Dear Wood Folk, We’ve covered a tinier iris before: blue-eyed grass. It’s a miniature lookalike you might find in your lawn around cottage country Ontario. Our title iris on the other hand can grow close to a few feet tall. Common along wetlands here, Northern blue flag (Iris versicolor) is our native blue flag iris. …
Bogbean AKA Buckbean (menyanthes trifoliata) is native to Ontario and found in wet, boggy habitats. It’s used for brewing and medicinally. Bogbean is closely related to gentian and it shows. Called buckbean in Haliburton Flora, bogbean (menyanthes trifoliata) is uncommon here. It likes sphagnum mats in bogs and shallow, boggy edges of small lakes, and …
Sweetgale AKA bog myrtle (myrica gale) is edible and medicinal, but it can induce an abortion. So excited moms-to-be will want to stick with enjoying its beauty and the beauty of the gorgeous moths who use it as a host plant. Sweetgale AKA bog myrtle (myrica gale) is common in central Ontario, in shores and …
In Anishinaabemowin, kandamo, variegated pond-lily is not just an edible and medicinal plant to the 2-leggeds, but a favourite of aquatic wildlife. It’s also visited by many pollinators. Variegated or yellow water-lily (nuphar variegata) is common here in gently flowering shallow waters, up to a few metres deep. There was one small yellow water lily (nuphar …
One of the central Anishinaabemowin names for white water lily is odite’abug wabi’gwun. White water-lily is one of our stand out edible and medicinal aquatic plants. The flower itself is widely recognizable: a lotus. Around Haliburton we have white water-lily (nymphaea odorata) and the yellow ones you spot should be variegated (nymphaea varigeta). In Haliburton …