GALLERY

Mini Cyber Weed Walk

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How many of the common plants shown above can you recognize? Click on each disk for an expanded picture and make your guess, then scroll down to read clues about each one and, finally, at the very bottom to learn its name. I will periodically replace or add new plants so check back often!

Left to right:

1. Probably the most widely recognized and most unfairly maligned plant known. A "doctor plant" the deep roots bring minerals and nutrients to the surface to enrich plants that lack a similar taproot. It is an excellent urinary system tonic and nourishing diuretic. Unlike synthetic diuretics, it does not deplete the body of potassium; in fact, it provides it abundantly. Good in salads and as a cooked green, it packs a wallop nutritionally. 

2. *Cough, cough*...it's spring and this is one of the very first plants you will see along the roadsides. One of its nicknames is son-before-the-father, so called because of its habit of producing its sunny golden yellow flowers before the leaves appear. In fact, those blossoms are sometimes mistaken for plant #1. This is a traditional remedy for coughs.

3. Some yummy fruits will be developing from those sweet, dangling bell-like flowers on this common Appalachian woodland plant. Low growing and widespread, the ramble through the woods is almost as good for you as the blood sugar balancing properties of the leaves and fruits of this plant. 

4. Hands-down, the earliest-appearing wild food in our neck of the woods. I've even swept away snow and leaves in February to harvest bundles of this carpet-like, crisp and sweet salad green. It helps metabolize fats in particular and stimulates a sluggish digestion. Perfect green for the end of winter after a heavy diet of root crops, protein and starchy dishes. Gather it early because it dislikes the heat and bolts to seed and goes dormant during the summer. 

5. What a stately beauty in our summer fields! This is a first year basal rosette of furry leaves. The second year it will send up a 3-5 foot tall torch-like stalk of yellow flowers. An important plant for upper respiratory health, it helps with bronchial congestion and the flowers infused in oil, with or without the addition of garlic, is an excellent folk treatment for ear aches. 



Left to right answers:

1. Taraxacum officinale or Common Dandelion (*Note that the word 'officinale' in a Latin name denotes a plant included in the Official U.S. Pharmecopia, meaning it is designated as an official medicine.)

2. Tussilago farfara or Coltsfoot

3. Vaccinium spp. or wild Blueberries or Huckleberries. Lots of species out there!

4. Stellaria media or Chickweed

5. Verbascum thapsus or Common Mullein