Posts Tagged ‘nature’
Pineapple Weed (Matricaria matricarioides (Less.) Porter.)
I bear weeds no ill-will. When I pull them in my garden, I am just helping my vegetables to get an edge in the great competition. Also, as you now know, I consider many ‘weeds’ to be edible and delicious. But, in one case, I cheerfully stomp on the weeds and consider the benefits to outweigh the sorrow.
When I went to meetings at our provincial Department of Agriculture, Aquaculture and Fisheries, I had to follow a wide path of concrete slabs to get to the door of the building. In the cracks between the slabs grew a small, rather pretty weed. I loved to step on this weed, or pick it, to smell its fragrance. The weed is Pineapple Weed and, crushed, it smells just like pineapple. Its scent is also reminiscent of Garden-camomile, or Hay-scented Fern.
Pineapple Weed grows along roadsides and in waste places, wherever the soil is disturbed and competition from other plants is low. It is an inconspicuous cousin of Garden-camomile (Anthemis nobilis L.) and looks a little like Camomile except the flowers have no white ray-florets. The leaves of Pineapple Weed are very finely divided and feather-like.
The generic name Matricaria comes from the Latin word matrix, meaning ‘womb’, a tribute to its reputed medicinal properties. The specific name matricarioides means ‘like Matricaria’ since it was originally considered to be another species.
My husband tells me, as a child, he used plants of Pineapple Weed as miniature trees when he played with his Dinky cars!
To make a pale yellow, pineapple-scented tea, steep the fresh or dried flowers of Pineapple Weed in hot water.
Warning: 1. never eat any plant if you are not absolutely certain of the identification; 2. never eat any plant if you have personal sensitivities, including allergies, to certain plants or their derivatives; 3. never eat any plant unless you have checked several sources to verify the edibility of the plant.
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Matricaria
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two in the morning
and the canister of Camomile
yawns empty
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crush Matricaria
steep a sprinkle of flowers
in water, tea the color
of straw
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surround of pineapple
hay-scented fern
sleep
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© Jane Tims 2012
limits of the tide #4 – Orach (Atriplex patula L.)
Orach (Atriplex patula L.) is a common inhabitant of coastal areas in New Brunswick. It lives in sheltered locations on the upper shore, out of reach of the highest tides.
The leaves of Orach are fleshy and arrow-shaped. The margins of the leaves are variously toothed and the lowest teeth point outward (‘hastate’, similar to the leaves of Sheep Sorrel in the June 8, 2012 post under the category ‘growing and gathering’). The leaves are grey to bright green and lighter on the underside of the leaf. Orach is a highly variable and poorly known species with respect to taxonomy.
Orach flowers from July to August. The flowers are like many seaside plants, inconspicuous and small, in the axils of the leaves.
Orach is tasty and salty. It can be used in salads, or cooked in boiling water for 15 minutes and served like spinach.
Warning: 1. never eat any plant if you are not absolutely certain of the identification; 2. never eat any plant if you have personal sensitivities, including allergies, to certain plants or their derivatives; 3. never eat any plant unless you have checked several sources to verify the edibility of the plant.
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hunting the orach
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I know the place where the orach hides –
out of the way of the rising tides
between the rocks and deep in the sand,
with his halberd drawn, he makes his stand
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© Jane Tims 2012
limits of the tide #2 – Seaside Plantain (Plantago juncoides Lam.) – Goosetongue greens
One of the edible plants we found at Oak Bay (near St. Stephen, New Brunswick) was Seaside Plantain, also known locally as Goosetongue.
Seaside Plantain, also known as Goosetongue, ready to pick… they have to be rinsed well since the outgoing tide has left a thick layer of sediment behind…
Seaside Plantain (Plantago juncoides Lam.) grows in thick clumps, forming an intermittent carpet across the shore. The succulent, linear leaves of Seaside Plantain are grey-green in color. Inconspicuous green flowers, not present until later in June, rise from the rosette of leaves in a terminal spike. Seaside Plantain is in the same genus as Common Plantain (see the post for June 13, 2012, ‘Common Plantain’ under the category ‘growing and gathering’). Plantago is from the Latin for ‘footprint’ and juncoides means ‘rush-like’.
