeit cautious admiration for these mastodons, until their nice garden from one year to the next was full of calculous babies. It is a good sower, and it must be, because such a biennial plant dies after flowering and ensures its reproduction with seed. Seed that is beautiful and present in the decorative giant screens.

Photosensitive

The so-called photosensitizing effect is a special phenomenon, substances furocumarins called psoralene and bergaptene make the skin hypersensitive to sunlight, causing burns and blisters easily. Rinse the skin as soon as possible and leave the sun prevents those burns. Especially plants from the family of ummors (calculous claw, parsnip but also well-known cooking herbs such as celery and parsley) and the Rutacaea, citrus fruits such as wine fruit and citrus varieties can cause these hypersensitivity reactions.