Three Hops for Hopniss!

Hopniss (ground nut) vine in flower.

It looked just like the pictures. And supposedly, it grows all over the place. And yet I had been unable to find it until I'd gone on this guided foraging walk. Our guide, Russ Cohen, dug a small, roundish tuber out of the ground at the base of the ground-nut vine. The tuber, too, looked just like the pictures.

Hopniss leaves from the vines we found in the parking lot.

Also known as hopniss, ground nuts were a staple food for Native Americans, who shared knowledge of the plant with the Pilgrims and helped them to survive their first winter on this continent. Ground nuts have been compared to potatoes, only they are sweeter, nuttier, and much higher in protein. (To learn more about hopniss, including attempts to commercialize the plant, check out this interesting article by Tamara Dean in Orion Magazine.) Once I'd seen the vines in their natural habitat, it wasn't long before I'd recognized a mass of them at the edge of a parking lot at a large warehouse-type complex where my eldest son and I had gone to collect blackberries. It seemed like hopniss habitat, and I soon spotted the leaves. Then I noticed the attractive pinkish-purple flowers trailing along the ground and hanging among the bushes. This was the first time I'd seen hopniss flowers outside of a book, but they were unmistakable. I poked around in the dirt a little but couldn't easily unearth a tuber with the small spade I had, and anyway, I didn't have permission to dig there (yet).

Hopniss vines are thin, like a delicate yarn.

The next morning on the way to our local produce store, my eldest son and I stopped by the parking lot again, this time with a larger shovel. It was Saturday, and the lot was deserted except for one truck and a car down by the loading dock, where two men were eating at a picnic table. I parked and walked over to them. "I have an odd question for you guys," I began. "Who would I talk to if I wanted to dig up some hopniss vines from the edge of the parking lot?"

Predictably, the first response was, "Some what?" I explained briefly about the hopniss vines -- that they were native plants, that I'd heard you could eat the tubers, that we would only take a few. "Just dig 'em up!" said the man. "They're not landscaped, right? No one wants 'em."

Ideal hopniss habitat. Cattails grow
in shallow water behind this mass
of hopniss vines in flower.

Now, although I'm quite certain he was right, we also established that he only worked for the land owner, whose number could be found at the entrance to the parking lot, where a large billboard advertised rental space. Still, because there was no one else around and because these guys didn't seem to mind, we took our shovel over to the mess of undergrowth along the edge of the parking lot and unearthed a scoop of dirt at the base of a hopniss vine. And there it was! A tuber about the size of a golf ball.

That's actually a sizable hopniss tuber. Most were the size of large marbles. We dug up a handful -- enough to eat a few and plant a few. We walked back over to the men and showed them a vine cutting and a tuber, just in case they were interested. I don't know whether they were, but they listened politely.

Cleaned and peeled hopniss tubers. The tubers exuded a
sticky substance that collected in tiny white droplets all over
the peeled surface. It also stuck to my fingers and,
once it dried, reminded me of rubber cement in the way
it stretched in long strings between my fingers and rolled into
little sticky balls.

Hopniss likes to grow among the roots of other plants, particularly Jerusalem artichokes, which I happen to have in my garden. I planted some of the smaller tubers there. The larger ones I cleaned, peeled, and thinly sliced, then sauteed in a little salt and butter until they were browned and crisp. They were dryer than I expected, but very much like a nutty potato. The flavor supposedly improves after a frost, but the whole family enjoyed this summer version. I'm excited about the culinary potentials of these tubers.

Of course, I carefully documented my hopniss excavation so that I could share it with interested blog readers. I arranged the tubers next to a bit of vine and some flowers and took a picture. I plugged my camera into my computer and transferred the photos -- all but the one of the unearthed tubers, apparently. Then, without double checking the results of my file copying, I deleted the files from my camera.

Hopniss tubers (ground nuts) in hand
with a hopniss vine and flower behind.