Goosetongue greens are pleasantly salty and are a local delicacy, eaten as a salad or pickle, or cooked like green beans and served with butter. For a vivid description of the experience of gathering and preparing Goosetongue greens, see Nature of Words (www.natureofwords.com/2011/07/goosetongue-greens/) by Deborah Carr, and the post for July 14, 2011, entitled ‘Goosetongue greens’.
Warning: 1. never eat any plant if you are not absolutely certain of the identification; 2. never eat any plant if you have personal sensitivities, including allergies, to certain plants or their derivatives; 3. never eat any plant unless you have checked several sources to verify the edibility of the plant.~
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Sunday Dinner at Maces Bay
Seaside Plantain (Pantago juncoides Lam.)
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dig right in
says your father
and nudges the pitcher of water
in my direction
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I study the ‘goosetongue greens’ –
mound of green spaghetti
between spuds and chicken,
green eels diving
for the bottom of the plate
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two things not in their favour –
they’re green,
they look a little like
the tongues of geese
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I watch your Dad –
he adds a dollop of butter,
he weaves his fork to catch a little of each,
potato, greens and chicken,
chews with his eyes closed,
reaches for his glass of water
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I sigh
and taste –
salt air and butter-cream,
crisp, the perfect crush,
mouth-feel, amazing
please pass the water
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© Jane Tims 2012
Warning: 1. never eat any plant if you are not absolutely certain of the identification; 2. never eat any plant if you have personal sensitivities, including allergies, to certain plants or their derivatives; 3. never eat any plant unless you have checked several sources to verify the edibility of the plant.limits of the tide #1 – edible plants
Last week, our travels took us to the edge of the sea, where I looked for more edible wild plants. I found what I was looking for at Oak Bay, near St. Stephen. At the end of a little-used road, we came out on a gravelly spit of land jutting into the Bay.
mid-tide at Oak Bay… at high tide, most of the foreshore will be covered by salt water… at low tide, the clam-flats will be exposed
There, on the shoreline, were four plants to add to my larder of edible wild.
Three of the species formed a small community near the upper reaches of the shore: Seaside Plantain, Sea-blite and Samphire. All three are in the photo below… can you find them?
The Seaside Plantain (also known as Goosetongue) is the dense clump of long, thick, linear leaves in the photo above…
The Sea-blite is just starting to grow. Later in the season it will be as large or larger than the Seaside Plantain. In the enlargement below, Sea-blite is the small green plant to the right of the clump of Seaside Plantain…
The Samphire is also very small this time of year. Later it will be as large as the Sea-blite or Seaside Plantain. In the photo enlargement below, it is at the base of the clump of Seaside Plantain, at exactly 6 o’clock.
The fourth edible plant at Oak Bay is Orach. It grows on the upper shore, above the Seaside Plantain and beyond the limit of the tide. These plants often grow together along the coast, on salt marshes, tidal flats, dykelands and beaches.
Since the plants were not plentiful and not yet ready to pick, I took only one plant of each, for my drawings. I also took a bite of each type of leaf. Although there are subtle differences, all four were crisp and salty in flavour, a delightful nibble of the salty sea.
These are just a few of the edible plants living in coastal areas of New Brunswick. Over the next posts, I will explore these four species and a few others.
© Jane Tims 2012
Warning: 1. never eat any plant if you are not absolutely certain of the identification; 2. never eat any plant if you have personal sensitivities, including allergies, to certain plants or their derivatives; 3. never eat any plant unless you have checked several sources to verify the edibility of the plant.growing and gathering – the benefits of eating ‘very local’ foods
In 2007, Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon embarked on a year-long experiment in eating local. Their book, The 100 Mile Diet – A Year of Local Eating, introduced many to the idea of obtaining their food from nearby sources. It reminded people about the thousands of kilometers our food has to travel to make it to our tables. It pointed out some of the barriers to ‘eating local’ and showed how, with a little ingenuity and effort, our diets could be more environmentally conscious and sustainable.
