AVOID These Plants On Your Trail Run!!!

#378 - A couple weeks ago I did an episode on animals to watch out for on your runs. This week, I'm going over plants that could be harmful if you're not careful. If you are careful, stick to the trail and keep your eyes out, you'll be fine, but sometimes we take a few more chances than we should, so this may help you identify plants that don't like to play nice. 

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(Cont.) AVOID These Plants On Your Trail Run!!!

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Do you enjoy stories of interesting places and fascinating history? Hidden West on YouTube is about the past, present, and future that make Western America such a unique place. Every week, a new video will bring you insightful and inspiring stories showing why there is no place in the world like the West. Welcome to Martha Runs the World, a podcast with a new take on running, fitness, and all things health oriented. I'm Martha Hughes, your host, and each week I present a new topic that is of interest to all runners. Hi, and welcome to episode 378 of Martha Runs the World. Thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate it each and every week. How are you today? It is early morning for me. I'm having my cup of coffee and I'm here with you. And I hope that you are having a fabulous start of your week. I'm talking about plants to avoid on your run. I did an earlier episode on animals that you might encounter on your run, so I thought I might do one on dangerous plants that you might encounter. Now, trail running comes with its own dangers. Animals can be one of those dangers, and so can plants. Some plants have defensive systems built around them to help them survive. And these defensive systems can hurt us if we don't know what's going on or we don't pay attention. Now, this is mostly for trail running, so I don't think you're going to encounter a lot of these on a city street. Now, I'm only going to be talking about plants in the contiguous US. If you're out of that area, you'll have to do your own research, and I apologize for that, but I'm not familiar with plants in other parts of the world. I realize that this episode loses a bit by not being able to see the plants that I talk about, but I'll describe them as best as I can, and I'll also be going over how to protect ourselves from getting into trouble, and if we do come in contact with them, what to do at towards the end of the episode, so stay tuned for that. I also did not include plants that can hurt or kill you if you ingest them, because I think too highly of you as listeners to think that you'd actually eat a plant that you didn't know. I mean, I think you're much smarter than that. So no, I didn't include those. So I'm going to start now. There's some plants that are all over the U.S., and I will mention that if they are. But I'm going to start with the Northeast and Midwest, which usually have the same plants that you might encounter on trails. And the first one is poison ivy, and I'm sure most of you in the Northeast, Midwest, and South are familiar with poison ivy. Poison ivy grows as a vine. It looks kind of like ivy. It's a it can be a vine or small shrub, and it can trail along the ground and climb low plants and trees and poles. And each leaf has three glossy leaflets with smooth or toothed edges. Leaves are reddish in spring, green in summer, and yellow, orange, or red in the fall. And they might have white flowers and whitish-yellow berries. And each part of the plant contains an oil that inflames the skin and results in painfully itchy blisters and rashes. So you want to be careful of them and you want to avoid them at all costs, especially if you're allergic to this kind of oil. Some people aren't, some people are. And you're going to find them mostly in young woodlands, thickets, path edges, sand dunes, walls, and roadways. And I don't know why they like the edges. They just, it seems like they're predatory towards us, doesn't it? I know it's a plant, but it does seem that way to me. Another one you might encounter in the northeast and midwest and south is Poison sumac. This plant can appear as a woody shrub or small tree and grows up to about 20 feet tall. Each leaf has clusters of about 7 to 13 smooth-edged leaflets. Its leaves are orange in spring, green in summer, and yellow and orange and red in fall. Poison sumac may have yellow-greenish flowers and whitish-green fruit that hang in loose clusters, and they can be found exclusively in very wet or flooded soils, usually in swamps and peat bogs. Every part of the plant contains an oil that inflames skin and results in the same kind of blisters and rashes that poison ivy and later on I'll talk about poison oak will get. And you want to be real careful about that. And like I said, those you can probably see sumac a lot in the south, especially in the more swampy areas. Now, giant hogweed you can find all over the US. They just grow everywhere. Giant hogweed is a very large biennial or perennial. This plant has white flowers that appear in late summer, forming a large flat-topped flower cluster that can be up to two and a half feet across. Hollow, rigid stems grow two to four inches in diameter and can be eight to fourteen feet tall and have purple blotches and coarse hairs. Leaves can be five feet across and are lobed and deeply incised. Giant hogweed is usually found growing in rich, moist soils in open fields, wooded areas, tree lines, roadsides, ditches, and along streams and rivers. Its sap contains a