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Correction: American Bugleweed was incorrectly identified as Virginia Bugleweed in the original post. Changes have been made to the text below.

This wet year has brought out a few plants in abundance that are not normally seen in such numbers. So far, I’ve mentioned that the Elderberry harvest has been great, the blackberries were huge and in abundance, and the Joe-Pye Weed actually flowered this year. I think there are more of the wood asters and white snakeroot getting ready to flower this year than in the past couple of years, too. Jewelweed is flowering in great abundance now all along the lane, but especially in the lower, wetter areas.

Another new plant I’ve discovered along the lane is a non-aromatic mint. Sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? Most members of the Mint Family, Labiatae, have small glands that produce aromatic compounds that we’re familiar with, like peppermint and spearmint, but this plant is an exception. Crushing a leaf produces no smell that I can detect.

Having a squared stem, opposite leaves and tiny tubular flowers in the leaf axils are all characteristics that place American Bugleweed, Lycopus americanus, in the mint family.

American Bugleweed along the west side of the lane has toothed leaves that taper at each end and clusters of small, white axillary flowers. Photo taken 18 August 2008.

The toothed leaf of American Bugleweed is strongly tapered at both ends.

The small white axillary flowers are tubular and without a hand lens seemingly without definition. Inspecting the flowers a little closer, you can see that the top “lip” of the bugle-shaped blossom has 2 lobes while the lower lip has 3 lobes. Nearly every set of leaves occurs with clusters of flowers.

Wild mint shares a number of characteristics with its family member, American Bugleweed. Wild Mint, Mentha arvensis, sports the squared stem, opposite toothed leaves and small tubular flowers in the leaf axils. Blossoms of wild mint are typically a lilac color, but sometimes they’re white.

Wild mint grows along the east side of the upper lane, near the blackberry plants. Lower leaf sets have pairs of small leaves in the leaf axils, not flowers as the American Bugleweed does.

Other characteristics that separate Wild Mint from American Bugleweed are the stem texture and leaf shape. The bugleweed stem and leaves are smooth, while the stem of wild mint has a rougher feel due to numerous fine hairs. Wild mint leans to more of a trailing habit where its stem may curl slightly, whereas American Bugleweed grows upright and its stems are straight.

Wild mint flower clusters, and the flowers themselves, are larger than those of the bugleweed.

Wild mint flowers cluster in leaf axils. Spiny or hairy projections of the sepals are very evident after the flowers have fallen away. Photo taken 8 August 2008.

The leaves of wild mint are oval or egg-shaped and not strongly tapered at both ends like those of the bugleweed. The leaf teeth are much more prominent on bugleweed.

Wild mint, with its strong minty scent, is enjoyed as tea because of its aromatic qualities. Bugleweed doesn’t have the minty aroma, but the entire plant has been used medicinally as a mild sedative and to treat coughs, thyroid disease, heart disease and diabetes. Studies suggest further research is warranted for treating hyperthyroidism.

Since both the wild mint and bugleweed are perennials we’ll harvest some leaves and dry them for winter tea.

Weather is interesting to many people because it’s always changing. Daily and seasonal cycles bring changes to the weather. Outdoor activities often depend on the weather being suitable, and if it’s extremely hot or cold you’ll find many of us indoors.

If I remember correctly, 2008 is a La Nina year. For the Northeastern United States a La Nina year means the summertime weather is cooler and wetter than usual. I would say that has been true this year.

We have had a few spells of hot weather in the 90s, but those extremes were tempered with nighttime rains. I’m not sure that we’ve had an abundance of rain in 2008, but we have been blessed with rainfall quite often during these summer months.

The garden tomatoes and peppers are just now coming off and the garlic fizzled out. Just not hot enough for those guys to produce a bumper crop. The corn is fantastic in all of Pennsylvania this year. The rains have produced plants well over my head, perhaps 12 feet tall with 3-4 ears on each stalk.

Cooking some water-soaked corn right in the husk over an open fire can’t be beat! Just delicious!

Elderberries hid well for a while until I realized that they like growing in semi-wet areas. The elderberries on our land grow along the lane where they receive runoff from the spring and in the wetland area that is just to the north of the pond, which is really a catchment basin. The rainwater that drains from the dirt road travels in culverts into this wetland area before trickling into the pond. Here, I found four elderberry plants loaded with berries.

The farmer’s land just to our south has a few really nice elderberry bushes next to a small stream. Some of those went into my first Elderberry Jelly. What a nice berry flavor!