Eating local foods is a sound choice in our illogical world. It supports local farmers and producers. It mitigates some of the energy costs associated with moving food hundreds of miles to the consumer. It honors our origins and connects us to our ancestors who lived their lives more simply and locally.
Into this concept of eating local, I include the idea of eating wild foods whenever possible. My mother grew up in a time when bulging grocery carts were unheard-of. Without subscribing to any particular theory of eating local, she supplemented her food with wild edibles as a matter of habit. In addition to using rhubarb and currents from her garden, she picked berries when they were in season, tried to convince her family to join her in eating dandelion greens and sour dock, and showed us how to pick spruce gum from spruce trees as a chewy treat.
Eating ‘very local’ has many benefits. The edible plants growing right outside our doors are filled with nutrients, many are very palatable, even delicious, and they are present in great variety, and in all seasons. They are free and are easy to harvest and prepare. Picking berries or chewing spruce gum puts us in touch with nature and helps us to understand our role as a member of the ecosystem. It honors the people who came before us and helps us connect with the way our parents and grand-parents lived their lives. Identifying and picking wild plants for food is an enjoyable activity and a way to show your children how to be thrifty, engaged members of the ecosystem.
In an upcoming post, I will look at some of the ethical issues around using wild plants as food.
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six bottles of jam
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I reach up, for a cluster of pin cherries
and stop –
above me, my grand-mother’s hand
dry as a page from her recipes,
age-spotted, worried at the edges
her ankles are swollen, but she is determined –
enough berries for a half-dozen
bottles of pin cherry jam
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© Jane Tims 2012
Warning: 1. never eat any plant if you are not absolutely certain of the identification; 2. never eat any plant if you have personal sensitivities, including allergies, to certain plants or their derivatives; 3. never eat any plant unless you have checked several sources to verify the edibility of the plant.snippets of landscape – evidence of old roads
This week, we drove to the south-west corner of the province and spent a little time at the Ganong Nature and Marine Park, at Todd’s Point near St. Stephen. The area is managed by the Quoddy Futures Foundation and is the former property of Eleanor and Whidden Ganong (Whidden Ganong was President of the Ganong Bros. candy factory in St. Stephen). The property is beautiful and good for the soul. We walked through the fields, identified wildflowers, listened to the birdsong, and were returned to a simpler time.
The fields along the path were yellow with Buttercup (Ranunculus sp.) and the largest population of Yellow Rattle (Rhinanthus Crista-galli L.) I have ever seen. The flowers of the Yellow Rattle were bright yellow, but the inflated calyx was tinged with red, giving the field a stippled glow (for more information on Yellow Rattle, see my post for August 3, 2011, ‘along the country road #1’ ).
Yellow Rattle among the field flowers… the fused sepals are tinged and veined with red
The Buttercups were everywhere, but concentrated in certain areas of the field. One area in particular seemed to mark the path of an abandoned road. The Buttercups have found some aspect of the old road to their liking. Perhaps the soil is compacted and they have a competitive ‘edge’ on the other plants. Perhaps the hidden track provides some alteration in the water regime or a place where certain types of seeds concentrate as they are dispersed. Perhaps there are subtle differences in the soil chemistry.
an abandoned track marked in Buttercups… the red tint in the foreground is from the reddish coloration of the Yellow Rattle
Years ago, I visited a property where the roadway to a back field was clearly marked with Bluets (Houstonia caerulea L.). The owner of the property said he thought they grew there because he always took his lime in an open cart back to his fields, and enough had spilled to make the way especially attractive to the Bluets.
Perhaps you will have a look in your landscape for wildflower clues to past activities.
