Found growing wild in Prince Edward Island, just on the edge of a small wetland delta adjacent to the ocean. Although it may be difficult to see, specimen is about 4ft in both height and width.
I'd give it an 80%+ chance that this is giant hogweed, or Heracleum mantegazzianum (see this site for diagnostic characteristics). One would need an inflorescence to confirm. You may want to report the sighting. I hope you didn't touch the plant.
Some other hogweed Heracleum sp. It is in bud with the flower stems developing, and they're much too slender and dark for H. mantegazzianum (stems around 5-8 cm diameter, one stem per plant, and yellow-green with purple spotting). I'd guess probably H. maximum, native in the area. Here's H. mantegazzianum for comparison.
When I click on the link to diagnostic characteristics using Mozilla it just spools. Anyway, as stated and shown above giant hog weed should be producing a single towering stem from the center of the rosette.
Sorry for the very late response, Thank you for your all of your help and input. I did not touch it just in case... However the specimen eventually was overwhelmed by the high salinity environment after being flooded by some high tides. Mark N.