Near a small stream deep purple elderberries weigh heavy on the branches.

A 5-gallon bucket of elderberry clusters was a lot to work with and it took a few hours to twist off the berries. All those berries filled a 4 quart Dutch oven and half-filled a 2-gallon metal pail.

Sixteen pints of elderberries plucked from their clusters.

Wide-mouth pint jars were filled with elderberries, a pinch of purified sea salt was added on top and the jar was filled with water before putting on the lid. Each jar was preserved in a pressure cooker by heating the canner up to pressure, turning off the heat and letting the jars stay at pressure for 25 minutes.

Salted, elderberry and water-filled jar ready for preserving.

That five gallons of elderberry clusters made 16 pints of berries, 14 of which are preseved in jars for making pies or other treats in the future, and the remaining two were used to make Elderberry Custard Pies – one pint of berries to a pie. Just delicious!

Take your favorite custard pie recipe, pour the custard over a pint of berries in a blind-baked pieshell, and you’re in for a treat.

The last piece of Elderberry Custard Pie!

The first pie was nearly gone before I got out the camera, and the second pie went to the farmer whose elderberries were harvested the day before. After tasting the pie he exclaimed that he didn’t know elderberries could taste so good! He said he won’t be taking down that Elderberry bush afterall!

This morning I found the cereal cupboard bare except for a sample-sized box of Fiber One cereal, made by General Mills. Left behind by one of the summer guests of the mountain, I figured that the children chose all the really sweet ones first.

Fiber One sample cereal box.

I wouldn’t have purchased the small boxes because they have too much packaging to throw away. Different from the scored boxes we had as kids that doubled as bowls, this one had no scoring, and instead, the cereal was safe inside a heat-sealed plastic bag. Eating milk and cereal right from the box was fun – probably a memory from my childhood that today’s little ones won’t experience.

As I munched on the surprisingly sweet cereal right out of the bag, I just had to read the ingredients to see which sweetener was inside…sugar (second ingredient), fructose and dextrose. There’s little surprise there. Maybe it’s a great source of fiber with 9g per 1 cup serving, but the carbs, at 41 g, might be a little high for a diabetic.

Here’s the ingredient list for those of you trying to find a healthy alternative to Sugar Smacks:

whole grain wheat
sugar
corn bran
chicory root extract
maltodextrin
rice bran and/or canola oil
fructose
salt
dextrose
trisodium phosphate
soy lecithin
natural and artificial flavor
bht added to preserve freshness
enriched with a host of vitamins and minerals

There’s some whole grain goodness inside, but probably too much sugar to earn a gold star.

Surprised by the fourth ingredient, chicory root extract, I’m wondering if that is the ingredient responsible for the “caramel delight” flavor. What gives the natural and artificial caramel flavor? Perhaps the chicory root provides the light brown color. Before reading it on this cereal label I’ve only heard of roasted chicory root being used as a coffee substitute. It has to impart some taste to the cereal, doesn’t it? I wonder what other foods contain chicory root extract.

Chicory, Cichorium intybus, is in bloom all along the country roads in Pennsylvania. The sky blue blossoms are really pretty especially when a lot of chicory grows together.

Chicory flowers along the Pennsylvanian country roads.

Up close you can see that the petals are fringed at the ends. The chicory flowers are sessile and appear to be attached right at the stem. Leaves are few and variable along the stem and basal leaves are similar to dandelion. Long, arching blue stamens stand out nicely.

Fringed petals of chicory give its flowers a unique look.

Queen’s Anne Lace seems to be chicory’s main cohort. I see them together everywhere along the country roads and in empty fields.

The long tap root of chicory can be roasted for use as a beverage like coffee and, as I’ve read more about it, chicory leaves can be used in salads. Commercial growers in Michigan and a few other states in the Midwest now provide most of the chicory consumed in the U.S. It is an alien plant that European settlers imported into their new country.

Chicory root contains a sugar-like compound that is most likely used for soluble fiber content in my morning cereal.

As I was saying…this has been a wetter year than the previous couple of years, and so, we’re eating great bunches of wild berries and getting to see a couple plants flowering that blossom in the wet conditions. All the rain sure makes for nice gardening – no extra watering needed!

Last year I had been watching this plant grow up through the summer. Taking pictures all along I was really curious what it would develop into, but there was to be no flowering. What drew my curiosity to it was the whorled leaves. I was unfamiliar with this plant and eagerly awaited its bloom time.

