California Plant Identification Help?

I'm trying to help identify a plant some friends and I were discussing the other day. I'm not sure what it's real range is, the only encounter I had was on the coast when I came into contact with it. It was on Vandenberg AFB, which is at Lompoc CA. That's the best I can do as far as it's location.

I remember it looking like a weed, nothing extraordinary about it, however, I got into a patch of it, and it was like being stung by a jelly fish. The pain was instant, intense, and immediately left a welt like rash, wherever it touched me. Absolutely hurt like well, just bad. Also seemed that the surface of the leaves felt kind of rough, but that could have just been the beginning of the stinging pain.

Had one of my friends who was skeptical that the efects could be that quick, but I couldn't do a search because my search critera was so broad I got about a million hits.

Anyone able to help me out here? Sorry for the weak description, but that was quite a few years ago.

Thanks,
J

Stinging nettle?
Duane

Nettles. Vinegar dissolves the lttle stickers right away.

Thanks, both of you. Believe it or not, I guessed "stining nettles", but then doubted myself, since I didn't know. We have similar plants here, I don't know if they're related and they only cause a mild iritating sting and "red mark". I know the plants in CA stung like something I can't say on a civil and family oreintated forum... P.S., wish I'd had some vinegar at the time....

What were you doing at Vandy Land?

The squadron I commanded had an operating location there; never could talk my boss into letting me go TDY to check it out.

Just goofing off....We did a little training there as well, but not much...

J.

Only place I've encountered nettles is the coast--Mendocino area in my case. Holy crap they hurt, and there's a delay so I never actually saw them to say to myself, "Hey, this plant hurts--don't do that again."

Nettles are up and down the coast, the mountians above Ventura and Santa Paula are loaded near water. They suck!

Those things are actually edible. Boiling them gets rid of the "sting" and they are known for there high protein content (compared to most green and leafy things).

I am not sure if there are different kinds or some are more potent than others but I was hiking in England a few years ago and came into contact with some and reacted much more than I react to the ones we have in Michigan.

Plantain (just chew the leaves and apply), jewelweed leaves and the leaves of the nettles themselves will take care of the sting (course you have to pick the leaves and mash them up... which leads to being stung again, kinda a catch 22 there).

I was shocked at how large the plants were in Cali compared to MI - I kept looking at them, "they can't be nettles, if they are - they are like pre-historic sized nettles... AAARG, yep they are nettles"

In my OP, I responded that I guessed "stinging nettles" first, but we have those here. They are more of a "minor annoyance", maybe a little rash and burn. So that's why I doubted my own guess that the plants I came into contact with in costal CA, were stinging nettles.

The plants I came into, in CA, made me say things that I couldn't repeat here, in a civil and family oriented forum. But use your imagination, four letter words were used immediately after contact.

So, I'd have to guess that some are much more potent than others.

On an aside, one reply was that they were edible. I researched some material, and found, that sure as heck, they are. Just think unless I was really, really hungry for green foilage, I'd take a pass on those..

I've been stung by wasps, bee's, scorpions, etc...those nettles in CA must be some of the worlds worst. Instant cuss word explitives, pain, and welts that look like I'd been beaten with a leather strap..

J.

This is also the case with poison oak. There are several subspecies.

If I go into the foothills of the Sierra, I never rash. If I go to the coast I start to rash and need baths in Technu. Last time I resorted to the expensive Zanfel - OH, that worked so much quicker than suffering through it.

Lori

Actually, I find that humorous. We have posion ivy all over the place, as well as poision oak. (in KY) I've never been even the most least, bothered by it. Poison Ivy, I've seen, can turn a person from white skinned to looking like they've been hit by agent orange. Never has affected me at all.

I guess a person would have to have a medical degree to explain why I can walk through a patch of poison Ivy, and oak, and have no "real" adverse effect, while at the same time, get into a patch of (the CA kind) of nettles and feel like someone poured muratic acid on me...

J.

I did not show a sensitivity to poison oak until I was 42. Before that I never had a reaction.

Sometimes it's an acquired allergy.

Yea, I'm in Santa Cruz, Central Coast of Calif, and we have nasty instant sting type nettles like that!

Could you have perhaps met the infamous poodle dog bush?

Not sure if you were asking me or someone else about the poodle dog bush. But for me, a definite no. The text about the bush say's there is no immediate reaction. The stuff I got into was burning in seconds.

J.

Sound like what we used to call "Itch Weed" when I was growing up in No IL. It was mostly found growing near creek and river bottoms.

I remember it growing over my head and having to hike though acres of it to get wherever it was we wanted to go. We use to take mud and smear it on the welts and let it dry. That took the sting away pretty fast.

I haven't run into it here in the Ozarks, but I suppose it's here too. I don't remember ever seeing it it So Cal, but the PNW is probably as good as anywhere for it to grow.

My guess is stinging nettle as well. When I was a boy scout in California, it was all over the place. We would make cordage with it at camps, and even boil it to eat it. Tastes like boiled spinach. It looks just like mint. Once my dad saw it and said "I wonder if that is mint?......never mind" as he screams. You can touch the leaf and not get stung also. I have seen it in Texas, and even here in Utah, but not to the extent I saw it in California.