Of
spring flowers, forest nibbles and an edible feast…
Our May plants apprenticeship weekend got
off to an early start for those of us who were able to camp out at Alexis and
Bobbi’s place on Friday evening. Falling
asleep to the sound of spring peepers and the pattering of rain on our tents
and waking up to the sounds and smells of a glorious spring morning in the
country was a great way to get into the groove of the weekend. Saturday morning, woken by a chorus of birds,
cows and frogs, we had a relaxed outdoor breakfast and waited for the rest of
the group to assemble. After a quick
welcome and opening, and a chance to meet a couple of new participants to the
course, we were on our way to a beautiful Grey County forest.
Our first encounter was with a patch of
wild ginger, which prompted some good words from Alexis to add to our ongoing
conversation about ethical harvesting. Wild
ginger has some powerful medicinal properties to help with fever, respiratory
ailments and indigestion, but it is a plant to be treated sensitively. With ongoing habitat encroachment, we learned
that it is best to harvest wild ginger very lightly or not at all. Sometimes using a cultivated equivalent or a
more common wild substitute is the best medicine! We also noticed that the ginger, normally a
hardwood species, was growing among pines, and that other hardwood flowers were
also present here. A fascinating example
of tracking the human effect on the landscape: this colony is a remnant of a
former maple forest that was logged for many years. We could see that the
ginger was not as happy in the acidic soil of the pines as it would have been
nestled among the maples that once covered this area.
We moved on to some more widespread and
common species with large edible roots: dandelion and burdock. Again, Alexis
prefaced the harvest with some wisdom on caretaking and ethics. Harvesting
roots means taking a plant’s life, and so even more than taking other plant
parts requires sensitivity and reciprocity: tuning in to the health of the
plant and listening to whether it is ready to be harvested; and giving thanks,
as is the time-honored practice of all cultures living close to the land.
Roots are best harvested before or after
flowering: usually in fall, but potentially in spring. Dandelion is a liver and kidney tonic and a
diuretic, meaning it helps move fluid through the body. It is particularly valued for this purpose
because while it moves urine out of the body it also replenishes
potassium. The bitter flavour of the
leaves is also great for the body, stimulating digestion, and adding nutrients
often lacking in a modern western diet high in sugar and salt. Burdock similarly has very bitter leaves, and
its deep taproots are high in food energy, ideal for adding calories in any
survival situation.
We moved along the trail and stopped to
harvest some of the tiniest leaves of a basswood tree, and noted its multiple
trunks and heart-shaped leaves. In the
same area, we selectively picked some tender bright-green spruce tips to infuse
in apple cider vinegar. At the foot of
the basswood was a patch of daylilies, not yet flowering, adding another
landscape tracking clue to the former homestead that was once tucked into this
forest. We talked about the edible parts
of the daylily and the importance of distinguishing them from non-edible
species.
We moved out the forest into a small
clearing, which held the crumbled stone foundation of another old homestead
surrounded by more useful plants. As Lee
and I slipped off to make a small fire, the others harvested catnip to brew for
an after-lunch tea. Nestled among a
grove of cedars, we ate a companionable lunch and later sipped the musky-smelling
and relaxing tea.
Refreshed, we packed up and continued on
our way, stopping to spend time with some bloodroot along the way – another
beautiful native spring plant. We cut off the trail to find our way into a
hardwood forest, and stumbled upon a small but incredibly diverse patch of
native spring plants: blue cohosh, wild leeks, red and white trilliums, wild
ginger, baneberry, Solomon’s seal, Canada mayflower. A group of us spent some time with our
Newcomb’s guides and an interesting plant with its stem growing straight
through its leaves, and a dangling yellow flower missing some of its petals:
quite a challenge since the number of petals is integral to the book’s
classification key! But with some
persistence and intuition, we stumbled upon the identity of our mystery plant:
bellwort. Other sub-groups spent time
carefully harvesting some plants for our dinner, as well as checking out a
patch of poison ivy, for future avoidance!
Slightly down the trail, we found another beautiful plant with a white
flower and spent more time with our Newcomb’s guides to discover that the plant
was toothwort. We read about the plants’
delicious and pungent roots and dug up a few to add to our dinner. One of the roots was passed around for
sampling, and was generally agreed to taste a lot like horseradish, with many
exclamations of “so spicy! But so delicious!”
As we headed back to our cars, we had one
final stop at a red elder to discuss the differences between this species and sambucus Canadensis, the edible black
variety, which was not yet in flower.
The name sambucus racimosa refers
to the shape of the flower clusters on the red elder, which grow in rounded
racemes instead of the flatter clusters of the Canadensis species.
We were done our time in the field, but our
day wasn’t over yet! We headed back to
Alexis’ place with our edible treasures, and spent a lovely evening together
preparing and eating food, connecting, chatting about plants, and singing
around the fire under a star-studded sky before heading off to our tents to rest
up for what promised to be another full and exciting day on Sunday.
Written By:
Malgosia Halliop - 2nd year Plants Apprentice
No comments:
Post a Comment