PORT ANGELES — It’s a weed worthy of Paul Bunyan’s ax, this horticultural horror in Lila Frisch’s garden.
It’s a hay fever sufferer’s Godzilla.
It’s a 9-foot-tall giant ragweed that thinks it’s a Douglas fir, or maybe it’s just taking performance-enhancing drugs.
“Where it came from nobody knows,” said Frisch, “but I have been watching this nice, healthy plant grow through the summer.”
The plant’s scientific name is Ambrosia trifida, a charming appellation until you realize how many sniffly noses and runny eyes it could create.
Frisch’s friends and family members quizzed her about the plant that had grown like, well, a weed.
“I finally took a sample of leafs to the Master Gardeners [of Washington State University Extension],” she said, and another cutting to the Noxious Weed Control Board booth at the Clallam County Fair.
“It took a week of searching,” Frisch recalled, “but it finally was declared to be a giant ragweed.
“I am told we should get rid of it right away. A report from the county noxious weed department says, ‘This huge plant is probably an allergy sufferer’s worst nightmare.”‘
Cathy Lucero, county noxious weed control officer, said giant ragweed isn’t truly noxious because it’s a native plant, an annual that — to hay fever patients’ dismay — pollinates on the wind.
The plant in Frisch’s garden in south Port Angeles, Lucero said, is a big, strapping example of its kind.
“I hadn’t seen such a great specimen before,” she said.
