On Mon, 01 Jul 2013 07:47:19 -0400, Pat Kiewicz wrote:

http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11947484.jpg
it's still automatic for me to ID poison ivy, oak, or sumac
I am amazingly good at spotting it.

I understand what you mean, as I am always identifying it for the
grandkids, who wander by oblivious to all harm.

Nobody is immune to cell-mediated immune responses (since the T-Cell
are randomly generated and passed by the Thymus), but some people just
haven't (randomly) gotten it yet. Or, they haven't gotten enough of a
dose that their T-Cells wandered by a urushiol quinone which has
bound to a receptor site on a Langerhans cell in their skin.

NOTE: Contact dermatitis is NOT mediated by humoral antigen/antibody
responses, so, all the conventional wisdom of "being immune" goes out
the door.

In the case of the amount of sap in that picture, almost nobody on
earth would not respond to that amount, were it to touch skin (keeping
in mind, the urushiol oil is known to stay active over 100 years in
dendrology drawers) and probably 10 years in my relatively dry climate.

On Mon, 01 Jul 2013 07:47:19 -0400, Pat Kiewicz wrote:

As a kid, he spent much of one summer indoors due to an extreme reaction
(that required medical intervention and injections).

I think those who have had an extreme reaction have had a pretty good
dosage of the plant, since the oils do not migrate per se; the oils
are "spread" (just like any other oil) though, and, in fact, 1/4 of
an ounce of urushiol is said to be enough to infect all people on earth:
http://poisonivy.aesir.com/view/fastfacts.html

Given the amount on a pinhead can give 500 people the rash, it would
not take all that much to cover your body in the oil; hence the key
to preventing that extreme reaction is to avoid the urushiol in the
first place.

However, when you have to tunnel through 500 feet of the thick tangly
vines, there is no way to completely avoid exposure. All you can do
is ameliorate the damage by knowing thine enemy and knowing yourself
(which is what Sun Tzu taught us a few thousand years ago).

Given the minute amounts it takes to "infect", you can't avoid getting
the urushiol-laced sap on your skin; and, once on the skin (which is
inevitable when you're chain sawing the stuff for hours) it behooves
us to get it *off* the skin if we can. As soon as we can.

It turns out that it's not easy to *remove* urushiol from the skin
because the lipid easily diffuses past cell membranes deeper into
the layers of your skin within 15 minutes of exposure and then the
urushiol is oxidized into a quinone (i.e., an oxidized aromatic),
which binds to large skin proteins - which, I must emphasize,
are the real culprit in the type IV immune response.

Note: Type IV cell mediated immune responses have *nothing* to do
with humoral antibodies; so, the normal rules of immunity that most
people think of, as in vaccines, do not at all apply!

Since these now-modified proteins suddenly *appear* to be foreign to
our (randomly-sensitized) T lymphocytes, the T-cells elicit a vicious
but localized cytokine attack, which is sort of like throwing a purple
anti-personnel marker grenade into a foxhole. This cytokine grenade
basically marks all your cells in the localized vicinity of the
offending now-mutant protein for death. As soon as your circulating
white blood cells smell the cytokines, they turn into cannibalistic
zombies, who eat all the marked cells, thereby destroying not only
the mutant proteins - but also killing your uninfected cells, and,
in part, your nervous tissue, so, that's what's causing the classic
poison oak rash of redness (i.e., blood), blisters (i.e., lymph)
and itching (i.e., damaged nerves):
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/images2/urushiol1d.jpg

The trick in preventing or reducing the rash after the protein is
forced to the other side is to direct a probing attack at the
pentadecacatechol (aka hydroureshiol) quinone. You do this by
substituting a harmless decoy for the offending hapten before
the T-cells have had a chance to mark them with cytokines.

It turns out that spermicides, which are tiny surfactants, are just
the ticket for swapping themselves in place of the quinone on your
skin proteins. If you're late to the game, you need to scrape
the skin with something (anything) that will allow the surfactant
to reach the Langerhans cells. The Zanfel/Technu creams use little
balls of polyethylene; but I use baking soda or toothpaste (which
contains tiny grains of sand) to the same effect.

