Bittercresses are in the mustard family and include toothworts. The Latin name “kardamine” means water or pepper grass. The folk name “pepper root” tells what this edible wild plant tastes like. Bittercresses (cardamine SPP.) like the twoleaf toothwort in our pictures here (cardamine diphylla syn. dentaria diphylla) are related to mustard. Dentaria diphylla is the outdated …
Sow thistle (sonchus spp.) is not a true thistle and also non-native here. Sometimes mistakenly called milk thistle, sow thistles are another edible and medicinal plant to gobble up or feed to the pigs. Sow thistles in these parts include field sow-thistle (sonchus arvensis), spiny-leaved sow thistle (sonchus asper), common sow-thistle (sonchus oleraceus), and sow-thistle …
Bull thistle (cirsium vulgare) is a common sight in sunny pastures and along the roadside here. Its (also euro) cousin Canada thistle (cirsium arvense) will be covered another time, even though the edible and medicinal usage is similar. Bull thistle is more edible. I’m going to interrupt this piece to invite you to join me …
Often called melilot, our sweet clovers are a settler imported edible and medicinal plant. But you’re going to need to be careful about mold. And you might want to report it. Around here white sweet clover (melilotus alba) is common. We also have yellow sweet clover (melilotus officinalis), identical in uses, but uncommon in these …
In Ojibwe, okaadaak means carrot, and Queen Anne’s-lace is literally a wild carrot. It’s another likely garden escapee, naturalized to Haliburton, and a surprisingly edible and medicinal wild plant. (If you’re not possibly pregnant, anyway!) Edible Uses of Queen Anne’s-lace (Wild Carrot) The whole plant smells distinctly of carrot. But the edible roots are white …
These edible and medicinal fleabane are smaller daisies, that bloom earliest of daisies here, and they are quickly raggedly looking. From all that you can probably figure out why they’re called eri (early) and geron (old man) in greek. Around Haliburton, we have common fleabane, rough daisy (erigeron strigosus) – more likely found at rocky …