And that's how my middle son and I ended up back at the same parking lot to dig some more hopniss this morning. (Incidentally, the same two guys came out to eat their lunch at the picnic table.) Although finding the tubers yesterday had been a piece of cake, this morning we didn't have such good luck. I hope it will be easier when all the undergrowth has died back; hopniss is supposed to taste best if dug after a frost, anyway. Regardless, after a bit of effort I managed to find two small tubers. Then, just out of curiosity, we took a stroll around the edge of the parking lot to see what else might be there.

Unripe apples.

It was an immense lot that completely encircled the large building complex. The hopniss had been growing at the edge of a wet area, where cattails enjoyed the shallow standing water. At the other side of the lot it was drier. Sumac bushes popped out from the tree line here and there, and several trees dangled tiny, green, unripe apples from their branches.

Here I'm showing the underside of a black-cherry
leaf. The upper side, visible on the right, is
shiny. Ripe fruit dangles in the top left corner.
Black cherries often have a rust-colored fuzz right
next to the midvein at the bottom of the underside
of the leaf. You can see the fuzz in this picture;
it's a good identifying characteristic of a black cherry.

There was a black cherry tree, loaded with ripe cherries. Alas, most black cherries don't taste very good, and these were particularly bitter. Last year I did find some cherries with a nice flavor. The skins left a kind of fuzzy feeling in my mouth, but when I simmered them and strained out the skins and pits, the puree, mixed with some blackberries and pin cherries, made a nice jam.

Pokeweed plants forming what looks like a large bush.

There were also some of the largest pokeweed plants I've ever seen. Some had stalks as thick as small tree trunks and had grown taller than I am in order to break out of the undergrowth and get some sunlight. In some places the pokeweed plants had no competition, and there they formed what looked like large bushes out of what was actually many different plants. This would be an excellent place to return to gather shoots in the spring (see my April 27 post for more on pokeweed).

Unripe autuumnberries.

The most prevalent bushes on the non-hopniss side of the lot were autumnberries. Autumnberries are invasive in Massachusetts, so they aren't hard to find. They are one of my middle son's favorite wild fruits, though, so we're always excited to find more of them. The flavor can vary considerably from location to location, too, so it's always nice to taste test from a new group of bushes.The berries on these bushes were in various stages of ripeness. Some were hard, brown, and smaller than the end of a Q-tip. Others were pea sized and somewhere on the way from yellow to orange to red. When ripe, autumnberries are red and soft. All berries are covered with tiny silver speckles (and the undersides of the leaves are coated in silver, as though an artist has painted them a metallic sheen). A few of the berries seemed red enough and soft enough to warrant a taste test, even though it's a bit early in the season. They were passable -- but we didn't reach for a second.

These autumnberries are getting riper. Some are
yellow or even approaching red.

One autumnberry bush provided something much more exciting than its fruit, though. If you have a drum nearby, I think this warrants a drum roll: at the base of an autumnberry bush was what looked almost exactly like a walnut tree. In fact, there were several walnut tees, some old enough to bear nuts, in that part of the parking lot. But this tree, growing at about 3 1/2 feet high, was not a walnut tree. Unlike a walnut tree, it had a well-developed terminal leaflet on each of its leaves. And that could only mean one thing: butternut!

Butternut sapling growing under
an autumnberry bush.

If you've been following my blog for a while, you know that this find was an exciting, breathtaking moment. I won't say it's the culmination of a long search because this tree was much too young to bear any nuts. Someday, I hope to actually taste a butternut. No doubt this will be quite a let down after all the build-up, but the hunt is most of the fun, anyway. If I have to wait for this particular tree to reach maturity, though, I might be in trouble. It looked like it was heading straight for a tangled ceiling of autumnberry branches. Perhaps the trunk will do a little zigzag to get out in the sun. Or perhaps some kind-hearted lover of butternut trees will rescue this one by moving it to a less compettive location (suggestion: my yard would work well).

