Arctic Aster
Posted today are a couple photographs of flowers I captured on an
afternoon walk near my cabin. I am
certain the first flower is an aster. In
looking through all of my books on flowers and searching online, I think the
flower is, specifically, an Arctic aster.
The Arctic aster ranges from the Yukon in the north down to
Colorado. This plant is willing to grow
in dry and rocky soils.
Some tribes used the roots, stems, and flower to produce a tea for
the treatment of backaches. The tea was
taken while sitting in a steam bath.
Rough-Fruited
Fairy Bells
A member of the lily family, rough-fruited fairy bells enjoy a
wide range. In the western half of North
America, they flourish from British Columbia down to Arizona and New Mexico. They favor rich, moist soils in forested areas.
Rough-fruited fairy bells blossom and produce their berries in
pairs. The fruit, though (in my mind) suspiciously
colored, are edible and said to be bland to mildly sweet.
I have not yet tasted one of the berries.
The Blackfoot people used the berries to treat
snow-blindness. They did this by
inserting the seeds from plant under the eyelids for the night.
—Mitchell Hegman
That is interesting about the Blackfeet and the berries. Did it work?
ReplyDeleteApparently it did. My resources are pretty limited on that. There is still a lot we could re-learn.
ReplyDelete