The magic of the expensive creams is that they scrub, oxidize,
wash away, and substitute themselves for the quinone. My poor-man's
Zanfel/Technu does the same thing (we hope) by scrubbing (baking
soda or toothpaste abrasive), oxidizing (dilute bleach or peroxide),
washing away (full-strength dawn dish detergent), and substituting
(industrial non-ionic cleaners such as nonyl phenyl ethoxylate).

http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11912430.jpg

On Wed, 26 Jun 2013 17:48:30 +0000 (UTC), Drew Lawson wrote:
In article
Kay Lancaster writes:

I made the mistake of ignoring them. They got well established in
the area that I just returned to a vegetable garden this year. I
tilled, which broke up the underground network (or most of it), but
I still have to get the survivors before they have a chance to
reestablish it.

But till & trowel isn't an attractive solution if they are in the
lawn.

If it's not a stoloniferous plant (which means that every fragment in the
soil has the chance of becoming an entirely new plant), then the easy way,
imo, to deal with thistles in lawn is with an old fashioned dandelion digger
like: http://www.gardentoolcompany.com/lon...r-by-sneeboer/
Cut across the taproot an inch or so under the soil surface, and then
either flip the top of the plant over to desiccate in the sun (and get mulched
with the next mowing a few days later), or pick 'em up with a pair of
long tongs like a "reacher" http://www.spinlife.com/Nova-PIKSTIK...a#.UdJWLXwbDMU or bbq tongs and toss them into a wheelbarrow or cart or tarp for drying and
then composting.


I control it here in my Oregon yard with heading the flowers**
as soon as I see them, and spot applications of glyphosate on
established plants in the fall. Heading has to be done vigilantly--
at least once a week.

I never had much success with glyphosate. (I keep it on hand for
poison ivy and a couple other special cases.) I attributed that to
the root network.

Most herbicides, but especially things like glyphosate and gluofsinate,
where the herbicide is inactivated after a short period,
work best if the plant is in an active stage of growth... temperatures
neither too hot nor too cold, enough water to be growing and not stalled
out, etc.

You can also run into problems with the wrong concentration
or wrong timing of application, or with too much applied so the herbicide
runs off the plant, or if the plant has a really waxy cuticle, like English
ivy. Too strong a concentration is just as bad as too weak... often, if
the concentration is too strong, you get the top growth killed back, and
the herbicide is not transported to the basal parts of the plant, so they
can regrow. If you're dealing with a waxy cuticle, a spreader-sticker
like Aerosol OT (sodium dioctyl sulfosuccinate) or even a few drops of
dish detergent, can improve things dramatically.

Droplet size, if you're
spraying, can be important, too... too small a droplet may not get through
a heavy coat of plant hairs like many of the thistles, while too large a
size can roll right off the leaves, doing no damage. Yet another way
to goof things up with glyphosate application, is to dilute the spray with
dirty water -- I saw the results of someone spraying 250 gallons (!) of
glyphosate diluted with water taken from an irrigation ditch. Did absolutely
nothing because there was enough suspended clay particles in the water
to inactivate the herbicide.

And before you decide I'm a devotee of spray and pray pesticide
applications, I used to help with the botany end of a university weeds
class, and got to see examples of why it's best to id the weed first, then
consult the detailed instructions on controlling that species. It's
pretty rare for me to use an herbicide, but there are some things that
there's just no economically or labor-feasible way to control otherwise.

One end of the yard is a garden with Canada thistle, the other end
is lawn with Bermuda grass (the undesirable sort).

I have a way of attracting invasive weeds, I suppose.

Ooh, you did get lucky with that, didn't you? All you need is some
johnsongrass for a real trifecta there!

