Plants, Trees & Vegetation
Cattails
Typha latifolia
Seeds: Have a high linoleic acid content and can be feed to cattle and chickens.
Uses: Culinary, agriculture, building material, paper, fiber, biofuel, etc.
Eastern Hemlocks
Tsuga canadensis
Wood: The wood is soft, coarse-grained, and light buff in color. Air-dried, a cubic foot weighs 28lbs.
Uses: American pioneers made tea from the tree's leafy twigs and used its branches as brooms.
Fall Colors
We've all heard versions of the Jack Frost story and his coloring of fall leaves...
Jewelweed
Impatiens capensis
Uses: Food and medicinally
Description: Jewelweed is an herbaceous plant that grows 3 to 5 feet tall and blooms from late spring to early fall.
Mayapples
Podophyllum peltatum
Description: The waxy white flower has six petals and is about 2" in diameter.
Uses: Powerful laxative, get rid of intestinal worms, wart cure-all, and as an insecticide on crops.
Poison Ivy
Toxicodendron
Species: Two types, Toxicodendron radicans and Toxicodendron rydbergii
Urushiol-induced contact dermatitis is the allergic reaction caused by poison ivy.
Stinging Nettles
Urtica dioica
Description: Dioecious, herbaceous, perennial plant, 1 to 2 m (3 to 7 ft) tall in the summer. It produces its inflammatory effect on skin (stinging, burning sensation often called "contact urticaria") both by impaling the skin via spicules – causing mechanical irritation – and by biochemical irritants, such as histamine, serotonin, and acetylcholine, among other chemicals.
Maple Syrup
Xylem sap
Three species of maple trees are predominantly used to produce maple syrup: the sugar maple (Acer saccharum), the black maple (A. nigrum), and the red maple (A. rubrum), because of the high sugar content (roughly two to five percent) in the sap of these species.