Description
Giant hogweed has a stout, dark reddish-purple stem and spotted leaf stalks that are hollow and produce sturdy bristles. Stems vary from 3β8 cm (1.2β3.1 in) in diameter, occasionally up to 10 cm (3.9 in). The stem shows a purplish-red pigmentation with raised nodules. Each purple spot on the stem surrounds a hair, and large, coarse white hairs occur at the base of the leaf stalk. The plant has deeply incised compound leaves which grow up to 1β1.7 m (3 ft 3 inβ5 ft 7 in) in width.
Giant hogweed is a short-lived perennial (lasting typically between five and seven years), with tuberous rootstalks that form perennating buds each year. It flowers in its final year from late spring to mid summer, with numerous white flowers clustered in an umbrella-shaped head that is up to 80 cm (31 in) in diameter across its flat top. The plant produces 1,500 to 100,000 flattened, 1 cm long, oval dry seeds that have a broadly rounded base and broad marginal ridges. After seeds have set, the individual plant dies. Plants in earlier stages of growth die down in the autumn. Tall dead stems may mark its locations during winter.
Read more about this topic: Heracleum Mantegazzianum
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“Why does philosophy use concepts and why does faith use symbols if both try to express the same ultimate? The answer, of course, is that the relation to the ultimate is not the same in each case. The philosophical relation is in principle a detached description of the basic structure in which the ultimate manifests itself. The relation of faith is in principle an involved expression of concern about the meaning of the ultimate for the faithful.”
—Paul Tillich (1886–1965)
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)