Hi fellow Hiveians,
Today I'm back with an overdue outdoor post! Volume 2 of the wild plant identification!
Plant Identification Part 2
So one of the things people who have been checking out my random musings I call blog posts have probably read a time or two is that I've been trying to get better at nature stuff.
One of the things I have been incorporating into the homeschool stuff I've been doing with our son is to be able to identify local plants as part of our introduction to science lessons. I didn't really like geology in school but one of the things I will try to make a lot more fun is to teach him about nature and everything around us!
These pictures are from when we took an awesome hike in August to see the Flume Gorge in New Hampshire. It's a remarkable trail that brings you alongside all kinds of great nature areas, filled with crazy amounts of plants! With those many varieties of plants, comes a whole lot of names!
It's great to be able to see things that are growing around us that we actually can use. St. Johnswort is something that's included in a fair amount of herbal medicinal recipes so I found it fascinating that it grows locally! One of these days we will have to get a handbook to bring with us so we can identify things we can pick and bring home with us. Free stuff growing is the best kind, I think!
One of the things I've really enjoyed is seeing things I've known my whole life visually but never knew the name. I would always see this lichen stuff growing on the various rocks and boulders on my hikes as a kid but I never really knew what it was. It's apparently Foliose Lichen! Really interesting stuff, reading about it.
According to the photo below, this stuff is called Beachdrops. We saw quite a bit of it on our hike but what we saw more of were the other one, Indian Pipe.
I personally love seeing all kinds of fern growing around! I think it's funny and silly but when I see ferns growing around, not only do I think dinosaurs but I think of one of the old Star Wars movies that was the battle of the Ewok's! The Ewok's lived in an area that was completely covered with ferns so it brings back memories of watching the movies, lots of fun!
I think this is more of the Foliose lichen growing on the side of the rock there. We saw quite a bit of it!
I think it's great to see all kinds of different species of plants around. We see lots of the basics like clove and all that but seeing these different ones is great! Some of these are even edible, though I obviously don't know a whole lot about that yet.
I think that the Sorrel variety of plants are ones that are edible. I think wood sorrel is something that I see one of the nature shows we enjoy watching, eat from time to time. I'll have to keep an eye on that to make sure!
The bunchberry here is going to have to be one of the things we look out for on our journeys next year! It is apparently edible and source looks like it is quite the interesting flower and leaf. Thankfully it seems to be pretty easily distinguished from other plants, with it's very specific looking leaf pattern.
One of the things we have been also working on is getting better at identifying the different trees around us. Trees are important for sure but so isn't being able to identify what the trees are!
I don't know just yet what the difference is between hemlock and fir trees. They look pretty darn similar! I can recognize the difference in the cones though, the hemlock ones are easy to spot!
This is another great edition of the plant identification mission we've been on! We have quite a few more of these to come, as I've gotten a great app on my phone to help us identify some of this stuff. I've got some stored for a future post that's for sure!
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