Kay

["Followup-To:" header set to rec.gardens.]
On Thu, 27 Jun 2013 05:47:06 +0000 (UTC), Danny D. wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jun 2013 15:42:03 +0000, Kay Lancaster wrote:

I control it here in my Oregon yard with heading the flowers**
as soon as I see them, and spot applications of glyphosate on
established plants in the fall.

Hi Kay,

I have 5 gallons of concentrated 40-something percent glyphosate, so,
I do have plenty to go around ... but what does "heading" mean?

Gads! That's a 500 year supply for me!

I guess that means to chop off the purple 'ball' at the top?
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/13420064.jpg

Not just the purple, but the green "ball" underneath it. That's where
the seeds are going to form.


What about the green balls that look slightly different?
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/13420070.jpg

Thistles are members of the Asteraceae, also known as the Compositae,
a very large family where the individual flowers are often mistaken
for "petals". The seed forming portion of the flower, the ovary, is
underneath the actual flower, and inside that cluster of overlapping
green bracts. And there can be literally thousands of flowers in one
of these "flower-looking" inflorescences (cluster of flowers).

If you think of a dandelion "flower", it's a disk about an inch or so
across when blooming. There are lots of little green leafy things
surrounding each "flower", that are really bracts, modified leaves.
http://newfs.s3.amazonaws.com/taxon-...-ahaines-b.jpg shows the greenish and brownish bracts on red-seeded dandelion,
a species you probably haven't met. And then you can see the yellowish
things that most people think of as petals, but they're actually
complete flowers... just a whole bunch of them gathered up together.
http://newfs.s3.amazonaws.com/taxon-...-ahaines-a.jpg See those sticky-up things with a double curlicue
at the tip? those are the tips of the pistil, which, like the mustard, is
a compound ovary with two carpels -- the curls are the stigmas of the flowers.
T

Here's a photo of a single dandelion flower: http://www.plingfactory.de/Science/A...nzelbluete.jpg
The curls at the top are the stigmas, and then just below that, you'll
notice a thicker yellow ring. That ring is 5 stamens, fused together
by their anthers, into a ring around the style of the pistil. http://www.inhs.uiuc.edu/~kenr/Photos/Taraxacum2.jpg Inside the ring of stamens is the
"neck" of the pistil, called the style, and way down at the
bottom of the flower, you'll see something that looks like a small white
sunflower "seed", which is the ovary of the flower. The white fluff is usually
interpreted as sepals, modified into seed hairs. The flat yellow thing over
to one side is actually 5 petals, fused together through most of their length
if you look at a dandelion flower you'll see that the "petals" look
like they've got teeth, and those are the tips of the real petals.
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4038/4...8b088dfe_z.jpg

So whole flower-like inflorescence has multiple flowers crowded in it (why? Probably because it's easier for pollinators to spot a big clump of little flowers than single little flowers. It also spreads the bloom time, lengthening
the time when there's a chance a pollinator might pollinate it and you'd
get seeds forming. Once all the flowers in the head have bloomed, the
bracts close up, and you get the narrow fluff-end stage as the petals
and stamens dry up and the pistils start maturing their seeds.
http://www.cepolina.com/photo/nature...mus-flower.jpg
And finally, when the seeds inside the fruits are mature, the
bracts drop once again and you get the fluffball stage:http://i00.i.aliimg.com/wsphoto/v0/7...pping-E007.jpg where you can see the white hairs that were WAY down
in the real flower making the downy parachutes for the matured fruits,
the brown seeds.

Anyhow, your thistle heads are put together similarly, but a little
different. And each of the groups of fluff are going to have a seed
attached to parachute onto some new bare ground and possibly start
yet another thistle. http://www.backyardnature.net/n/09/090906cc.jpg

So that's probably more than you've ever wanted to know about the
structure of Asteraceae inflorescences, or as most people think
of them, "flowers". There's an incredible amount of variation
in structure of flowers and inflorescences in the Asteraceae, and
thistles and dandelions are just part of the story.

Oh yeah, sometime when you're really bored, ask me about dandelion sex.

