Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) is an edible and medicinal wild plant that I wish was native to Ontario. This herb is so popular it has been planted all around the world. Motherwort is uncommon here, yet it spontaneously showed up in my brush pile beside my driveway one year. It does have lookalikes, particularly in the … [Read more…]
A relation of quinoa, lamb’s quarters (Chenopodium album) is another wild edible and medicinal plant that likes to take over disturbed soil, like the plot you just tilled for your garden! It was a toss up between quinoa and wild spinach for the subtitle. But there are so many “spinach substitutes”! This is the entry … [Read more…]
A type of buckwheat, lady’s-thumb (Polygonum persicaria syn. Persicaria maculosa) is a common garden “smartweed” here. It’s a smart beginner wild edible and medicinal green because of the distinguished triangular purple spot on the leaf making it easily identifiable. Check out the nice, clearest “thumb”print, bottom-left: There are lookalikes throughout Ontario, primarily also in the … [Read more…]
Apple (Malus spp.) isn’t just an ordinary edible fruit tree. It also has medicinal qualities. It is another plant that was brought to North America by European colonists, but the species originated in Central Asia. Our apples wild ancestor malus sieversii still grows there today. What you’ll find in the wild is a mixed bag, … [Read more…]
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) is a “wounderful” edible and medicinal herb. A yarrow salve for healing cuts and scrapes was my first ever herbal medicine maker’s recipe! Yarrow is another European import. It’s most descriptive folk name is woundwort. It’s not the only “woundwort”, so cheers for Latin names. On the same note, it’s been called … [Read more…]
In Chippewa, wi’gwass’tig, white birch (Betula papyrifera) is not only edible and medicinal, but is traditionally used in many other ways from making canoes to baskets to birch bark biting. I think of it as the craftiest tree! White birch is sometimes called paper birch or canoe birch after two of its many utilizations. Edible … [Read more…]