Moosewood AKA Eastern leatherwood (Dirca palustris) has been bumped as a feature here before for more edible and medicinal plants. However, I love this shrub so much and want to talk about it! Have you noticed a mostly inconspicuous shrub in the understory of woods around Haliburton that is rubbery? With leathery branches and stems … [Read more…]
Currants (Ribes spp.) are spattered everywhere around Haliburton county, Ontario. Gooseberry was covered earlier this year and is also a Ribes. Here we’re covering the rest of our local currants. And there are many currant species, and they are all lookalikes. But these edible and medicinal shrubs aren’t the same “currant” you find dried like … [Read more…]
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 Dentaria diphylla is the outdated … [Read more…]
Avens (Geum spp.) are in the rose family, closely related to cinquefoils and strawberries. There is a resemblance. In milder climates they are evergreen. Our chocolatey title is after the edible usage of the purple avens. We’ve got many avens species in Ontario, Canada! Our fairly common avens in the wilds of central Ontario are … [Read more…]
Scouring rush and common horsetail (both Equisetum spp.) are used to scrub and clean, but common horsetail also has edible uses. And scouring rush is the Equisetum plant preferred for medicinal uses. Related to ferns, common horsetail AKA horsetail fern is the only living genus of the subclass Equisetidae. Common horsetail (Equisetum arvense) is indeed … [Read more…]
Spring-beauty (Claytonia caroliniana) is one of our first spring flowers. It’s a small, striped edible and medicinal ephemeral and one of our first available bee foods. It even has its own specialist bee, the spring beauty miner. You might see non-natives like crocus and coltsfoot bloom first in the spring, before our bees even come out … [Read more…]