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Tag: wild edible

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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First Frost and Rose Hips

First Frost and Rose Hips

Last night marked the first frost of the season in Bourne. Recording occurrences such as the first frost is important to the study of phenology. Phenology is the study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena. The word itself is derived from the Greek word phaino, which means “to show or to make appear”, and the Greek word logos, which means “study”. Therefore, phenology is concerned with the dates of the first occurrence of biological events and natural phenomena in their…

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Mushroom Walk

Mushroom Walk

This afternoon I got to explore the Coonamessett Reservation in Falmouth with a knowledgeable mushroom hunter. Although I love foraging for wild edibles, normally I’m fairly wary when it comes to mushrooms, since many species can have some nasty effects ranging from gastro-intestinal distress to death. So it was exciting to have an expert to point out which were edible, which weren’t, and fun facts about them both. (Disclaimer: If you have any doubts whatsoever about your identification of a…

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