phototoxin that reacts with ultraviolet light to cause skin irritation, ranging from a mild rash to severe blistering. I know I've seen those in many places. They like to go in in trails where it's real where the soil is really moist. So you'll find those a lot in meadows. Cow parsnip is also in the west as well. I don't know if it's in the south, but we also have that in the west along with the Midwest and the East. This large plant grows three to ten feet tall. Leaves are 12 to 18 inches across. The leaves are also rough and hairy and divided into three segments with coarsely toothed leaflets and a broad wing at the base of each leaf stalk. Stems are rough, hairy, hollow, and grooved. The plant has white or cream-colored flowers that bloom in midsummer. These flowers have five petals of different sizes and are arranged in broad, flat-top clusters at the top of short stalks. Cow parsnip grows in a variety of habitats, included including woodlands, forest openings, grasslands, stream and river edges, and along roadsides. Its sap contains a phototoxin that reacts again with ultraviolet light to cause skin irritation ranging from a mild rash to severe blistering. So you get the picture that these uh the rashes that they cause will become worse under the sun. Nature's wonderful, isn't it? Wild parsnip, also found in the West. It typically grows two to five feet tall and is found along roadsides, in pastures, and in fields. Its leaves are alternate and compounded, branch and have sawtooth edges. That's lovely, isn't it? Each leaf is five to fifteen um leaflets, oblong with variable toothed edges and deep lobes. The plant stems are hollow and deeply grooved. They also have small five-petaled yellow flowers that are arranged in a flat-topped flower cluster two to six inches across and appear June to September. The flowers produce a round, smooth, straw-colored seed pod that is approximately 0.25 inches in size. Sap and all parts of the plant contain, again, the phototoxin that rely that reacts with ultraviolet light and can cause skin irritation. And the monster of all, I think, is stinging nettle. Stinging nettles are all over the U.S. It's a perennial erect herb that can be identified by its stinging hairs, opposite heart-shaped leaves and small greenish flowers. The stinging hairs are on stems and leaves produce an intense burning and itching sensation that can last up to 30 minutes. The plant is most often found in forests and at the edge of woods and streams. And everybody knows what a stinging nettle is, I believe, or we all should. Now the Southeast has all has everything the same as I said, but they also have a plant called a tread softly, also known as finger rot. This plant is covered in stinging hairs. So please be careful of them. I guess it's like the stinging nettle, although with a nice little name. So a tread softly around a tread softly. In the Southwest, they have other things besides what I told you. Remember, there's a saying in the desert, every plant wants to hurt you. And they don't and they don't say that lightly. They say that because they mean it. It's true. Now, dangerous contact, they have poison oak. So poison oak is just like poison ivy, except it the leaves look like an oak tree. So you have to and I'll talk about that in more detail as we get to the uh west coast. They also have poodle dog brush, a shrub that thrives in burned areas. Whenever an area is burnt out in the southwest, the poodle dog brush may be the first thing that comes up, which is really nasty because you never want to get around a poodle dog brush. Its sticky leaves cause severe itchy blisters. I mean, here is this burned out area, and the first thing that comes up is a plant that can hurt you. Man, nature, I tell you. Wow. Alright, they also have uh spiny and sharp hazards. So you want to be careful of those. Agave is one of them, known for extremely sharp, rigid leaves that can inflict puncture wounds and skin irritation. And cacti, of course, of all different varieties have barbed spines that are difficult to remove. And I'll talk about how to remove those in a little bit. But you want to be careful and stay away from all cacti. All of it. Just stay, stay on the trail. Don't go over, don't decide to go off trail and do some overland hiking in the desert. That's just not a good idea unless you know what you're doing, unless you're very familiar with it and know how to avoid all this stuff. Because those plants, the first thing you know, your clothes are going to be covered with the spines, and that's not a good thing. And they'll go right through your clothes into your skin. That is the truth. Okay, the West Coast. Okay, the first plant in the West that we have is Queen Anne's Lace. It's not so pretty. Queen's Anne's lace is native to Asia and Europe, but it's an invasive species in North America. If you have sensitive skin, contact with it may cause skin irritation. Others may not experience any negative reaction, but you just have to be careful. Before you consider handling this plant, make sure you're positive that it's not one of the similar-looking species that I mentioned before. This plant typically measures one to two feet tall and sometimes has small reddish flowers in the center. Stems are fuzzy with small grooves. So just be careful. This may or may not irritate your skin. And poison oak. Poison oak typically grows in western U.S. and can also be found in it says in the southeast. I don't know if that's true or not. Tell me if it is. I never thought that poison oak grew in the southeast, but maybe