Fun Facts
Here is more information about some of the plants seen on the walk!
Queen Anne’s Lace
- Queen Anne’s Lace is a biennial in the carrot family. It is also known as wild carrot.
- Queen Anne’s Lace is very high in sugar, second only to the beet among root vegetables.
- The Romans ate it as a vegetable, and the American colonists boiled the taproots, sometimes in wine, as a treat.
- The name is said to come from a legend that says that Queen Anne of England (1665-1714) pricked her finger while sewing and a drop of blood landed on the white lace (similar looking to the flower) in which she was sewing.
Goldenrod
- This native wildflower provides beautiful fall color, as well as food for bees and butterflies.
- Goldenrod is often blamed for causing allergies in the fall, but it is actually ragweed, that blooms at the same time, that is responsible.
- Goldenrod flowers were once used medicinally by Native Americans and Europeans, as well as to make wine. The leaves were reportedly used by colonists to make tea after they threw all the British tea overboard at the Boston Tea Party.
Joe Pye Weed
- Joe Pye Weed is a North American native species ranging from southern Canada to Florida and west to Texas. Its flowers attract Hummingbirds and a variety of butterflies.
- According to legend, this wildflower is named after a traveling Native American medicine man, Joe Pye (or Jopi), who sold an herbal tonic to fight typhoid fever made from Eupatorium to the colonists. Indeed, research has confirmed the plant’s name originated from the nickname of Joseph Shauquethqueat, a Mohican chief who lived in Massachusetts and New York in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
- Joe Pye Weed is also known as kidneywort, kidney root, and purple boneset, names derived from some of its other reputed medicinal properties.