These plants are nonnative and aggressively spread, causing damage to Ontario’s environment. Find out more and how to report sightings at https://www.ontarioinvasiveplants.ca/invasive-plants/species/
Most local knapweeds (Centaurea spp.) look similar to bull thistle or Canada thistle. However, you’re more likely to find your knapweed in patches instead of lone like bull thistles. Spotted knapweed (C. maculosa) is noted in Haliburton Flora on the edge of the highway, which is where I’ve seen it too. Another Centaurea is bachelor’s …
Wintercress is a nonnative garden vegetable that has escaped into the wild in Ontario. The subtitle was a toss up between broccoli and arugula of edible wild plants. Which would you have picked? Winter cress (Barbarea vulgaris) is common here along moist roadsides and in fields among flowers and grasses. Its bright yellow flower clusters …
Ontario’s local red mulberry is precariously close to extinction. The Asian white has taken over and hybridized with the red. Only around 200 true red mulberries are left. Mulberries (Morus spp.) are absent from Haliburton Flora; just its relations hops and marijuana made the cut. I have seen them around, likely all planted for landscaping. …
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 …
Often called melilot, our sweet clovers (Melilotus spp.) 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 …
There may not be a traditional word for wild parsnip (Pastinaca sativa) because this plant is an invasive settler introduced plant. Edible and medicinal carrot/parsley family plants are notorious on the internet. Their relation giant hogweed is especially villainized. My library of herbal books tends to focus on cow parsnip, and even then, these parsnip …