Butternut trees are being killed by something called the butternut canker, which has reduced butternut populations by as much as 80% in some states. Trees in sunnier locations seem more resistant to the disease. Butternuts are the only known natural host to be killed by the parasite, called Sirococcus clavigignenti-juglandacearum, which can survive on dead trunks for up to two years. So, if you know of any butternut trees, take care of them, and plant a few nuts in promising locations every year!

Wapato (arrowhead) leaves with hopniss vines
in front.

After leaving the butternut tree, we had almost completed our tour around the parking lot and were nearly back at our car. As we neared the cattail marsh, more hopniss lay sprawled lazily across the ground; here they had fewer other plants to climb and were left to their own not-so-sturdy devices. I decided to take my shovel into the midst of the hopniss for one last attempt at unearthing more than the two tubers I'd thus far gathered. As I stepped into the vines and brush, a snake slithered away under the grasses. With my eyes, I followed the wave of motion toward the water and spotted some arrow-shaped leaves I immediately recognized as wapato.

Wapato leaf and flowers. Wapato is sometimes confused
with arrow arum, which has a similar leaf shape but different
venation. Arrow arum has a central vein with
shorter veins stemming off of it, whereas all veins on a wapato
leaf originate from a point at the base of the leaf.

Wapato is another tuber, one that usually grows in shallow water or mud. I've never tried one, but it's another plant on my list of desirable finds. Although the tubers are probably the best-known edible part, the young leaf shoots and flower stalks are also edible and, according to Samuel Thayer in The Forager's Harvest, are delicious when boiled. It's past the season for either of those parts now; these wapato plants already had flowers (I understand that later in the season, the yellow center of the flower will give way to a green seed ball). Thayer says the best time to collect the tubers is in the fall, when the plants begin to brown and die. I'll be back at this lot a little later, and I'll give you a report.

Ripe sumac berry cluster.

On our way home, we stopped by another parking lot -- the one where we've collected milkweed, day lilies, wild carrots, evening primrose and, last year, autumn berries. Yesterday after my first hopniss harvest, I had stopped by this lot to see whether the sumac was ripe. I licked a finger and touched one of the red berry clusters, then licked my finger again. An unmistakable tartness told me these berries were ready to be picked. My eldest son and I soon had a plastic grocery bag full of about 20 berry clusters, which we used to make a refreshing pitcher of sumac-ade. In fact, today it is nearly gone, so my middle son and I were now back for more.

Sumac-ade is similar to lemonade
in its tart, fruity flavor.

To make the sumac-ade, I crushed the berry heads in a pitcher of cold water and let them sit for 15 minutes. Hot water releases a bitter chemical from the fruit, so it's important to use cold water. I then added sugar to taste. I had more berry clusters than I needed (12 to 15 seems to be sufficient for the pitcher I have), so I saved the rest. I'll add the sumac we collected this morning to this leftover sumac. I plan to make a sumac concentrate that I can freeze. Later I can add water and enjoy sumac-ade out of season. I can also add some sumac juice to various jams and jellies -- perhaps elderberry or crab apple.

The bag of sumac we collected this morning.
There are two varieties of edible sumac growing here:
smooth sumac and staghorn sumac. Both have showy
red berry clusters that point up. Poison sumac
(which gives you a rash)  has many
distinguishing characteristics, among them its white berries
that often point downward.

Yesterday's was our third pitcher of sumac-ade this year. Well, that's not counting the bark-flavored drink I made from unripe berries that looked so beautifully red that I had to try them, anyway (see my July 9 post). The first ripe sumac I found this year was on one of the Boston Harbor Islands, where we took a friend from Missouri during his recent 2-week stay. The island was covered with blackberries and sumac, but we didn't have any containers with us. We ate berries on the spot and stuffed my eldest son's backpack with as many sumac berry clusters as it would fit. The sumac back home wasn't ripe yet at the time.

Just a week later, I did find ripe sumac under some power lines while I was checking on the hazelnuts also growing there. Sumac is on the Massachusetts list of invasive plants, so if you want to do your part to stop the spread of this weed, drink lots of sumac-ade (but don't put the seeds in your compost). As for hopniss and arrowhead, which are native plants and not invasive, just be sure to leave a few tubers behind when you dig. They'll take advantage of the reduced competition and produce a large crop the following year.