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Invitation to Tea
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in the afternoon,
I huddle over tea
and watch
the road
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an old road,
rarely used –
walks scarcely part
the tangle of fern
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I scan the woods,
I love the look
of ancient trunk
and horizontal green
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and always,
in the corner of my eye,
the road
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overgrown –
a narrow course of saplings
intercepts
the sameness
of maturity
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I watch
expectantly
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but the road is abandoned –
cart-tracks worn
to rivulets,
culverts buried
by fallen leaves,
rusted oil tins,
depressions in the mould
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© Jane Tims 2012
Common Plantain (Plantago major L.)
When we were children, we often pretended to be storekeepers and picked various wild plants as the ‘food’ for sale. We collected weed seeds for our ‘wheat’, clover-heads as ‘ice-cream’, vetch seed pods as ‘peas’, and (gasp) Common Nightshade berries as ‘tomatoes’.
This is probably a good place to urge you to teach your children – everything that looks like a vegetable or fruit may not be good for them to eat! I don’t remember ever trying any of our pretend ‘groceries’, but some of them, such as the Common Nightshade berries, were poisonous and harmful.
berries of Common Nightshade are poisonous… later in the season, they are red and quite beautiful… children should be warned that all red berries are NOT good to eat
We also ‘sold’ the leaves of Common Plantain at our ‘store’. They looked like spinach, and the Plantain leaves would have actually been fine for us to eat.
Common Plantain (Plantago major L.) is a very easily found weed since it grows almost everywhere, especially along roadsides, in dooryards and in other waste places. Plantain is also known as Ribwort, Broad-leaved Plantain, Whiteman’s Foot, or, in French, queue de rat. The generic name comes from the Latin word planta meaning ‘foot’. Major means ‘larger’.
Plantain has thick, dark green, oval leaves. These grow near the ground in a basal rosette. The stems of the leaves are long and trough-like. The leaves themselves are variously hairy and feel rough to the touch. The leaf has large, prominent veins, and, as the plant grows older, these veins become very stringy. The veins resist the breakage of the leaf and stick out from the stem end of a harvested leaf like the strings of celery.
Flowers of Plantain grow in a dense spike on a long, slender stalk rising from the leaves. The flowers are small and greenish-white, appearing from June to August.
The young leaves of Common Plantain can be used in a salad or cooked and seasoned with salt and butter. The older leaves become tough and stringy.
Warning: 1. never eat any plant if you are not absolutely certain of the identification; 2. never eat any plant if you have personal sensitivities, including allergies, to certain plants or their derivatives; 3. never eat any plant unless you have checked several sources to verify the edibility of the plant.
leaves of Common Plantain and Dandelion, picked from our dooryard, not yet washed or looked over for insects… note the strings protruding from the stem ends
Yesterday, I gathered the youngest leaves of plantain I could find and cooked them for my lunch. They might be fine in times of need, but I found the cooked product to be just like eating soggy cardboard.
I should say, since I have begun my almost daily tests of edible wild plants, my husband asks me almost hourly how I am feeling.
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wisdom
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plantain, past the picking –
a pulled leaf resists,
tethered to a thread
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© Jane Tims 2012
Warning: 1. never eat any plant if you are not absolutely certain of the identification; 2. never eat any plant if you have personal sensitivities, including allergies, to certain plants or their derivatives; 3. never eat any plant unless you have checked several sources to verify the edibility of the plant.Wild Strawberry (Fragaria virginiana Duchesne)
Soon, the fields at our summer place will be jeweled with Wild Strawberries.
Wild Strawberry (Fragaria virginiana Duchesne) grows in open woodlands, fields and barrens. It is also known as Virginia Strawberry, Common Strawberry and, in French, fraisier. The name Fragaria comes from the Latin word for strawberry, fraga meaning fragrance.
The leaves of Wild Strawberry grow on slender stalks, and occur in threes. They are hairy and coarsely toothed. Plants are stoloniferous, meaning they produce ‘stolons’ or runners, freely-rooting basal branches.
