Another Plant Thread

[Bodshi]

A couple of times recently following rain I've noticed a really strong mouse smell in patches when I've been walking the dog. I eventually sussed out the plant that the smell was coming from - quite hard because the smell is so strong it doesn't matter what plant or other object you smell, all you can smell is mouse, so I spent a while deeply breathing in the scent, crushing the leaves and smelling my fingers etc. Anyway, the plant turned out to be an umbellifer, very like Cow Parsley, quite tall, maybe 5'. I broke some of it off and brought it home to try and ID.

Well, when I searched for umbellifers with a mousey smell, Hemlock came up straight away. Needless to say I soon ceased smelling my little piece of plant and disposed of it. I wonder if it was really Hemlock or if there is something else that smells like that. Apparently Hogweed smells of pigs, so maybe I'm mixing up my mice and my pigs? The sample I got wasn't bit enough to really see how hollow the stem was or whether it had purple spots but I'll have a look next time I walk the dog that way. I haven't suffered any ill effects (Google showed me pictures of people with horrendous blisters from getting the sap on their hands).

 

[carthorse]

I was going to say hemlock, and I believe water dropwort has a similar smell & is just as poisonous. Common hogweed is unlikely to cause blistering unless you're sensitive to it, the problem plant is giant hogweed.

 

[Jessey]

Apparently there has been a lot of it about this year, the hot weather last year and mild winter seem to have given lots of 'weeds' the chance to really get hold.