Tastes of the Forest

Day two of the Medicinal herb weekend started with a calm morning of exploring some of the many plant-books and doing some journaling.

Then we ventured up the road to the Krughurst Forest!

What a magical spot! We admired some Swamp Milkweed, and pondered where the milkweed pods come from, does each flower turn into a pod?

We checked out the Cattails, but they were a bit past the prime harvest time for the flower heads.

We ran our hands through the wetland grasses, and wondered about collecting seeds to make our own flour!

After talking about this plant often, we finally got our eyes on some Jewelweed/Spotted Touch-me-not (Impatiens capensis). Besides being an amazing plant to help with sunburns, bug bites and poision ivy Jewelweed is simply beautiful, and their leaves look so shiny underwater!

We spent our lunch staring at the most amazing rock that the group visits each year. This special rock is  the host to 23 species of plants (from our count), all on one moss and lichen covered rock!

This year we spotted the following plants on the rock:
Round Lobed Hepatica
Harts Tonge Fern
Blue Cohosh
Trillium
Red Elderberry
Dandelion

Grapevine

Yellow Birch

Alternate Leaf Dogwood
Bedstraw
Solomons Seal

Baneberry
Violet
Jack in the Pulpit
Herb Robert
Wild Ginger

Buttercup

Maidenhair fern
Hemlock Tree seeding
Wild leek
Canada Mayflower
Plantain Leaf Sedge
Clearweed

We continued walking through a beautiful forest, when Alexis stopped us and pointed out a fawn lying amongst the Maple seedlings and ferns. We quietly snuck away, and continued to find a spot to sit where each found a plant we felt called towards and took the time to drink the plant in a tea. In doing so we tried our best to listen deeply to how our bodies responsed to the tea. It was neat to hear the experiences and messages others got about the plants in their tea.

We met the most fragrant of bushes on our way back! Spicebush (Lindera benzoin) has an incredible smell when you rub the leaves!

After trying the sweet tasting tincture of this Mushroom the day prior it was very exciting when we ended our adventure by bumping into some Reshi Mushrooms growing on a fallen Eastern Hemlock log!

I am grateful for such a weekend full of flavors, meeting beautiful plants and spending time with an inpsiring group of plant-loving people!