Thursday, July 03, 2008

Yellow Bristle Grass revisited

Yesterday, I had a comment on my mouth sores post from a woman in Minnesota, and another a few weeks ago from someone else on my culprit post. The latter was someone local wanting to find out what to look for and where that hay had come from, but since the little beastie grass had come up twice in the last few months, I decided to see what all I could find out.

I went to the internet to see if I could find out if this lovely weed is pervasive across the country and it is indeed found in most states in the U.S. See the range map on this site, which also has several good pictures of it in all sorts of phases. It's sort of benign looking for the most part, but it was not at all benign when it came in contact with soft horse noses and lips. It also caused some funky discoloration of Lena's teeth, inflammation of the gums, and Katie says bad breath, too.

It didn't affect Lena's appetite at all, but the sores were really nasty looking and impossible to heal until the hay went away, so I'm glad we figured it out. Well, I'm glad Dr. Kerr figured it out, anyway.

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