The flower of the Wild Strawberry is white, with five petals and numerous stamens and pistils. Right now, our fields are spangled with them. The flowers occur in an open cluster of two or more flowers. In this species, the flower stalk is not longer than the leaf stalk.
The berries are red and ovoid, covered with small pits and seeds. They are more delicate and sweeter than the domestic strawberry. They appear in late June and may last until August, but the best berry-picking is at the first of summer.
In the book ‘The Blue Castle’ by Lucy Maude Montgomery, the heroine says one of her greatest pleasures is to eat berries directly from the stem:
Here they found berries … hanging like rubies to long, rosy stalks. They lifted them by the stalk and ate them from it, uncrushed and virgin, tasting each berry by itself with all its wild fragrance ensphered therein. When Valancy carried any of these berries home that elusive essence escaped and they became nothing more than the common berries of the market-place–very kitchenly good indeed, but not as they would have been, eaten in their birch dell …
(from L.M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle, Chapter 30, McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1972)
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The berries of the Wild Strawberry are delicious in jam. The leaves also make a fragrant tea, high in Vitamin C. To make the tea, put a handful of green leaves into two cups of boiling water, steep, strain and enjoy!
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too early to pick
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last week of June
roadside red with leaves
and ripening wild
strawberries hang
still green except
where sepal contrast
shows sweet berry
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patience, wait
a few days and every berry
ripe and a thimble pot
of berry jam
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can’t wait?
sour green flesh
grit of tiny seed
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Copyright Jane Tims 2012
a moment of beautiful – a button of moss
the space: at ground level, in the grey woods
the beautiful: a little button of moss, emerald green
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Mosses are a beautiful, enigmatic group of plants. Except for a few well-known species, they simply grow unnamed and unnoticed by most people. The beauty of the mosses, especially under the stereo-microscope, where you can see so much detail, was what attracted me to the study of botany in the first place.
We have many species of moss in our Grey Woods. I long to be able to take the time to identify every one. For now, though, I content myself with a few common names and some of my own ‘made-up’ names.
I call this little moss ‘The Button’. Wherever I find it, it seems to grow in a little cushion. Its surface is like velvet and its color is a lovely shade of lime green.
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a button to press
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resist the urge
to depress this plump of moss
firmly with a finger
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will take you up
to the first floor
where the bunchberry blooms
or the second where bracken
planks an ephemeral floor
or the 67th where leaves align
precisely with sun
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or down
to where the roots criss-cross
in confused abandon
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© Jane Tims 2012
a view of a Black Bear
One of the experiences of the past two weeks was the sighting of a young Black Bear (Ursus americanus) along the Plaster Rock – Renous Highway. The Black Bear was only a youngster, probably a two-year-old born last January or February (2011). He watched us a long time from the woods, appearing a little confused. Eventually, he wandered away. He was probably rejoining his mama – Black Bears stay with their mothers until they are 16 or 17 months old.
I have seen/smelled a few bears in my life:
§ Once, on a fishing trip with my Uncle, he told me to stop and sniff the air. The smell was fetid, unforgettable. He told me you often smell a bear but almost never see one.
§ When we first built our house, our young neighbor was riding his bike up our gravel heap and encountered a bear coming up the other side of the pile!
§ When we first lived in our community, we had a garbage dump. We used to go to the dump on the weekend and join the other cars, watching the bears work their way through the garbage. I remember one was inside an old refrigerator, opening and closing the door!
§ On a work excursion to Mount Carleton, we saw a bear running up the road ahead of us, but it disappeared before we could get close.
§ Once, on the Salmon River Road, on a drive to Bouctouche with my sister-in-law and niece and nephew, we saw a full-grown bear, on a run from one side of the road to the other. He had very long legs and ran by stretching his front legs out and bringing his rear legs up between them. He only hit the pavement twice, once with each set of feet!
§ On our trip through the Rocky Mountains, I saw a bear, species unknown, in a steep ditch beside the roadway.
Have you ever seen a bear???
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© Jane Tims 2012
