Looking at plants that resemble each other… This Common Blackberry looks a lot like the multiflora rose (previous post), but without the yellow stamens. I’ve read that blackberries were found in the stomach of a body found preserved in a Danish bog (Haraldskaer Woman), dated to 490 BC. So people have been eating them for thousands of years. Native. Rose family. (June 4)
Common Blackberry (Rubus allegheniensis)
Thorny climbing shrub. Can be white or pink. introduced to the eastern U.S. in 1866 as rootstock for ornamental roses. Native to eastern Asia. (Photo June 4.)
Multiflora Rose, Seven-Sisters Rose (Rosa multiflora)
In the ginseng family, which explains why the bloom looks so much like dwarf ginseng, but with three umbels at the top of the stalk, and leaves that tend to grow umbrella-like over the flowers. Will have purple-black berries, which are edible and a little sweet. This is not “true” Sarsaparilla. 1-2 feet tall. Native.
Wild Sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis)
These are the plants whose leaves carpet the woods, just little leaves standing vertically out of the ground. The flowers are fragrant. During the summer the flowers are replaced by small speckled red berries. Lily family. Native perennial.
Canada Mayflower, Two-leaved Solomonseal (Maianthemum canadense)
This looks like some kind of wild hydrangea, but based on the way it has these large flowers opening around the edge, I think it’s Hobblebush. The showy outer flowers are sterile, the tiny inner flowers are fertile. Later will have fruit changing from red to purple. Has low hanging branches that put down roots where they touch the ground, forming webs of roots that hobble walkers—supposedly that’s the origin of the name. Honeysuckle family. Native.
Hobblebush, Witch-hobble, Moosewood (Viburnum alnifolium)
Our current sort of strawberries were first bred in Brittany, France, in the 1750s, a cross of Fragaria virginiana (the wild kind pictured here) from eastern North America and Fragaria chiloensis, which was brought from Chile by Amédée-François Frézier in 1714.
Wild Strawberry (Fragaria virginiana)
This is not the ginseng used in herbal medicine but it’s the same family (Ginseng). Native. They bloom for about three weeks in mid to late spring. Has yellowish clustered berries in July to August. US Forest Service: Native Americans “used tea of the whole plant for colic, indigestion, gout, hepatitis, shortness of breath, fainting, and nervous debility. Its distinctive tubers can be eaten raw or boiled.”
These are common in the local woods, can cover large areas. They grow from rhizomes. Buttercup family. Poisonous. Native. Photo: May 2, 2013.
Wood Anemone, Windflower, Nightcaps (Anemone quinquefolia)
Leaves smell garlicky when crushed. An invasive that crowds out more delicate native wildflowers. It was brought to North America as a cooking herb in the 1860s. Mustard family. (Photo taken April 30, 2013.)
Garlic Mustard (Alliaria officinalis)
