Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Brooklyn Bridge Park


Ahead of Wednesday evening's forage tour of Brooklyn Bridge Park's Pier 1 (tickets here) I did some reconnaissance. But first I gazed longingly though the chainlink at some wild lettuces volunteering on a heap of earth and mulch. Very tender, very delicious. If you like that sort of ting.

 Rhus aromatica - fragrant sumac

Lots of this planted at Pier 6, too. The fruit will be ripe in late summer.

Thlaspi arvense - pennycress

The white flowers of a few weeks ago have gone to seed. Peppery.

 Myrica pensylvanica - northern bayberry

A kitchen staple, for me

 Aquilegia caandensis - columbine

Pretty masses of columbines are in bloom on a side path.

 Osmunda cinnamomea - cinnamon fern

An easy fern to ID, and one of the few whose fiddleheads are eaten

 Matteuccia struthiopteris - ostrich fern

The most common source of edible fiddleheads. 

 Stylophorum diphyllum - celandine poppy

In bloom now before turning summer-dormant. Not for eating. But it has yellow blood!

 Asarum candense - wild ginger

The rhizomes are where the action is. Grow your own and find out... Full shade lover.

 Viburnum prunifolium, I think - blackhaw

Tons of flowers, this year, perhaps in fall there will be fruit.

Zizia aurea - golden alexanders

People eat these flowers but I am interested in the fragrant leaves, and am reading to find out more. Zizia belongs to the tricky Apiaceae family that swings from one end of the ingestion spectrum to the other: from parsley and carrots and fennel to poison hemlock and blister bush. Yum, yum, yum, death rattle, skin rash. 

If you have a free hour before dinner this evening, come along. 

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1 comment:

  1. FYI about wild ginger-there is some toxicity associated with it. You'd have to eat a lot though. The link below discusses why you wouldn't want to infuse it in vodka, but it is safe as a tea.

    Cheers!
    Cecile
    http://honest-food.net/2012/05/22/wild-ginger-edible-toxic/

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