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Elders, Poke and Yarrow

Posted by wilde on June 18th, 2006 — Posted in Vegetable

Some nicer pictures of the American elder and its clusters of white flowers.

Shrubbery of the American elder tree.

Elder leaves are compound with 5-7 leaflets.

Closeup of an elder flower cluster.

Clusters of elderberry flowers.

Here’s a nice grouping of the whorled loosestrife along the lane.

Several whorled loosestrife along the lane.

I’ve never eaten Poke, but people say it’s good greens — but only when young shoots are collected in early Spring. The mature leaves, roots and stems are poisonous. Pokeweed, Phytolacca americana, is quite noticeable as it has huge leaves!

Pokeweed has huge leaves!

Poke flowers appear to have white petals, but those are actually the sepals. When the fruit ripens the cluster of shiny, purple-black berries hangs downward.

Tiny white flowers for a very large plant.

Another flowering plant we found along the lane is yarrow, Achillea millefolium, a member of the composite family, Compositae. The flowers appear in flat, tight clusters and are usually white and sometimes pink.

A couple yarrow plants alongside the lane.

Yarrow, a perennial, is distinguished from other similar-looking flowers by its greenery. The narrow leaves are finely divided and remind one of a fern. Yarrow leaves are aromatic, too.

Narrow leaves with many divisions help to identify yarrow.

An interesting note about yarrow is that its use in folk medicine has been substantiated by the fact that over 100 biologically active compounds have been found in yarrow. A tea made from dried flowering yarrow is used for many maladies, including colds, fever, gastric upset, and internal bleeding. A poultice made from fresh leaves is styptic – used to stop bleeding. Indeed, legend has it that Achilles used a poultice of yarrow leaves to stop the bleeding of his soldiers’ wounds, thus the generic name Achillea. Caution: Do not use yarrow in any form if you are unsure of its identification as other similar plants are deadly poisonous, such as Fool’s Parsley and Poison Hemlock.

The tomatoes are in bloom in the vegetable garden, and the foxglove, statice, rudbeckia, tiger lilies and lamb’s ear are blooming, too.

Tiger lilies blooming in the flower beds.

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Elders and Poison Ivy in Flower

Posted by wilde on June 12th, 2006 — Posted in Vegetable

This time of year we are seeing the raspberries beginning to appear as little green knobby buds. At about the time they should be ripening up, the elderberries shouldn’t be far behind. The American elder, Sambucus canadensis, grows with many shoots arising out of the ground. The elders here are growing along the lane up to the house and along the farmer’s road. As a matter of fact the first post I made here back in February was about the first green growth I saw in late Winter on the farmer’s lane. I reported that it was possibly a sassafras tree, but now have confirmation that it is an elder tree. The shoots that sprang up this year are 10-15 feet tall.

Elder trees grow from many shoots.

The elder leaves are compound, opposite leaves consisting of 5-7 leaflets about 3-4 inches long and sharply toothed. The small white flowers are now starting to come out of their buds and are arranged in large, roundish or flat-topped clusters about 6-7 inches across.

My purpose today was to chop down a large poison ivy vine but first I had to photograph the flowers. I want it gone more than I want to see the resulting ivyberries, especially since I think I’ll be back here to pick some elderberries. Here’s the typical leaves of three, so let them be! Notice the small, white five-petaled flowers arising from the leaf axils in small stalks.

Three leaves and flowers of poison ivy.

Another flowering plant that I noticed along the lane was the whorled loosestrife, Lysimachia quadrifolia, a member of the Primrose family, Primulaceae. The yellow, five-petaled flowers project from the leaf axils and lay over each leaf in a whorl on the main stem. Each whorl has typically four leaves and flowers, but I have seen a few plants with five each. This small perennial grows to 1-3 feet tall.

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