Poodle Dog Brush in Angeles Forest is a Skin Irritant

Beware…the Poodle-dog Bush September 22nd, 2009 | Author: Larry Purple-flowered poodle-dog bush, grow­ing in burn areas, is haz­ard to humans. Poodle-dog bush flow­ers (danger!!!) A pretty purple-flowered bush bloom­ing on the hills of the burned areas is a dan­ger to peo­ple, accord­ing to the Depart­ment of Forestry. As a result of South­ern California’s recent fires, hik­ers need to be aware of poodle-dog bush grow­ing along the trails. The flower, com­monly known as poodle-dog bush, is an irri­tant akin to poi­son oak, said forester Eric Oldar. “In the Spring, the flo­ral stalk is bril­liant and it’s very attrac­tive, espe­cially along hik­ing trails or roads where peo­ple make a stop,” Oldar said. “They’ll go out and actu­ally pick it and take it home as a flower arrange­ment, not know­ing that con­tact, for the vast major­ity of the pub­lic, will cause a poi­son oak reac­tion. Later in the sea­son, the flow­ers drop and the shrub will con­tinue to exist, but it has no par­tic­u­lar char­ac­ter­is­tic that would cause the pub­lic to come in con­tact with it.” Poodle-dog bush is fre­quently preva­lent along trails after a fire. Symp­toms range from itch­ing to a rash or blis­ters last­ing as long as two weeks. George Ewan with the Orange County Fire Author­ity said the pain is rem­i­nis­cent to com­ing in con­tact with sting­ing nettles. “It’s like that except it doesn’t wear off,” Ewan said. “It goes for quite a while.“ Oldar said the bush is typ­i­cally dor­mant, but is preva­lent after a major dis­tur­bance like fire or some­thing that takes the area back to the bar­ren ground,” Oldar said. “It will blos­som, grow, and even­tu­ally be replaced by other dom­i­nant veg­e­ta­tion until another dis­tur­bance occurs.” The preva­lence period could last as long as a decade, which is one of the rea­sons his depart­ment is try­ing to get the word out about the bush. Another rea­son is because of the attrac­tive­ness of the flower. Oldar said peo­ple should go to their doc­tor if they start to itch. An over-the-counter rem­edy is calamine lotion or any­thing that has a cor­ti­sone derivative. Ewan said avoid­ance is the best remedy. “If you’re going to go out into the foothills or into the burn area, be care­ful,” he said. “There’s a cute lit­tle flower out there that’s pur­ple and if you touch it, it’s going to get you.” A great arti­cle about a Poodle-Dog bush encounter. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/08/DDMR18JTLK.DTL Related Posts: Poison-oak: get­ting to know your enemy share my blog