False Solomon’s seal AKA Solomon’s-plume (Maianthemum racemosum syn. smilacina racemosa syn. vagnera racemosa. For now I’ve left an older Latin name in the title, as it’s the one you’ll find in reference books for the most part. If you’ve seen a plant with a massive cluster of speckled pink and red berries hanging from it … [Read more…]
Another escapee from settler cultivation around here, comfrey is an historically renown and presently semi-controversial edible and medicinal plant. Around Haliburton, we have both common comfrey (Symphytum officinale) and the blue flowered wild sort (now classified as Andersonglossum boreale). The proper one of the title name has creamy yellow flowers. The pictured purple flowered I … [Read more…]
Here in Canada, cannabis (Cannabis sativa) is a legal medicinal and industrial plant. When Haliburton Flora was compiled, there was one Cannabis sativa noted on waste ground up in the northeast corner of Haliburton county. In the Haliburton Flora entry it’s called “marijuana”, but that name is used less and less for its racist origins. … [Read more…]
White pine (Pinus strobus) was the most towering of edible and medicinal plants here in Ontario 200 yrs ago. Imagine forests of 200-ft tall, 4-ft wide powerful evergreen medicine. This tree has so much life. It has the longest list of mammals and birds and insects allies that I have seen yet in my preparations … [Read more…]
White spruce (Picea glauca) is one of the first edible and medicinal plants I enjoy come spring. Its new fresh green tips are a popular forage – a top tip! These next two edible and medicinal wild plants are very similar: white spruce and white pine. They’re named for the white crust that often coats … [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…]