Kay

On Thu, 27 Jun 2013 04:32:27 +0000 (UTC), Danny D. wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jun 2013 02:01:03 +0000, Kay Lancaster wrote:

Turn the flower upside down and you'll find there are 4 green sepals,
then the four yellow petals.

Thanks for that information.

Here's a picture of the underside of the wild mustard flower:
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/13419875.jpg

Is the green arrow pointing to a (football-shaped) sepal?

Looks more like a petal that hasn't completely colored up yet. But that's
really hard to tell in a photo.

If you look at sepals and petals on almost all flowers, you'll find
that each series of flower parts are in whorls -- multiple parts
all coming out at the same level. So the lowest series is the
sepals. Let's say in an opened out mustard flower, they're laid
out like a + sign. The next whorl is petals, and if the sepals are
laid out like a + sign, the petals will be an X. Then there will be
4 stamens, laid out like a + and two more like two arms of the X,
and finally in the middle, the two chambers of the ovary, the two
carpels joined together to form a single fruit.

http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20p?i...WS95452&res=mx is a pretty
good view of the flower of a different species of mustard from the side...
in this case, both the sepals and petals are yellow, but different shapes,
and you can also see the four long stamens and two shorter ones most of
the mustards have.
http://www.plantbiology.siu.edu/PLB3...werGeneral.jpg and http://www.tsflowers.com/lilyphotos/Lily_Stargazer2.jpg is a lily
flower straight on, and you can see the different shapes of the
sepals, the narrower "petals" and the wider petals. Unfortunately, it's
not a good photo of the stamens or ovary, but I'll take what I can
get here. g

And yes, I can rattle on for hours about flower parts and how to
interpret what you're seeing... it's one of the major tools for plant
identification, once you get beyond pure recognition of different species.

Kay

On Thu, 27 Jun 2013 04:41:35 +0000 (UTC), Danny D. wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jun 2013 15:42:03 +0000, Kay Lancaster wrote:

Try pulling one up... you may find they're attached to an underground
root and stolon system, in which case you may be dealing with
Canada thistle, Cirsium arvense, a noxious weed* in California

Hi Kay,

I started pulling one up, then another, and another, and another,
until ... after a long while ... I filled my chest-high green recycling
bin with the thistle!
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/13419889.jpg

8-)

I'm not sure how they process those things at the town recycling
center - but those thistle thorns are nasty!
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/13419894.jpg

Pretty much like anything else... dump it in a hot pile, add water,
stir periodically, and turn it into compost. If you can get the whole
pile heated to about 140, it's not going to grow.

Kay

Danny D. said:


On Mon, 01 Jul 2013 07:47:19 -0400, Pat Kiewicz wrote:

http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11947484.jpg
it's still automatic for me to ID poison ivy, oak, or sumac
I am amazingly good at spotting it.

I understand what you mean, as I am always identifying it for the
grandkids, who wander by oblivious to all harm.

Nobody is immune to cell-mediated immune responses (since the T-Cell
are randomly generated and passed by the Thymus), but some people just
haven't (randomly) gotten it yet. Or, they haven't gotten enough of a
dose that their T-Cells wandered by a urushiol quinone which has
bound to a receptor site on a Langerhans cell in their skin.

NOTE: Contact dermatitis is NOT mediated by humoral antigen/antibody
responses, so, all the conventional wisdom of "being immune" goes out
the door.

I've never gotten a rash from poison ivy, even when (as a kid) I was dared
to rub a leaf on my skin, or when I've pulled seedlings out bare-handed.
My dad's side of the family, very vigorous reactors. My mother never has,
if I recall correctly.

Which is sort of odd, as both my mother and I have had serious
reactions to other chemicals and adhesives. I've had at least one
quite serious case of photoallergic dermatitis which required
(unpleasant) steroid therapy and I have to carefully read labels to
avoid certain preservatives and also avoid sun-screens other than
zinc oxide. I mainly rely on sun protective clothing and hats,
which means long sleeves and long pants no matter how hot it is.
(Coolibar makes some clever items, but it's still easy to overheat.)

