Common bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) is a popular edible, especially in the far east. But like most edible fiddleheads it’s complicated. Not preparing it thoroughly may be linked to stomach cancer. Common bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) is traditionally edible and medicinal in many places, but unfortunately a compound in it is potentially linked to stomach cancer. It’s … [Read more…]
Reed grass (Phragmites spp.) changed my completely black-and-white thinking about herbicides, and I’m sad it came to that! It’s hard to tell our native reed grass from the invasive European subspecies, and it may be hard to tell if a patch has been treated. It’s a tread with caution sort of edible and medicinal wild … [Read more…]
Here in Canada, cannabis (Cannabis sativa) is a legal medicinal and industrial plant. When Haliburton Flora was compiled, there was one Cannabis sativa noted on waste ground up in the northeast corner of Haliburton county. In the Haliburton Flora entry it’s called “marijuana”, but that name is used less and less for its racist origins. … [Read more…]
We’ll cover the edible and medicinal wild mint, peppermint and spearmint in this post. There are other mints I will cover separately: heal-all, catnip, wild bergamot, etc.! Wild mint (Mentha arvensis) and peppermint (Mentha x piperita) are listed in Haliburton Flora, with the native wild aka corn mint being more common. Spearmint, called the mother … [Read more…]
Wild red raspberry syn. American red raspberry (Rubus idaeus var. strigosus) is one of hundreds of wild edible and medicinal brambles. Its fruit is not a true berry, but a cluster of drupelets. So, yeah, bananas are berries and raspberries are not. Around Haliburton you’ll also find purple-flowering raspberry (Rubus odoratus), which will be covered … [Read more…]