Oh, Nuts!

American hazelnut bush growing alongside our bike trail.

Hickory leaf. Now that I'm thinking straight,
I can see that this is obviously different
from a butternut leaf.

I have disappointing news: I didn't find a butternut tree. As you know if you read my last post, I've been searching for one. On a recent hike a nut tree practically smacked me in the eye with one of its branches, and after letting my imagination run away with me for several minutes, I imagined that the small, four-part husks might grow up to look like butternuts. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that the leaves really weren't quite right. They had three large, well-developed leaflets at the end and two smaller ones a little distance closer to the beginning of the leaf. This wasn't nearly enough leaflets for a butternut leaf, which would have 11 to 17 leaflets. The color of these leaves was also a little darker than that of the walnut leaves I'd seen (walnut trees and butternut trees closely resemble one another), and the leaves were a little heftier and glossier. Then there was that vexing nut, which was just not nearly as large as I'd expect it to be by this time. I had to admit that I probably hadn't found a butternut.

Young butternut tree growing in my garden.

A recent foraging walk with Russ Cohen (who also led a walk I attended in the spring; see my May 9 post) confirmed what I already knew to be the case. He showed us a real butternut tree, which looked so much like a walnut tree that at first I thought it was one. Alas, this tree didn't seem to be producing any nuts. The walk took place on a nearby organic farm that is amenable to foraging, so if there had been nuts, I probably could have gathered some this fall. Alas, I will have to keep searching for a productive wild butternut tree -- or wait about 20 years for the ones I planted in my garden this year to reach nut-bearing maturity.

I found more hickories
along our local bike trail.

I ordered my trees from a mail-order catalog, and by now their leaves are sufficiently well developed to serve as yet another confirmation that the leaves on my mystery nut tree were not butternut leaves. So what kind of leaves were they? I described my find to Russ, and right away he guessed hickory. Not a shagbark hickory, which is the most desirable kind of hickory (I can definitely recognize the distinctive shagbark). There are many kinds of hickory trees, though, and all of the nuts have these four-parted husks like the ones I described. I have since looked up hickory trees in my reference books, and the three large terminal leaflets also fit the bill.

American hazelnuts in husk.

I have found a nut that is much more abundant than butternuts, though. Last year a friend told me there were hazelnuts (or filberts) in the powerline corridor near her house. I went to check it out, and I did find the bushes, but the wildlife had already snagged all the nuts. This year I'm determined to get some of them for myself, so I have been checking on the nuts regularly to gauge their ripeness. I break open the light-green husk and check the color of the nut underneath. I'm looking for a golden brown, but so far I've only found a cream color.

There are two kinds of hazelnuts in America: beaked and American. The ones I've found are American hazels, and the bushes are one of the most abundant in eastern North America. In addition to finding many bushes under the powerlines my friend pointed me to, I also noticed a large thicket along our local bike trail.

Elderberry bushes loaded with unripe fruit.

 The power lines yielded another exciting discovery: elderberries. I saw my first elderberry bush (which didn't have berries on it at the time) in the spring on the aforementioned walk with Russ Cohen. This was the first time I'd seen the berries outside of a photograph, and even though they weren't ripe, their red stems and the way they were starting to droop off the bushes helped me to recognize them right away. Elderberries are known for their immune-boosting properties (they have lots of vitamin C), and you can buy supplements to help with lowering cholesterol, improving vision, and curing a cough, among other things. You don't need to purchase the supplements, though, if you can find the berries and make juice yourself. Elderberries apparently don't taste that great right off the bush, but they make good wine, jelly, and pie (mixed with other fruits). The flowers are also edible, aromatic, and delicious, but if you pick the flowers, the plant won't be able to make fruit, so foragers should exercise caution here. Every part of the elder except the ripe fruit and the flowers is toxic, and a different variety that produces red (rather than blue or black) berries is toxic unless cooked. Samuel Thayer reports that most who taste red elderberries find them disgusting, mostly because the flavor doesn't meet expectations based on the bright red color. They reportedly taste something like bland, slightly bitter tomatoes.

