We’ll cover the edible and medicinal wild mint, peppermint and spearmint in this post. There are other mints I will cover separately: heal-all, catnip, wild bergamot, etc.! Wild mint (Mentha arvensis) and peppermint (Mentha x piperita) are listed in Haliburton Flora, with the native wild aka corn mint being more common. Spearmint, called the mother … [Read more…]
Ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris) is the usual fern called fiddlehead. It’s a traditional dish in Quebec and New Brunswick and the sprouts are a delicacy called kogomi in Japan. It was the first fern in our edible and medicinal plants series! And presently one of many ferns we’ve covered. As per edibility, this one is … [Read more…]
Wild leek or ramps (Allium tricoccum) is a popular foraged plant by people who aren’t otherwise foragers around here. Some properties have carpets of them. Others have been stripped of them as people don’t know offhand how long the bulbs take to grow and how easy it is to devastate a population of ramps. In … [Read more…]
Wild sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis) is a prized edible and medicinal herb. And not just for the rootbeer. (Though that’d be enough for me!) Wild sarsaparilla’s folk names include rabbit foot and wild licorice. In some of my herbal books, it’s called spikenard instead. But there are many plants called spikenard. And confusingly, a more popular … [Read more…]