Plants, fungi, and wildlife

Poison hemlock

Conium maculatum

Purple-splotched hollow stems, lacy leaves, white umbels. Deadly. Do not touch your mouth after handling.

Water hemlock

Cicuta maculata

The most violently toxic plant in Indiana wetlands. Chambered root, purple-streaked stems.

Queen Anne’s lace

Daucus carota

Wild carrot. Hairy stem, one dark floret in the white lace, carrot-scented taproot.

White snakeroot

Ageratina altissima

Shade wildflower that makes milk poisonous. Caused milk sickness on the Indiana frontier.

Pokeweed

Phytolacca americana

Magenta stems, black-purple berries. Young shoots were cooked as poke sallet; roots and berries are toxic.

Jewelweed

Impatiens capensis

Orange spotted flowers, watery stems. Traditional wash for poison ivy and nettle.

Stinging nettle

Urtica dioica

Opposite toothed leaves, stinging hairs. Excellent cooked green and fiber plant.

Mayapple

Podophyllum peltatum

Umbrella leaves in colonies. Only the ripe yellow fruit is edible; the rest is toxic.

Jack-in-the-pulpit

Arisaema triphyllum

Hooded pulpit flower, three leaflets, clusters of red berries. Calcium oxalate — do not eat raw.

Bloodroot

Sanguinaria canadensis

Early white flower; orange-red sap. Sap is caustic — not a folk cure to play with.

Common milkweed

Asclepias syriaca

Thick opposite leaves, pink flower balls, milky sap. Monarch host. Young shoots and pods are traditional food if boiled.

Hemp dogbane

Apocynum cannabinum

Milkweed cousin with branching stems and toxic sap. Superb cordage, bad food.

Garlic mustard

Alliaria petiolata

Invasive. First-year rosette, second-year white four-petal flowers. Pull it and eat it.

Dandelion

Taraxacum officinale

The emergency salad. Entire plant is food if you can stand the bitter.

Broadleaf plantain

Plantago major

The ‘bandaid plant’. Ribbed basal leaves and a rat-tail flower spike.

Christmas fern

Polystichum acrostichoides

Evergreen woodland fern. Each leaflet has a Christmas-stocking thumb.

Yarrow

Achillea millefolium

Feathery aromatic leaves and a flat plate of tiny white flowers. Wound herb and fever tea.

Common mullein

Verbascum thapsus

Woolly first-year rosette, then a tall yellow candle. The cough leaf of dry lots.

Boneset

Eupatorium perfoliatum

Wet-ground white flower plate. The stem grows through the joined leaf pair. Not white snakeroot.

Self-heal

Prunella vulgaris

Low purple flower clubs in the lawn. A gentle throat gargle.

Catnip

Nepeta cataria

Gray-green mint that makes cats foolish and people sleepy. Old barn-lot plant.