Elderberries and leaf.

There is some conservation concern about elderberries because restaurants are getting interested for commercial purposes. Nonetheless, picking berries for personal consumption shouldn't be a concern, and I look forward to trying some in another month or so. For more pictures of elderberries and for pictures of the flowers, plus additional information about identifying the plant, visit Wildman Steve Brill's site.

Riper elderberries, but still not ripe.

The butternut tree at the organic farm where I went on the foraging walk led by Russ Cohen. This picture didn't turn out that great, but you get the idea.

Berries to Butternuts

Sumac bushes with red berry clusters. These look beautiful, but it turns out they weren't ripe yet.

I hoped to find a thicket of plum trees that afternoon. I'd found the trees in flower on a rainy-day hike in the spring, and I wanted to see whether they were now bearing fruit. Although my expedition wasn't successful in the way I'd hoped, it turned out to be successful in ways I would never have imagined.

Red, ripe raspberries. A treat!

Mystery nuts.

My good luck began with a ripe raspberry here and there along the trail. I also spied many green, unripe blackberries and filed the information away for later. I even found three blueberries (I don't think of collecting blueberries until closer to August). When I got to the knoll where I'd seen the putative plum trees, alas, I didn't find any fruit hanging from their branches. I did notice some green nuts scattered about the ground. I couldn't find the tree they'd come from, and I'm not entirely sure what kind of nut they were. My best guess at the moment is some kind of hickory nut (I didn't see any shagbark hickories, whose peeling bark is quite distinctive, and I don't think I'd be able to recognize any other kinds).

Unripe blackberries.

 I turned back down the trail after the plumless knoll and the mystery nuts, and after at time I came to a spot where a variety of berries were growing in the middle of the trail, so that the trail split like a momentarily divided highway. Somehow, I hadn't noticed the berries on my hike in. Some were unripe blackberries, some were ripe red raspberries, and the rest resembled blackberries except that they had a significant white bloom and were fuzzier, like raspberries.

These look moldy, but they aren't! This is the
handful of bloom-covered berries I brought home
for my kids. These have even been rinsed.

I had just seen the same type of berry on a different trail, where the white bloom made me think the first berry I'd seen was moldy. Then I'd noticed that all the black berries (although not the unripe red ones) had this bloom and that the stems were coated in white as well. So it probably wasn't mold. I next wondered whether someone had sprayed a pesticide here (which seemed unlikely, given that I was on conservation land), but when I picked a berry, I found that the inside (which of course would not have been exposed during any chemical spraying) was also coated in fuzzy whiteness. When I now found the same berries on a different trail, I concluded that the white bloom must be a natural feature of the berry. Because all the raspberry- and blackberry-like berries are edible, I tasted one. It was delicious -- significantly sweeter than a blackberry or raspberry. I collected a handful (I only had a small snack cup that hadn't made it back inside from my car) to share with my kids when I got home and decided to take the kids berry picking the next day.

I took my two youngest boys back
to pick black raspberries the next day.
We even found a few ripe blackberries!

Incidentally, I've now decided that these bloom-covered berries are most likely black raspberries. At first I thought they might be dewberries, but the stems were green, not red. When I read a description of the black raspberry plant, I learned that, although stems on older plants are red, those of newer plants are green with a white bloom. The book didn't mention a bloom on the berries, but I'm guessing black raspberries nonetheless. My source mentioned that many people think black raspberries are the tastiest of all the berries in the blackberry-raspberry family, and I am definitely throwing my vote in the same direction.

These nuts were hanging right into the trail.