it does. Poison oak is a low-to-the-ground shrub that can grow up to three feet tall. It can also wind its way up trees and things like that, so I'm not sure about that. Their leaves are often a dull greener than poison ivy. However, poison oak leaves also grow in similar groups of three. Unlike poison ivy, the leaves are usually toothed or lobed and have hairs or fuzz on both sides, and they look like oak trees. While the poison oak leaves resemble oak tree leaves, poison oak is not part of the oak tree family. Although they look the same, the leaves almost look like oak tree leaves. Poison oak and poison ivy are very similar plants. Just like poison ivy and poison sumac, the leaves will turn red and orange in the fall. You want to be careful with all that stuff, really. The rhyme leaves a three, let it be, will save you here. If you see a plant with three leaves in a cluster, just avoid it, just forget it. That's really a good safe rule to remember. It will save you from an annoying rash. And it can sometimes be life-threatening, really. All three of these plants contain Urucia, which causes the allergic reaction. Okay, now I'm going to talk about how to avoid anything from hurting you. And these are the key prevention strategies. Learn to spot these plants, learn to identify them. I know I don't have pictures, I do apologize for that, but you can look them up. You can look up the plant on Google and see what they look like and just identify them, know what they look like, see them, take pictures of what you think are them, and then when you get home, see if that's see if you were correct. Dress appropriately. If you're going to be running in an area where the trails are overgrown, where there hasn't been a whole lot of trail maintenance in a while, wear long pants. You can wear running leggings. You can put on gaiters, you can just be careful, wear long sleeve shirts, that kind of thing, just to protect you, because it's better to have a little bit more extra protection than not in those situations. Especially if it's a trail, like I said, that hasn't had any maintenance for a while, that's very brushy, that's overgrown. You're going to spend a little bit of time in there. Stay on trails, avoid walking off the trail, as I have already said earlier. Avoid walking through the brush. You're not only going to avoid the plants that might hurt you, but you're going to avoid getting ticks that way too, as I mentioned in the animal episode previously. So you want to avoid that. I mean, ticks are nastier than poison oaks, so you want to avoid that big time. Protection gear, use a walking stick to move plants rather than hands. That's a really, really good tip. If you take trekking poles with you, use the trekking poles. This was written for hikers, so my apologies. Yeah, use your trekking poles instead of your hands to move brush. Don't sit on the ground in high-risk, shady areas. Because I'll tell you, if there had been poison oak on the ground and it rubbed against the ground, that ground's going to have some of that oil on there. So it doesn't go away immediately. So you may get some of that oil on you. It says here you can use skin creams designed to block urushiol oil like ivy off before you go out for a run. I have not tried that. I don't know if that works. So if you have tried it, let me know. Because that sounds like something that would be very helpful. Post-hiking care, as soon as you get home, put everything in the wash with hot water and soap. Those oils can persist for years. So you want to wash everything you can. And you want to take a shower, use cool water to avoid opening pores to the oil. That's a really good idea. Don't take a hot, hot shower, take a cooler shower, use cooler water. Use soap and water to get at every part of you. Within 30 to 60 minutes of your run, you want to get this as quickly as you can. Because if you let it be there for a while, you have more of a risk of getting poison oak. If contact occurs, use rubbing alcohol or soap and water on the exposed area. But I tell you, the rubbing alcohol, please dab it. Don't rub. It's a rubbing alcohol, but don't rub it. Just dab it lightly. Just gently, gently dab it. Or soap and water in the exposed area. Don't scratch, please don't scratch. Scratching can spread the oil and cause an infection, especially if you open up the skin. And treat symptoms. Apply calamine lotion or cold compresses. That will help. Take a bath with Felsnaphtha. That's what I always did as a kid. I'm going to tell you my story as a kid getting poisoned oak in a little bit. But you want to be careful about that. Now, stinging nettles, sting oh, stinging nettles. I got bit by stingy nettles one time. Let me tell you, I think those things do bite. I think they they spit out net those nettles. When stung by nettles, avoid rubbing the area for at least 10 minutes to prevent pushing toxins deeper into the skin. The little metals that they have, they have toxins on them. And they just, oh, they hurt so bad. And they're little and they hurt. Wash the area with soap and water to remove the stinging hairs, apply a cold compress to reduce swelling, and use creams like hydrocortisone or calamine to alleviate itching. Now immediate and essential care, do not scratch. Scratching and rubbing can force the plant chemicals deeper into the skin. Wait 10 minutes. Let the chemicals dry on the skin to make them easier to wash away. And then you want to clean with the area with soap and cold water to wash away the plant's toxins. You want to remove the hairs. Now you can