After the fire Large-Leaf Aster

Today seemed like a good day to find out if any Morel mushrooms were going to appear in an area where a forest fire occurred  last summer and was within a reasonably close distance to travel from my home. Since Large-leaf Aster is known to expand with vigor after a forest fire I was somewhat certain I would at least arrive home with a nice bag of greens. Yes, the Large-leaf Aster greens were growing very well with plenty of young shiny leaves in excellent shape for gathering. The Morel mushroom part of the adventure was a bit of  false alarm though as the Black Morel mushroom was no where to be found, just some inedible False Morels which are considered potentially fatal to consume. These way to dangerous to eat False Morels were still an impressive sight to behold on the forest floor and were out in large numbers. Back home with a few medicinal plants which I’ll post on later and my collection of Large-leaf Aster leaves which you can see I am now preparing to boil, these mild tasting greens are rarely foraged for in my area, so I probably shouldn’t let the cat out of the bag and tell how easy to gather and tasty this post fire invader’s young greens are. ciao

Bear in mind Bigleaf Aster

Here is the early growth of  Bigleaf or if you like Large-leaved Aster (Eurybia macrophylla)

This is one of the edible plants I’ve been hoping to find much earlier this month, but today is the day.

(click on the photo to bearly see her.)  It’s kind of funny I also planned on adding a link to view a video which features Black Bears in spring eating Bigleaf Aster and today I also sighted my first Black Bear of the year. The bear is the tiny black dot about 800 feet down the road on the right, a little out of the range of my Sony Cyber-shot. You’ll get a much closer look in the Bear video, as  you will see some Black Bear family life and around 3 minutes in the Bears will start mowing down a lot of Bigleaf Asters as this seems to be a early spring favorite of theirs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoQC-XHPtIM

Large-leaved Aster (Eurybia macrophylla)

Approaching someone’s home garden of Large-leaved Aster.

The best time to notice Large-leaved Aster is the month of June in eastern Canada. The best time to eat the cooked leaves of Large-leaved Aster is in the month of May.  So today I’m locating large beds of this perennial plant in areas close to where I live or frequently travel in preparation for observing the plant through its different stages as it grows and then returning in late April to start gathering the young tender leaves while they are still shiny and around 4 inches long. I may also gather  the seed heads after flowering in the fall to see how this plant grows from seed inside the house or in the spring outdoors in my garden.

A look at a young plant as this aster bed seems to be expanding outward in this area.

The 3 leaves on the left are acceptable for cooking, but the 3 leaves on the right though of similar size would be leathery to eat.

Here is another local animal who is fond of Large-leaved Aster and the Ojibwa hunters were well aware of this and dried Large-leaved Aster leaves and smoked them as a deer charm.