Following on from a comment I had last week from @alonicus about Giant Hog Weed, I decided to go out looking for it today on a walk along the river bank.
Its actually a dangerous plant. It secrets a liquid which can burn you ! You can find it here in Scotland in the central belt area. It is a non-native invasive species to the UK.
It was quite a stunning day here in Edinburgh. Quite warm in the sun, and nice and cool in the shade. I took a walk up the River Almond on the edge of the city, as I knew some grew further up along the river bank.
I walked up to the old bridge first as it affords nice views along the gorge part of the river.
Thats the view (above) looking up-river. We have had rain these past few days and as such the river was in a little bit of a torrent running through the gorge.
I stopped again further up the river at this lovely spot where the water slows down. You can see how brown the water is from all the rain.
Giant hog weed is normally removed by the local council whenever it is found, and hence its not that normal to find it. However, I knew it could be found further up beyond this point, because its not that easy to access, and not that many people venture that far up - hence it wont get reported as much, and nor get removed so easily because of the steep river banks.
I soon started finding some examples further up the bank, and one pretty big patch of it, of which the plants above belonged to. I was standing just beside these to take the picture above. They must have been about 10 to 12 foot tall. These grow from scratch every year, so they are pretty impressive.
There were quite a few here - the pic above shows one side of the patch. Its not normal to find as many like this together noting that they normally get removed pretty quickly when found.
Thats another pic of me looking up at one, and I'm just over 6 foot, so it gives an idea of the size.
I kept on walking further up to see if there were more, and also because it was a lovely day and I was enjoying the walk. There was some on the opposite bank at this spot (above) although hard to see in this picture.
I do find them quite pretty, even though they are considered a weed and a pest ! It was quite nice to see them reaching full bloom. They turn brown and die off towards the end of the season, and hence they are pretty much in their prime at the moment.
On the way back I took an easier path through the fields. Its just by Edinburgh Airport, and so the planes were passing all the time.
They were going pretty much right overhead !
The farmers crops were also coming along quite nicely. We've been getting roughly equal measures of rain and sunshine this summer so I guess these plants are loving it !
I have to say that I did enjoy the walk and tracking down the hog weed. I hope you like them @alonicus !
That wraps up my wednesday walk post for this week. All the best from Scotland !
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