In the case of the amount of sap in that picture, almost nobody on
earth would not respond to that amount, were it to touch skin (keeping
in mind, the urushiol oil is known to stay active over 100 years in
dendrology drawers) and probably 10 years in my relatively dry climate.

That I could believe.
--
Pat in Plymouth MI

"Yes, swooping is bad."

email valid but not regularly monitored

In article ,
Danny D. wrote:
On Fri, 28 Jun 2013 11:27:04 -0500, Natural - Smoking Gun - Girl wrote:

hmmm I've never known anyone to tackle poison oak on such a gigantic level
before. I'm not sure I really understand how you manage to not get the
rash, tho.

I tunneled through about 500 feet of poison oak jungle over a period
of a few months.
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11917454.jpg

You need goats, lots of goats.
--
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 http://rule6.info/
* * *
"Sociobiology might be interesting if the sociobiologists would just pay
attention to the way people really behave." --SJM

In article ,
The Daring Dufas wrote:

Danny, I want to complement you on your picture taking. It makes it much
easier for others to understand what you are writing about and
you really seem to enjoy photography. I have to Email lots of photos
of the work me and JH do to the service corporation we do work for and
I've gone through two inexpensive digital cameras this year. I'm going
to see if I can find a darn rubber coated drop resistant camera. ^_^

Easy option is to just use your phone and stick it in a good case. There
are also plenty of rugged cameras available, just go to dpreview.com,
camera feature search, fixed lens cameras, advanced search filters,
"durability/sealing" under "physical".

The Olympus TG-2 would be a good option if you have any challenging light
situations because the max aperture is F2.0, although it's a bit more
spendy.
--
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 http://rule6.info/
* * *
"Sociobiology might be interesting if the sociobiologists would just pay
attention to the way people really behave." --SJM

On 3 Jul 2013 09:53:41 -0700, (Aahz Maruch) wrote:

I tunneled through about 500 feet of poison oak jungle over a period
of a few months.
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11917454.jpg

You need goats, lots of goats.

....and a truck for transport.

In article
,
Pat Kiewicz wrote:

Danny D. said:


On Mon, 01 Jul 2013 07:47:19 -0400, Pat Kiewicz wrote:

http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11947484.jpg
it's still automatic for me to ID poison ivy, oak, or sumac
I am amazingly good at spotting it.

I understand what you mean, as I am always identifying it for the
grandkids, who wander by oblivious to all harm.

Nobody is immune to cell-mediated immune responses (since the T-Cell
are randomly generated and passed by the Thymus), but some people just
haven't (randomly) gotten it yet. Or, they haven't gotten enough of a
dose that their T-Cells wandered by a urushiol quinone which has
bound to a receptor site on a Langerhans cell in their skin.

NOTE: Contact dermatitis is NOT mediated by humoral antigen/antibody
responses, so, all the conventional wisdom of "being immune" goes out
the door.

I've never gotten a rash from poison ivy, even when (as a kid) I was dared
to rub a leaf on my skin, or when I've pulled seedlings out bare-handed.
My dad's side of the family, very vigorous reactors. My mother never has,
if I recall correctly.

I'm the same with poison oak, but my understanding is that this can
change without notice.


Which is sort of odd, as both my mother and I have had serious
reactions to other chemicals and adhesives. I've had at least one
quite serious case of photoallergic dermatitis which required
(unpleasant) steroid therapy and I have to carefully read labels to
avoid certain preservatives and also avoid sun-screens other than
zinc oxide. I mainly rely on sun protective clothing and hats,
which means long sleeves and long pants no matter how hot it is.
(Coolibar makes some clever items, but it's still easy to overheat.)

In the case of the amount of sap in that picture, almost nobody on
earth would not respond to that amount, were it to touch skin (keeping
in mind, the urushiol oil is known to stay active over 100 years in
dendrology drawers) and probably 10 years in my relatively dry climate.

That I could believe.
--
Remember Rachel Corrie
http://www.rachelcorrie.org/

Welcome to the New America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg