Recently someone took the flowering tops off of all of the cow parsnips along the handicap accessible trail at Sweetheart’s Bluff. While the flowers will regrow, it is best to leave them for the throngs of hikers who daily stroll through the woods to enjoy.
Molly Hoffman was taking her morning stroll along the Sweetheart’s Bluff Trail in Grand Marais on July 9 when she noticed that someone had picked the flowering tops off of all of the cow parsnips.
“They were growing along the north park handicap loop. There were quite a lot of them. Someone went through and ripped the tops off of the plants. All of them. They must have filled a couple of garbage bags. They were just in bloom. I don’t have any idea what someone could do with them, but it was real mean spirited of them. It’s also illegal. It’s vandalism,” she said.
Hoffman took her complaint to Grand Marais Parks Manager Dave Tersteeg who said he didn’t know who, or why, anyone would have had a reason to take the flowers.
“They’ll grow back. They aren’t dead. It’s just heartbreaking to see the meanness in someone,” Hoffman said.
Cow parsnips grow in most places in the continental United States except the Gulf Coast and a few neighboring states. The plants can grow to be 7 feet tall and they have white flowers that can spread a foot across. They are toxic to dogs, cats, and horses.
While Hoffman said she didn’t know of any uses for the plants, Native Americans found many ways to incorporate them into their lives. They used the plant to make poultices for bruises or sores, and the stalks and stems were used for food. They would peel back the outer stem, giving the stalk a sweet flavor. Dried stems were used to make drinking straws for the sick or the old, and flutes were made for children. These ideas were passed down through the eons to the kids of the 1960s who played in the woods at Sweetheart’s Bluff and did many of the same things with the cow parsnips as the first people did.
Another handy use for the flowers was to mash them up and rub them on one’s body to ward away mosquitos and other pesky insects, and maybe that’s what the flowers will be used for, an organic bug dope, so to speak.
Whoever took the flowering tops certainly had a reason, but Hoffman wanted to remind them that this is an area of the park that is enjoyed by many, including the handicapped, and the walk is made more pleasant by the throngs of white flowering cow parsnips, that for awhile anyway, are down for the count.
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