It turned out that the season was too dry for me to see anything. The small flower buds simply dried up and the plant stopped growing.

The small flower head dried up after these photos were taken on 12 July 2007. You can see the whorl of large leaves quite clearly where they attach to the main stem.

This year, being a wet one, is different. The terminal cluster of flowers is still developing. As I recall, it seems like a smaller version of a plant that I have been seeing by the roadsides along country roads of Central PA.

Tall pink flowers along a Pennsylvania country road.

Coming home from town this morning I pulled over near a patch of these very tall pinkish flowers. Right away I could see the large lance-shaped leaves in whorls. Indeed, the leaves can be seen from the road, as can the cluster of pink-to-white flowers. These plants towered over my head as they stood 8-10 feet tall, but a few were reaching only about 4 feet high.

The flower parts are indistinguishable, which helps to identify this plant as being a Eupatorium species.

A close-up photo shows a couple of white stamens, but that’s about all you can see.

To further identify this plant, you’ll need to look closely at the main stem. Are there purple spots or is the stem green with a white, waxy appearance? Is it a hollow stem? The different Joe-Pye weeds are distinguished like so:

1. Sweet Joe-Pye Weed, Eupatorium purpureum, – green stem, purple at leaf joints vanilla odor of crushed leaves.
2. Spotted Joe-Pye Weed, Eupatorium maculatum, – purple or purple-spotted stems, flat flower cluster.
3. Hollow Joe-Pye Weed, Eupatorium fistulosum, – stem may have a tinge of purple, hollow stem, domed flower cluster.

Our plants are the Hollow Joe-Pye Weed, sometimes called Trumpetweed, due to the dome-shaped flower cluster, hollow stem, and no odor of vanilla. Areas that get lots of sun have the Joe-Pye weeds in full bloom and they’re very tall, too. Our smaller plants are in part shade all day long.

Interestingly enough, I found the same cohorts growing by the JoePye weed about 7 miles away, in full sun. I easily spotted Boneset, White Snakeroot, Spotted Touch-Me-Not and Blackberries – the same troupe that’s growing along our lane.

Don’t these blackberries look delicious? They’re quite large from all the rain and now they’re in my belly!

Who’s your neighbor, Boneset?

A fault, I find, of many field guides is that the neighboring plants of the one you’re reading about are not usually mentioned. OK, maybe it’s not a fault, but it sure would make a nice addition to list some of the ‘cohorts’ or associates that may be found with a particular plant.

I suppose the lists of associated plants would become too long to be useful. The plants growing alongside Boneset here may not be in the locations where you see it. Still, I can see that if you recognize the habitat where your plant is growing, you can learn about other inhabitants of that ecosystem. Then it would be easier to recognize individuals in that community of plants in the future.

Take our perennial Boneset, for example. At three to four feet tall the clusters of white blooms really stand out. Even more recognizable are the opposite pairs of perfoliate leaves that appear to be joined at the base. Once you see those leaves as the plant is growing, there’s no mistaking it. Boneset grows up in July and flowers in August to September.

Three perennial boneset plants starting to flower.

Flowers starting to open on the Boneset.
(Photos taken 2 August 2008.)

Growing along the lane our Boneset is growing in a wet area, often near running water as rain water and runoff is funneled off of the dirt road in that location. We’ve had a relatively wet year as the spring at the lower section of the lane has not totally dried up as it often does by this time of the year. Not such an excess of rain, but often we’ve had night-time downpours.

Growing around Boneset, Eupatorium perfoliatum, we have White Snakeroot, Jewelweed or Spotted Touch-Me-Not, and Blackberries. White Snakeroot, Eupatorium rugosum, and Jewelweed, Impatiens capensis, are described in the Peterson Field Guide on Eastern-Central Medicinal Plants as growing near running water.

The last two years were much drier and I don’t recall seeing Boneset flowering at all. Snakeroot did, but not with as much gusto as I’m seeing this year.

The blackberries are more aggressive and will grow in drier locations in the woods as long as they can get the sunshine they need. Plants that might be called generalists, those that can live in many places, like the berries, are not good cohort indicators. Although you have to take caution here as this wetter year has produced an abundance of huge, sweet berries in the locations near the Boneset. We’ve enjoyed the blackberries thoroughly!

WildeBerry Ice Cream, anyone?