It’s time for a change of pace. Today we’re going to talk about two invasive plants that look so similar but which have drastically different consequences. Both can be found in our Open Space parks.

Poison Hemlock v. Cow Parsley — can you tell the difference?  Here’s an article written for Foothills Living Magazine; we’ve been given permission to post as a public service.

Why be concerned about this, or any other invasive plant? They’re called invasives because they’ve moved into an ecosystem within which they did not evolve, usually with help from human activity. When this happens, when an invasive finds a new environment within which it can thrive, it’s usually without the lifestyle controls with which it evolved. Without these restraints, the invasive not only thrives, it takes over and overwhelms indigenous plants, sometimes to extinction. The plant-eating critters that evolved with the indigenous plants may not be able to tolerate the invasives, and they, too, fail to thrive. The carnivores who feed on the plant-eaters begin to fail…and so it goes, like a stack of dominoes. That’s why invasives — the plants — need to be controlled and in the worst cases, eliminated.

For more information from Jeffco Open Space on invasive plant species, go to https://www.jeffco.us/2007/Noxious-Weed-Identification

So when you’re trekking in the Jeffco Open Space Parks, keep your eyes peeled for these lovely but, in some cases, deadly invasives — and don’t touch!