Language of Flowers

30 November 2012

A flower is a flower is a flower. But in Victorian England, one of the most self-repressed societies in modern times, the practice of using flowers to communicate was developed. Over time a bouquet could visually speak of feelings and thoughts one could not or would not say in person to another particularly one you might [...]

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Monkey’s Apple, Mimusop coriacea

22 November 2012

Monkey’s Apple is proof kids will eat anything. Many people who grew up with them recall eating a lot of the fruit as a child but can barely stand one as an adult. What was a fun outdoor snack at 10 turns into a mealy, acrid famine food at 30 which is not unusual because [...]

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Ringless Honey Mushrooms

22 November 2012

Do not eat any mushroom without checking in person with a local, live, mushroom collector. The first time I thought I saw the Ringless Honey Mushroom was on my neighbor’s lawn. The only problem was this species of mushroom grows on wood such as stumps or on decomposing roots. I had lived in the neighborhood [...]

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Wild Fennel: Foeniculum vulgare

16 November 2012

One of the outstanding sensory experiences of hiking in Greece is smelling in the wild herbs one usually buys in little plastic containers. Thyme makes a strong aromatic presence. And while the nose does not notice Wild Fennel the eyes do. It can grow dramatically tall. I was in southwestern Crete to hike Samaria Gorge [...]

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Amaranth Identification

15 November 2012

Sorting out some amaranths   Amaranthus hybridus, aka Smooth Amaranth, stems can be red or green Smooth Amaranth red leaf  hairy, green can be hairless. Smooth Amaranth flowers are short, petiole one half the lenght of the leaf to as long as the leaf. Smooth Amaranth flower Smooth Amaranth, green form.   Amaranthus palmeri, Palmer [...]

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Edible Wild Flowers

8 November 2012

I have written extensively on this site about edible flowers, both cultivated and wild. Here 103  previous separate entries about wild flowers are in one spot. So if it seems you have read parts of this before, you might have. However, this focus is just on wild flowers. The author of “Florida’s Incredible Wild Edibles”  [...]

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Edible Cultivated Flowers

8 November 2012

I have written extensively on this site about edible flowers, both cultivated and wild. Here 98  previous separate entries about cultivated flowers are in one spot. So if it seems you have read parts of this before, you might have. However, this focus is just on cultivated flowers. It’s difficult to imagine a kitchen or [...]

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Valuable Viburnums

17 October 2012

The only significant problem with Viburnums is choosing which one to use, and which ones to write about. There are 150 species of Viburnums, perhaps a couple of dozen more. Botanists can’t agree. Viburnums are found in temperate climates around the world, 18 natives to North America plus at least three imports. They’re much employed [...]

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Pandanus

5 October 2012

During several visits over the course of a year it looked like a large berm of tall grass, about the size and height of a one-story house. For some reason it was trimmed back and began to fruit which led to its general identification: Pandanus. That naturally leads to a Pandanus Problem: Which species is [...]

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Buttercups

21 September 2012

Buttercups are usually considered not edible. In fact, I think they were the first plant I learned not to eat when I was just a few years old.  Of the 2,252 species in the family and some 600 buttercups in the genus perhaps a dozen and a half squeak into the edible realm.  Potential famine [...]

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Mountain Ash, Rowan

2 September 2012

Long before Henry Potter Rowanwood wands were popular  ancients carried talismans of the tree to ward off evil and ate the fruit.  Well… sort of. Rowan is another name for the European Mountain Ash. Mountain ashes around the world tend to fall into two groups. One group has berries that are usually processed into jelly [...]

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Yew

1 September 2012

  The Yew can kill you… Did that get your attention? Good. It should. There is only one safe, small part of the tree that is edible. The rest is toxic. What’s edible? The aril around the seed. The seeds are NOT edible though those who have eaten them have said before they died that [...]

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Sourwood

28 August 2012

Sourwood honey is considered by some to be the best-flavored honey in North America, perhaps the world. Carson Brewer, a conservationist who wrote about life in Appalachia, mused that “Most honey is made by bees. But sourwood is made by bees and angels.” Honey connoisseurs say there’s an excellent crop of sourwood honey about once [...]

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Eastern Gamagrass

7 August 2012

Someone who supposedly knew their grasses wrote there are no toxic native North American grasses. I don’t know if that is true but the Eastern Gamagrass (Tripsacum dactyloides) certainly fits that description. And at 27% protein it’s one of the more nutritious native grasses if not the most. Among its many names are Bullgrass, Eastern [...]

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Peperomia

3 August 2012

I went to college in Maine where winter lasts from about November 1st to October 31st. I’m fond of telling people I love summer in Maine… both days of it. With the majority of the year cold and green plants scarce I made a lot of terrariums to have greenery around. I was always raiding [...]

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Musseling In

1 August 2012

His name was Hap Davis, gardener, woodsman, hunter, fisherman, teller of tall tales. I heard a neighbor of his say one day that the only way to ever catch a fish bigger than Hap was to tell your story last. He had a huge, half-way-to-the-knees, low-slung dewlap belly, a cancerous bump in the corner of [...]

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Litchi Tomato

17 July 2012

Foraging is a treasure hunt because with perhaps 6,000 edible species in North America there is always a surprise now and then such as the Litchi Tomato. Some people call it a wild tomato, others say it’s naturalized or an escaped crop. Some refer to it as an “heirloom.” Common names include Sticky Nightshade (not [...]

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Junipers

18 June 2012

In the cobweb recesses of my mind I have two memories of junipers. One was to make a tea to “force out” measles. The other was how horribly prickly they were when someone shoved you into them. As for “forcing out” measles* that is highly doubtful. Measles make themselves known without having to be prodded [...]

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Edible Flowers: Part Twenty

16 June 2012

Chinese Perfume Plant, Queensland Silver Wattle, Cloves, Chinese Lotus, Blue Lotus, Screwpine, Turpentine Tree, Sweet Autum Clematis, St. Anthony’s Turnip, Quince Above, edible flowers by Leggiadro.com Until I get more ambitious or there buds a blossoming fragrant hue for more, I will end this series at 20 articles, or 200 flowers. I still have to [...]

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Dad’s Applewood Pipes

22 May 2012

Time edits your memories. It sands off the rough edges that were once painfully sharp. It makes some moments clearer by evaporating the fog of being involved. Time throws most of your past into some hard-to-access memory dump. There it hides without an access code until something triggers it which happened recently to me because [...]

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