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Category: Wild Edibles

Common Glasswort (Salicornia maritima)

Common Glasswort (Salicornia maritima)

While tall grasses, like Spartina alterniflora, dominate the more frequently flooded lower elevations of a salt marsh, the high marsh areas, which are inundated less frequently, are home to an entirely different and interesting set of plants.  Glassworts, in particular, are exceptionally colorful this time of year. Many people focus on the changing colors of the leaves of various deciduous trees as autumn arrives, but glassworts put on their own colorful fall display. Although almost completely green throughout the spring…

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Wild Edible: Autumn Olive

Wild Edible: Autumn Olive

Autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) shrubs are a common sight along Massachusetts roads and at the edges of clearings and fields. These shrubs were commonly planted for windbreaks and erosion control in the 1940s before it was known how invasive they could be. The vast amount of fruit produced by each shrub, and the high germination success of the seeds, means that once there is one autumn olive in a location, there will likely be more. The high number of berries…

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Nature Journaling: Red Brook

Nature Journaling: Red Brook

This morning I spent a couple hours observing the plants, birds and insects along the banks of Red Brook in the Lyman Reserve in Plymouth. Normally, when I see something interesting I take a picture or two and continue on my walk, but today I took the extra time to sit and journal my observations. I spent most of my time with two plants in particular: Monkey flower (Mimulus ringens) and common blackberry (Rubus allegheniensis). The first, monkey flower, which…

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Black Raspberry (Rubus occidentalis)

Black Raspberry (Rubus occidentalis)

We are now entering my favorite time of year: berry season. While exploring the Mineral Hills Conservation Area in Northampton, MA this weekend, I noticed ripe black raspberries (Rubus occidentalis) for the first time this year.  While I enjoy red raspberries and blackberries as well, black raspberries are undoubtedly my favorite.  So this was quite the treat for me. Wild raspberries are generally smaller and sweeter than the cultivated varieties.  Mature, ripe raspberries will readily separate from their white-coned hulls,…

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Wild edible: Common Milkweed

Wild edible: Common Milkweed

Despite the white, latex-like sap, from which their name derives, common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is a delicious wild edible. Found in fields, along roadsides and other open areas, common milkweed is native to almost all of New England.  It typically grows 3 to 4 feet tall, on stout straight stems, with thick, broad, opposite leaves and is topped with round, slightly drooping clusters of pinkish-purple flowers. Before the flower buds bloom, they somewhat resemble pinkish-green heads of broccoli. In bloom,…

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Dandelion Wine

Dandelion Wine

Dandelions are a common wildflower in New England.  Although native to Europe, they have spread nearly worldwide.  Common dandelions (Taraxacum officinale) have bright yellow flowers 1 to 2 inches wide on top of hollow stalks, which extrude a milky latex-like liquid when broken.  The stalk is surrounded by a ring of basal leaves that are variously cleft and lobed.  While many home owners consider them unwelcome in their lawns, other seek them out as an early season wild edible. Due…

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Wild edible: Japanese knotweed

Wild edible: Japanese knotweed

Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica) is one of the most invasive weeds in the world.  Native to Asia, It was introduced to the United States in the late 1800s as an ornamental plant.  Although its delicate flowers are attractive when in bloom, they are rather too small to elicit much praise for their aesthetics today.  It was also originally touted as being useful for stabilizing eroding roadsides and creating windbreaks due to its rapid growth habit.  Japanese knotweed produces thousands of…

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Wild Edible: Beach Pea

Wild Edible: Beach Pea

Every day there are new signs of spring. In addition to the three pairs of Piping Plovers and a Killdeer (both first of year for me this year), while walking on the beach on Friday, I also noticed a number of new plants, flowering and leafing out, as well as new growth emerging from herbaceous plants.  This new growth greatly expands the options for foraging.  One such edible plant is the beach pea, which was sprouting in numerous places at…

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Highbush Cranberry

Highbush Cranberry

The bright red berries of the highbush cranberry plant growing along the pondshore near my house seemed like an appropriately festive subject for a Christmas Eve blog post. With its coarsely-toothed leaves, which loosely resemble those of a red maple, long fallen to the ground, the bright red berries of the highbush cranberry are readily visible, and add a splash of color to the otherwise tan/gray landscape. But highbush cranberries, in the genus Viburnam, are not cranberries at all; true…

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Rose Hip Jam

Rose Hip Jam

Two weeks ago I had a post about rose hips from Rosa rugosa (click here to read the original post), and discussed that they were a readily available wild edible, and a great source for vitamin C. I’d tasted the fruit in the past and really liked the taste, but I have been generally dissuaded from eating them more often due to the tediousness of picking out the seeds and scraping the small bit of flesh off the inside of…

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