In Chippewa, odjici’gomin refers to Canada wild lettuce (lactuca canadensis), one of many edible and medicinal wild lettuces (lactuca spp.) you’ll find in Ontario. They are often confused with chicory, dandelion or sow thistles, but fortunately these tall wild lettuces have no poisonous lookalikes. Although, at a glance rattlesnake roots have a similar look and height. …
Like many plants called “lily”, orange day-lily isn’t a true lily. The flowers are just lily-like. The “day” part comes from each bloom only lasting a day. It’s a non-native edible and medicinal plant you can just gobble up if you like. In Haliburton, we have both orange (hemerocallis fulva) and yellow (hemerocallis lilioasphodelus) day-lilies, …
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 …
In Chippewa, gi’ziso’muki’ki, goldenrod is a sunny medicinal and edible wild plant. In the past, it was falsely blamed for hayfever allergies, which are actually caused by ragweed. It’s really a medicine to treat allergies! Latin solidare means to join or make whole, and when you come upon the medicinal tags below you’ll see why …
In Chippewa, ini’niwunj meaning “man like”, common milkweed is a monarch of the edible and medicinal wild plant kingdom. Let’s cultivate this king of herbs for the butterflies more than we eat it, please! Milkweeds folk names are somewhat all over the place, as there are tons of varieties, and many probably don’t refer mainly …