Common Serviceberry

Common Serviceberry
Amelanchier arborea

The next time you come across a ripe serviceberry berry, try tasting it and let me know what you think.  I've never tasted one, not knowing that they are edible, but the online folks state variously that they are either the best thing they've ever put in their mouth, or dry and tasteless.  I suspect that there are a lot of factors, so it would be good to know what they are.  Apparently, they were widely used by Native Americans to make pemmican taste good.

Serviceberry is commonly used in landscaping, particularly native plant landscaping.  The flowers are lovely in the spring and the berries are also pretty and used by wildlife.  You'll have to get out there as soon as they are ripe before the critters get them.

Keep in mind that the berries turn from green to red to purple, and they don't taste good until they are purple.  At least that's what Professor Google says.

In a shady woods, the plants get tall and gangly and difficult to spot.

Plants in the open are shorter and bushier.

Young leaves are hairy and somewhat bronze colored.

Common Mouse-ear Chickweed

Common Mouse-ear Chickweed
Cerastium fontanum

This highly invasive plant probably grows in your yard.  There are several species of chickweed.  This one has hairy "mouse ears".

Both this and Common Chickweed (Stellaria media), which also grows in your yard, are edible.  Here's a delicious sounding sandwich!

Chickweed Cheddar Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

This is a serious winner.

Ingredients:

1 tbs butter

2 slices whole wheat bread

2 ounces cheddar cheese

½ tart apple, with peel, thinly sliced

1 handful chickweed

Instructions:

1. Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed cast-iron pan over low heat.  Set both slices of bread in the pan. Layer the cheese on one slice of bread, and set the apple slices in the empty spaces in the pan.  Let the apples cook and the bread toast.
2. After a few minutes, set the warm apples on the cheese.  Set the plain slice of bread on top of the apples.  Flip the sandwich and cook until the underside is browned, about three minutes.  Then pry open the bread and add the fresh chickweed.  Serve warm. 

Mouse ears!

These viny little plants intermix with the grass in your yard.

Common Lilac

Common Lilac
Syringa vulgaris

So, how is Common Lilac a Plant of Indiana?  Like daffodils and other garden/landscape plants, these are found around old homesites that have been abandoned.  They can persist for years.  If you spot one on a nature preserve or park, look around for an old foundation.  Often, the only thing left from an old house is the foundation, and daffodils and lilacs.

The nice thing about lilacs is that they are not invasive, and don't really reproduce well in the wild, so they don't out-compete native plants.  They're also quite pretty and smell nice, and they're edible!

The flower petals are edible.  There are a bunch of things you can do with them; lilac flavored syrup, lilac infused honey, cake decorations, add to salad, lilac vodka cordial, lilac fritters, on and on.  I've never tried eating them before, but now I'm motivated!

Plenty of blossoms to eat and enjoy on this plant.

Common Ladyfern

Common Ladyfern
Athyrium filix-femina

The Ladyfern is a very poetic plant.

THE LADY FERN

Edwin Lees

    When in splendour and beauty all nature is crown'd,
    The Fern is seen curling half hid on the ground,
    But of all the green Brackens that rise in the burn,
    Commend me alone to the sweet Lady -Fern.

    Polypodium, indented, stands stiff on the rock,
    With his sort expos'd to the tempest's rough shock ;
    On the wide chilly heath Aquilina stands stern,
    Not once to be nam'd with the sweet Lady-Fern.

    Filix-mas, in a circle, lifts up his green fronds,
    And the Heath-Fern delights by the bogs and the ponds ;
    Through their shadowy tufts though with pleasure I turn,
    The palm must still rest with the fair Lady-Fern.

    By the fountain I see her just sprung into sight,
    Her texture as frail as though shivering with fright,
    To the water she shrinks, I can scarcely discern
    In the deep humid shadows the soft Lady-Fern.

    Where the water is pouring for ever she sits,
    And beside her the Ouzel and Kingfisher flits,
    There, supreme in her beauty, beside the full urn,
    In the shade of the rocks stands the tall Lady-Fern.

    If sweeter the Maiden-Hair* scents to the gale,
    If taller King Osmund's^ crown'd glories prevail,
    Though darker Sea-Spleenwort well pleas'd I return
    To the thicket that shelters the fair Lady-Fern.

    Her delicate pinnse there droop in the shade
    By whispering Aspens and Wood-vetches made ;
    In the pattering ravine there stands one grey Hern
    Embower'd in the fronds of the tall Lady-Fern.

    Noon burns up the mountain but here by the fall
    The Lady-Fern nourishes graceful and tall ;
    Hours speed as thoughts rise without any concern,
    And float like the spray gliding past the green Fern.

* Asplenium trichomanes. ^ Flowering Fern (Osmunda regalis).

Hie Away

by Sir Walter Scott

Hie away, hie away!
Over bank and over brae,
Where the copsewood is the greenest,
Where the fountains glisten sheenest,
Where the lady fern grows strongest,
Where the morning dew lies longest,
Where the black-cock sweetest sips it,
Where the fairy latest trips it:
Hie to haunts right seldom seen,
Lovely, lonesome, cool, and green;
Over bank and over brae,
Hie away, hie away!

Clustered Blacksnakeroot

Clustered Blacksnakeroot
Sanicula odorata

There are 25 plant species in Indiana that have the word "snake" in the common name.  This is a testament to how much snakes were feared.  They tried everything to cure snake bites, including the roots of the Sanicula species.  Native Americans in particular used the roots and other parts of the plant to make a poultice to put over the snake bite.  It's possible that this may work, although they would have to have the roots handy to be able to administer it in time.  I don't suppose anyone uses this anymore.

It is called "Clustered" Blacksnakeroot due to its habit of forming large clusters of plants in shaded woodlands in the summertime.

The little pom-poms have greenish-yellow flowers that are not at all showy in the woodlands in mid-summer.