Multi-flora Rose

• Common names: Baby Rose, Japanese Rose, Many-flowered Rose, Seven-Sisters Rose 
• Native to eastern Asia, in China, Japan and Korea... considered an invasive in most circles in North America.

May 30th, 2012

Trout Lily

• The name derives from the fact that the brown-splotched leaves resemble the colouring of Brook trout.
• They form large colonies of plants of different ages. Young plants are flowerless and have only one leaf, while older plants produce two leaves and a single flower. A plant’s corm has to reach sufficient depths (10 to 20 centimetres below ground) before it will devote energy to making the additional parts.
• It takes a few years for a plant to be mature enough to produce a flower and seeds. Trout lilies have recruited the help of ants, who eat a nutritious appendage attached to each seed and leave the rest to germinate.
  Source: http://www.cwf-fcf.org
  
  April 9th, 2012 
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  April 12th, 2012
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

Common Mullein

• Very soft, thick, velvet-like leaves, up to 30 cm long.
• Each plant can produce up to 150,000 seeds.
• The leaves were used in the past for diapers & toilet paper. 
• Indians of North America lined their moccasins with the leaves to keep out the cold, and colonists used them in their stockings for the same reason.
• The tall stalks (to 8 ft) that develop in the 2nd year were dipped in melted fat and used for torches by Roman soldiers.
• The stalk has alternate leaves that clasp the stem and direct rainwater down the stem to the roots. 
• Yellow flowers (1/4 to 1 inch across) bloom randomly in the stalk. 

Sources:  1. Ontario Wildflowers by Linda Kershaw
                           - Lone Pine Publishing - 2002
              2. http://www.herbcompanion.com

April 9th, 2012

White Snakeroot

Poisonous: White Snakeroot contains the toxin tremetol. When the plants are consumed by cattle, the meat and milk become contaminated with the toxin. When milk or meat containing the toxin is consumed, the poison is passed onto humans. If consumed in large enough quantities, it can cause tremetol poisoning in humans. The poisoning is also called milk sickness, as humans often ingested the toxin by drinking the milk of cows that had eaten Snakeroot.

During the early 19th century, when large numbers of European Americans from the East, who were unfamiliar with Snakeroot, began settling in the plant's habitat of the Midwest and Upper South, many thousands were killed by milk sickness. Notably, milk sickness was the cause of death in 1818 of Abraham Lincoln's mother. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ageratina_altissima
 
August 18th, 2011

August 18th, 2011

September 11th, 2011

Hedge Bindweed

• Common names: Wild Morning Glory, Bugle Vine, Heavenly Trumpets, Old Man's Nightcap, White Witches Hat, Belle of the Ball, Bride's Gown
• The open flowers are trumpet-shaped
• The flowers are produced from late spring to the end of summer.
• It twines around other plants, in a counter-clockwise direction, to a height of up to 2-4 m

Coltsfoot

• Resemble dandelions but appear in early spring before Dandelions appear. 
• The leaves (resemble a colt's foot), do not appear usually until after the seeds are set. Thus, the flowers appear on stems with no apparent leaves, and the later appearing leaves then wither and die during the season without seeming to set flowers... hence the country nickname “Son before Father”
• Typically between 10 - 30 cm in height. 
• Has been used in herbal medicine for its purported cough-suppressing effects. 
• In the days before most people could read and write, shops identified themselves with symbols – three golden balls for the pawnbroker, a red and white striped pole for the barber, the yellow Coltsfoot for the herbalist.

http://monicawilde.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/in-praise-of-coltsfoot/

April 12th, 2011

April 27th, 2011

Toothwort

May 14th, 2011

May 14th, 2011