What kind of plant is this?

What the heck kind of plant did my son get into?

• What the heck kind of plant did my son get into? While on vacation in Quebec, my son started complaining that his hand was hurting. He had brushed it against some sort of plant. Within ten minutes he was screaming in pain. He can be dramatic at times, like most five year olds, but this was genuine pain. We noticed he had 10 – 20 small “thorns” sticking out of his hand. They were tiny, thin, hardly visible, sticking out not much more than a millimeter, and probably not inserted much more than that. They were whitish, or clear, sort of like fiberglass fibers, scattered around his palm and fingers. I could only see them up close, and only from certain angles. I was able to pull a few out with tweezers and they left no visible marks or scars. After a half hour, some Benadryl, and a cookie he had calmed down a bit and the next morning he was fine, with no signs left of the incident. No allergic reaction, no swelling, nothing. My son couldn’t tell us which plant it was and nobody was able to find it. My wife is pretty knowledgeable about plants but she didn’t know what it was. Friends up there told us it’s happened before to other people but nobody has ever been able to identify the plant. Facts: Quebec, about 80 miles North of Ottawa, mid-July. We were in a wooded area, where the woods met a grassy field, within 100 feet of a lake but the ground was dry. It was (obviously) some sort of plant, not a bug or an animal. He was picking raspberries at the time, so it was near a raspberry bush. It was not stinging nettles, as far as we know, since those are easy enough to identify. What the hell could it have been? I want to find it and eliminate it from the Earth. Or at least be able to avoid it.

• Answer:

  If not Nettle, it may have been http://www.herbalgram.org/youngliving/herbalgram/articleview.asp?a=2697. The little needles cause stinging, burning and dermatitis. See the second photo for what the needles look like. The newer the leaf and higher on the plant, the smaller and clearer the needles are, while the woody bottom plant has long opaque needles.