After several minutes of berry picking, it caught my attention that some branches were practically hitting me in the face (no, I am not the world's most observant person, mainly because I can become completely absorbed in a single activity to the point that I can hear or see nothing outside of that activity). I then noticed some strange fruits hanging from the branches, which were bent significantly over the trail. Actually, the branch was so much of an obstacle that I must have had to duck to get by on my hike in; the top of the tree had been practically severed and was hanging upside down across the path. How I had managed to pass this spot on my way in without noticing the fruits was beyond me. In fact, I began to wonder whether I had somehow taken a wrong turn on the way back, but a short amount of backtracking confirmed that I'd come the right way (I saw a pair of striking orange mushrooms that I was sure I'd seen before). I went back to examine the tree and fruits, which I now decided were nuts (I took one home and cracked it open, and although it clearly wasn't ripe yet, I was able to confirm this identification).

Nuts in hand.

Most plant-identification guides show pictures of flowers and ripe fruit, not unripe fruit, and I didn't recognize this small nut. But, as I looked at the leaves, I saw that they resembled walnut leaves except that the terminal leaflet was well developed. The leaves were a little straggly looking, probably because most of the trunk was severed (it was amazing that the tree was producing fruit at all), but I glanced up at the branches stemming from the intact portion of the trunk and still thought the leaves looked similar to walnut leaves. I looked at the bark, which had interesting, textured grooves. A possibility began to dawn on me. Could this be butternut? I hardly dared to hope as I looked back at the nuts. They were the shape of small footballs. Very small footballs, but footballs nonetheless. They had four lightly discernible ridges running lengthwise. I imagined the nuts getting bigger, darkening a bit ... and looking pretty much exactly like a butternut.

Bark of the nut tree.

I was beginning to believe that I might really have found this nut, which has been evading me for a year now. The first time I found a walnut tree (at our town playground), I thought it was a butternut, even after I'd tasted it. I had not managed to get the nut out of its shell intact, so its walnut shape was lost. Additionally, walnuts apparently need to age to develop their flavor, so a newly picked or fallen nut tastes considerably different -- and worse -- than an older nut. I could not reconcile the taste of this supposed butternut with Samuel Thayer's description in The Forager's Harvest (see my list of recommended reading). He writes: "Butternuts that have had the hulls peeled while green are a delicacy. Their sweet flavor hints at bananas and vanilla ice cream, and they are very soft."

The nut tree had been practically severed
at the top.

When I finally figured out that I'd found a walnut tree rather than a butternut tree, I was sorely disappointed. Afterall, I can buy walnuts in the store, and I'm not even a big walnut fan (as a side note, I have now tried properly aged wild walnuts, and they do taste significantly better than the cultivated kind available for purchase). I have been searching for the butternut tree ever since. So to think that I might finally have found one (nevermind that it had to practically hit me in the face before I noticed it) -- well, I was so excited that I began talking to myself. (Should I admit this? I talk to myself. My mother does it too; I used to think she was crazy, but now that such a belief would require me to admit that I'm crazy, too, I've dropped the charge).

Walnuts high up in the tree.

I pocketed a nut and headed back to my car. On my way home, I stopped by the playground to see how the walnut trees were doing. The nuts were considerably larger than the possible butternuts were. That gave me pause. The two trees are relatives; do their nuts develop at the same time and pace? The playground trees have ample sunlight, whereas the maybe-butternut tree was in the shady woods. Could that make a difference? Well, I'll keep an eye on my tree and let you know how it turns out. I'm still cautiously excited. (Post-publication note: it wasn't a butternut tree; see my next post.)

Sumac flowers.

After hitting the playground, I stopped by my favorite parking lot to check on the sumac and milkweed. The sumac is still in flower and hasn't made berries yet. Most of the sumac I've seen is still in flower, but last week I did find some bushes with bright red berries. The color looked perfect, but when I sucked on a berry (you can't eat them -- they're too hard to chew), it didn't have any flavor. I'm not sure why -- I guess it was just wishful thinking -- but I collected eight berry heads anyway and tried to make some sumac-ade with them. We made many pitchers of this refreshing, tart

Sumac berries.

drink last summer. Unsurprisingly, the flavor wasn't good; my husband described it as kind of like treebark-flavored water. Next time I'll be sure to put more stock in the taste test (I'm not sure why I conducted a taste test if I wasn't going to take its results into account).

