Epigaea repens (Trailing Arbutus) is usually a common plant I find in sandy forest which are quite acidity. I stumbled upon these ones in an old pasture while checking out some young bedstraw plants I have an interest in.
Since some of the flowers were in good condition I decided to gather a few flower tubes to try as a simple jam.
This small bowl of flowers took awhile to gather, though if you are in a patch of Trailing Arbutus you will probably not be in any rush to leave the pleasant scent this plant adds to its surroundings anyway.
I made 3 small patches, (1) flower tubes and sugar, (2) flower tubes and honey and (3) flower tubes and maple syrup. The flower tubes in all 3 recipes were pressed into a paste with the other ingredient and the results were extremely good with the honey and flower tubes my personal favorite.
I will probably try a few wild rose petal recipes and use Trailing Arbutus to replace the rose petals. This is not the type of product anyone could mass produce, but a couple small bottles of these flower tubes preserved each spring is going to be a new tradition at our house.
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