Harmful Plants Gallery
- Thread starter dogg57
- Start date
I get Ivy bad.I just wonder how many times it's been sumac and I thought it was ivy? It's the same poison in both plants so the symptoms would be the same.I know sumac is supposedly a swamp plant and i spend a lot of time in swamps.Is it a Barrens plant? Or does it prefer less acidic soil?
Tastes like wild hickory nuts...
I grew up on Mother Earth News, Organic Gardening, the Foxfire Books, and Euell Gibbons Stalking the Wild this and that. They resonated so well with the gathering ethos that existed with the immigrant farming community.
It irks me that the following plants were vilified as harmful, when to us they were so beneficial!
Prickly pear, a Pinelands native, has tasty fruit under those prickles, great for jam or wine.
Rhubarb is my absolute favorite “fruit,” as in strawberry-rhubarb pie. Also makes a good wine.
Yew fruit are edible, but the seed may be poisonous. I’ve had yew jam in England, and nibbled on its fruit on our farm.
Pokeweed is delicious, and it was my job to collect the spears. Young shoots had to be picked before they developed a pith and boiled in two waters (discarding the first). Farm hands made a potherb by boiling young leaves in two waters (discarding the first) then frying them in an iron skillet with fatback; called "poke salet." A rheumatism wine was made from the berry, being careful to strain away the poisonous seeds.
Stinging nettle tea was a great health-boosting tonic that my sister-in-law still drinks.
S-M
I grew up on Mother Earth News, Organic Gardening, the Foxfire Books, and Euell Gibbons Stalking the Wild this and that. They resonated so well with the gathering ethos that existed with the immigrant farming community.
It irks me that the following plants were vilified as harmful, when to us they were so beneficial!
Prickly pear, a Pinelands native, has tasty fruit under those prickles, great for jam or wine.
Rhubarb is my absolute favorite “fruit,” as in strawberry-rhubarb pie. Also makes a good wine.
Yew fruit are edible, but the seed may be poisonous. I’ve had yew jam in England, and nibbled on its fruit on our farm.
Pokeweed is delicious, and it was my job to collect the spears. Young shoots had to be picked before they developed a pith and boiled in two waters (discarding the first). Farm hands made a potherb by boiling young leaves in two waters (discarding the first) then frying them in an iron skillet with fatback; called "poke salet." A rheumatism wine was made from the berry, being careful to strain away the poisonous seeds.
Stinging nettle tea was a great health-boosting tonic that my sister-in-law still drinks.
S-M
I"ve eaten Wood Nettle and it was good.The Prickly Pear fruit is a delicacy if you can skin it right to avoid the spines. Thing with poke is you have to catch it early like you said.Once it gets any red in the stem it's no good.You can blanche the plant by planting roots in soil and placing them in a basement.The plants will come up white till the root energy is expended because there is no light for photosynthesis.These poke greens or whites i should say are poison free.
I would like briers to be added to the harmful plants list please.
The young Smilax shoots are tasty too, but only the tender part that snaps like asparagus. Anyone ever try the sweetfern (Comptonia peregrina) or chiggerbush nutlet? Critters usually get first dibs, so it is a rare treat. I'm crazy about the spicy scent. Let's put things in perspective. Harmful? About 150 to 200 people die a year from peanuts.
I eat catbriar tendrils every spring,after I brush the black ants off of course,they love them too.I make Sweetfern tea occasionallyt and had a Buddy of mine arrested and hauled in for having a dried baggie of it on his dash while he was fishing.The man was waiting for hm when He walked out.Took Him down to the station to book Him admidst his cries of it's sweetfern you moron.This got him slapped around a bit.When the chief seen my buddy He knew him and knew He was into herbs and such.He sniffed the weed and said I don't know what this stuff is but it ain't pot.He made the man apologize to him and uncuff him. I told him ,sue him! But his dad was a prison guard and his Dad told him if you sue the state boys your ass better find another place to live.I guess corrections officers and State police are some what tight.
PS when I told Him to sue Him He hadn't admitted to me that He smarted off to the cop. I said if you'd of talked to him in a respectful manner you wouldn't have got slapped around.I"d of considered it a good joke if it was me long as they didn't rough me up/Then again I wouldn't have smart mouthed Him.Pissed me off when i first heard he was roughed up.Figured knowing Him I should have known he brought it on.He was also a noted Pot smoker too so that might have had something to do with it.The cop might have known Him too
Chiggerbush is another name for sweetfern (Comptonia peregrina), but I don't know if it attracts or repels chiggers! Anyone willing to try this one out???