Milkweed plant with small, immature pods
(look in the center of the photograph).

Although it will be a while yet before I'm collecting sumac from that parking lot, several of the milkweed plants had small, immature pods, at the perfect stage for collecting. I'd never tried a milkweed pod before, but I have enjoyed milkweed shoots and flower-bud clusters, and so I was looking forward to trying the pods. Interestingly, although there are a lot of milkweed plants around this parking lot, only those plants in one particular place had pods yet. I collected enough for everyone to have a small serving at dinner. Then I picked a bagful of day lilies and headed home to try a recipe for salmon-stuffed day lilies. The flowers, stuffing, and boiled milkweed pods (which tasted like the other milkweed parts except for the soft pre-silk inside, which was creamy and vaguely cheesy) were enjoyed by everyone except my oldest son, who didn't like much of anything that day and whose opinions should therefore be discounted.

Black locust leaves?

A few other recent adventures are worth sharing. Back in May I found some trees with deeply furrowed bark -- so unusually furrowed that I wanted to know what kind of trees they were (see my May 23 post). I passed the same trees on my way to the black raspberries, and now that the leaves are out, I'm thinking these might be black locusts. Black locust trees are considered invasive in Massachusetts, so it should be easy to find one -- except that it hasn't been. I've been looking for them because their flowers are supposed to be beautiful, delightfully scented, and delicious (one book recommends black-locust fritters). Although black locusts might ordinarily blossom in early July, all the rain and warm weather has accelerated things this year, so I'm guessing the flowers have come and gone. I'll keep an eye on these trees next year to see whether my identification is correct.

Unripe serviceberries?

Another tentative identification this week was what I'm hoping turns out to be a serviceberry bush (also known as shadbush or juneberry). The fruits reportedly have a delicious pear-like flavor. They resemble blueberries or miniature apples and, like those two fruits, have a crown on the bottom. The ripe berries range from reddish purple to blue, purple, and black. I saw the berries and took a picture, then made this tentative identification at home, so I'll have to go back to the bush with my plant guides to be sure.

Unripe riverside grapes.

One final discovery I'll mention from the past week are riverside grapes. A friend used to have trees covered in grape vines, and she always lamented how the animals seemed to take all the grapes before the people could get any. So I'm only tentatively excited to see the developing grapes, but I do hope some will still be around for picking in the fall. I've noticed a number of grape vines in various places during my explorations.

So, no plum trees, but plenty of other exciting discoveries this week!

Photo Gallery

Here are some more pictures from the week.

I think this is false Solomon's seal, but I didn't dig up the root to find out. The roots are edible, but they don't sound very tasty. The best thing Samuel Thayer has to say about them is that "Solomon's seal rhizomes would at least be a good source of calories for someone lost in the woods." The shoots, on the other hand, reportedly make a good vegetable. The berries, which turn bright red when they ripen in the fall, are sweet like molasses but have a strong acrid aftertaste. Thayer says the berries are edible, but I should note that another author, Teresa Marrone in Wild Berries & Fruits, says they are inedible. I tend to thoroughly trust Thayer, however. The level of detail and personal verification of facts in his books is convincing.

Milkweed pods boiling for dinner.

The underside of riverside grape leaves is considerably lighter than the top. The young leaves (when shiny and a bit reddish) make a good wrap for rice stuffing, and a friend of mine recently sauteed the leaves to reportedly delicious effect.

The terminal leaflet in this walnut leaf is missing; a butternut leaf would have a well-developed terminal leaflet.

Close-up picture of two walnuts from one of the many walnut trees surrounding our local playground.

Indian cucumber with unripe, green berries. There are two berries, so this plant is two years old. The berries are inedible, but they turn blue when they are ripe. (The root is edible and tasty; see my February 21 and May 31 posts for more about Indian cucumbers.)

The deeply furrowed bark of what I hope is a black locust tree.