Watch Where You and Your Pet Hike! Hemlock is Here

At CRT we love animals. Anyone who saw our goats at the Pear Blossom Parade knows this to be true. We also have a track record of taking hay and supplies to livestock that have been cut off from supplies. If that isn’t enough, one of our first rescues was a llama…how’s that for bona fides? And this says nothing about the animals our team owns privately. So the gist is we love animals and want to protect them. That’s why as a pet owner, or just someone who enjoys the outdoors, we ask that you keep a careful eye out for hemlock.

Hemlock, yes, the same plant that finished off Socrates, is flourishing in Southern Oregon this year, one of the not so great after-effects of the Almeda fire. The burn gave invasive plants like hemlock a toe-hold, and as the hemlock is native to Mediterranean climes, it is a natural fit for our zone as well. We host both the poison and water hemlock, both toxic.

The plants resemble Queen Anne’s Lace, and look beautiful, with a crown of white flowers at the top, but they are deadly. A tip to those who get close: What sets poisonous hemlock apart from Lace and other flowers is that the stem is bigger and it’s dotted with purple spots all along the stalk. 

This is the time of year that poison hemlock spreads and grows its footprint. Each plant produces a lot of seeds — up to 30,000 — that ripen between late June and August after it flowers. Those seeds are easily scattered during late summer mowing,

Hemlock poisoning can be fatal with no antidote. All plant parts contain toxic alkaloids that can interfere with nerve transmissions to your muscles, ultimately causing respiratory failure. We want to emphasize that this is no joke. A small amount can be deadly to humans and animals. KEZI 9 news reported that a family cat in Veneta was paralyzed and had to be euthanized after taking a nap in a patch of hemlock that had grown in the family’s yard without their knowledge. The family identified it after one of them brushed against it and developed a rash.

This is also one more thing for concerned parents to watch out for. As seen above, merely brushing into a plant can have effects. If you spot poison hemlock in a public park or along a road side, it would be great to point it out to the agency in charge of that property to let them know about the plant. Oregon outdoors is so great in the summer…let’s keep it safe for all our loved ones.