use sticky tape. Duct tape works really great to remove any stingers stuck in the skin. That will really work. It does work, trust me. Duct tape is just magic. I swear to God. Duct tape will work with that. Relieving the itch and pain of stingy nettles, cold compress works pretty good. Apply an ice pack or cold cloth for about 10 or 15 minutes. And then you can apply a hydrocortisone cream or calamine lotion or aloe vera to reduce the inflammation. Hydrocortisone worked for me, so but you use what works for you. You could also make a baking soda paste with make mixed baking soda with a little water to make a paste to apply to the rash. Apparently, that works well too. Antihistamines take over-the-counter antihistamines or pain relievers like ibuprofen to help as well. When in contact with cactus needles, remove the large spines immediately with tweezers, pulling the same direction they entered. You want to be careful about that. You want to make sure and pull them out like straight out. If they went in straight, you want to pull them straight out. For tiny hair-like ones, you want to use adhesive tape like duct tape, like we just talked, glue or pantyhose to lift them if you have pantyhose. Who has pantyhose these days? I don't know. This this that was weird. That was a weird suggestion. Afterwards, wash area with soap and water, apply antiseptic, and monitor for infection. Now, spine removal techniques, tweezers. Use sanitized tweezers for large visible spines, glue or tape, apply white glue or duct tape over affected area, let it dry, and gently peel it away to remove small, fine needles. Scraping a credit card or blade can be used to scrape out multiple small spines. I would be careful with the blade, but a credit card can work pretty well. Okay, pantyhose, here we go. Use nylon stocking material to rub over the area to grab small hair like ones. But if you have pantyhose, I haven't had pantyhose in 30 years. So go figure. After care and tips, soak the affected area in warm, salty water to help loosen stubborn, deep, or tiny hair-like needles. Disinfect. Clean the area with mild soap and water or antiseptic, avoiding alcohol as it may cause irritation. That's really important. Avoid that. Bandage. Apply an antibacterial ointment and cover the area with a bandage to prevent an infection. And don't rub the area as that can cause needles to break or penetrate deeper. And you want to seek medical help if there's a spine deeply embedded near a joint. If you notice signs of infection like redness, swelling, pus, or fever, you want to seek medical help. And if you are not up to date on your tetanus shot, you want to seek medical help. And the tetanus shot should be given every ten years. You don't need it if you've had it five years ago, you don't need another one. But just make sure you've had a tetanus shot in ten years. Within ten years, I should say. If severe pain persists more than two hours after. Removal, seek medical help. These are really, really important, and you don't want to take them lightly and you don't want to brush it off. All right, my story, my stu, my poison oak story, I was a pretty active kid. We always went camping and we went out hiking and we went out playing a lot in the uh out in the outdoors when I was a kid. There's this big county park across the freeway from where I lived. We'd just ride our bikes, and 15 minutes we were at this uh at Coyote Point, which at that time it was this big wild space area. There wasn't a lot to it. There was a children's museum with animals, and there was a restaurant, and there was a yachting club, and that was about it. The rest was all wild. Now it's all built up and it's all and it's all use for like for us there's soccer fields and there's b baseball fields and there's all kinds of stuff, but it's not anything like it was then. But my brother and I used to go out there, ride our bikes out there, and we used to chase lizards because lizards lose their tails, or at least these lizards, so we want to chase them for their tails. So as soon as we grabbed the lizard by the tail, it would lose its tail and the tail would still be moving. And we thought that was really cool when we were kids. Hey, we were kids, what did we know? I know we didn't hurt the lizard. No lizards were hurt doing this. We hurt no animals. Trust me, the lizard grew back their tails. But we thought it was fun. But the thing is, as we were chasing these lizards, we go through poison oak bushes and I get poisoned oak every year. You know, my brother never did. Hmm, so maybe he's allergic to it. I don't know. Maybe he he got to skip that one. I don't know how that worked, but he did. Anyways, I got poison oak every year. And I think I built up an immunity to it because I haven't gotten it since I was a kid. So that's my poison oak story, but oh, I used to get it every single summer. My mother knew it was like, oh yeah, that time of year, Martha's getting your poison oak. So I spent many an hour in Phil's nap the baths. Anyway, so that's my poison oak story. And then yeah, sorry if if chasing lizards freaked you out, but that's what we did. Anyway, so that is my show for this week, and I hope you have great trail runs and avoid all those nasty plants. There are some beautiful plants out there, so appreciate them and take pictures. But avoid, avoid all plants, I think. Just go go close to them, take pictures, and keep going. All right, so that is it for today. My uh email address is MarthaRunsherworld with Gbo.com. And until next week, let's dive for Sheeleas's and go for it.