Posted by Les Mauvaises Herbes
Identifying and foraging wild plants, there’s a bit of a romantic aspect to it, isn’t there?
Walking through meadows with a wicker basket to collect beautiful flowers, drying them, and then macerating them to make a body butter, a serum, or a salve… It’s the ultimate dream for an American hippie! (That’s us. Haha.)
It’s a fantastic and rewarding activity, yes. BUT, one should not turn into a forager overnight.
Here are six best practices to adopt before getting started, as well as our suggestions for books, guides, websites, and apps to help you with identification.
And pssst! Did you see that we have a weed herbarium? The ultimate tool for the responsible forager!
Typical example: chaga
Disclaimer: the goal here is not to cast stones, but rather to inform and raise awareness, with all due kindness.
Chaga, this exceptional mushroom with stunning properties, is too often a victim of its own beauty, much to its own detriment. We frequently cross paths with amateur foragers who have started harvesting it with the goal, among others, of selling it. We are convinced that this always comes from good intentions (curiosity, learning, connecting with the earth), but some important corrections are necessary:
- Foraging for chaga requires a significant amount of knowledge. Harvesting it poorly can easily damage, or even kill the tree it grew on. Let’s just say… that’s pretty unfortunate.
- This mushroom takes 3 to 5 years to develop. A bit too long to abuse it.
- It cannot be cultivated because its therapeutic properties come partly from the tree it lives on. Independent, and fragile.
- You also need a lot of know-how to dry it properly. Poorly dried chaga can carry dangerous molds that are hazardous to your health. Oh my… harvesting it without really knowing how, and then wasting it on top of that. Do we really want to risk that?
We’re chatting with you about this typical example because it appears in practically every point covered below.
Do you know how to harvest and prepare chaga? Perfect. Harvest it for yourself only, with moderation, respect, and know-how.
Otherwise, the role of a company like ours is to ensure that the chaga it sells and/or uses in making products comes from suppliers who harvest it in a responsible, ethical, and respectful manner.
1. Take. Your. Time.
When discovering a new passion, it can be tempting to want to discover everything and do things quickly. However, rushing does not mix well with identifying and foraging plants!
By wanting to go too fast, you could:
- misidentify a plant;
- forage a plant with protected status;
- forage a poisonous plant (remember the film Into The Wild…);
- forage a slow-growing plant or one of high importance for a habitat;
- forage and disperse the seeds of an invasive exotic plant;
- over-harvest;
- and the list goes on!
You must first learn to “read” plants, nothing more, nothing less.
Learn the terms, the parts of the plants, the little details that sometimes make all the difference. You will need to familiarize yourself with different elements, for example:
- The type of leaves: simple? Compound?
- Leaf arrangement: alternate? Opposite?
- Plant parts: sepals, petals, pedicels, leaf blade, flower stalk, stolons…
- Inflorescence type: capitulum, raceme, spike, umbel, corymb, spadix…
Well, the idea here isn’t to discourage you with name-dropping, but simply to show you the complexity of the task. There are about 2800 different species of vascular plants in Quebec. It is unrealistic to think that you can identify them all quickly. It is a process. You have to be patient.
How do we proceed? One plant at a time. Simple as that.
2. Ensure correct identification before harvesting, and have a reason to harvest!
Harvesting and identifying later? Not a good idea.
Harvesting without any idea what you will do with the plant? Not a good idea either.
Before harvesting, you must first ensure the plant will actually be useful to you.
Then, confirm your identification with a minimum of three different sources. This is the most important aspect. Truly.
Identification tools
There are many sources to help us identify a plant: identification guides, identification keys, websites, forums, Facebook groups, and also certain apps.
A few book suggestions
Field guides
- The many Fleurbec identification guides: they are a bit dated, but they are still so interesting and packed with information! We particularly like these ones:
- La petite flore forestière du Québec: a little classic, super practical to carry in your backpack when you go out in search of plants. It accompanied me throughout my entire bachelor's in ecology!
- Arbres et plantes forestières du Québec et des Maritimes: a beautiful, complete, and compact guide! It makes identification easy thanks to the color photos. Another guide that we absolutely bring into the field.
- Guide d’identification des mauvaises herbes du Québec: you know us, we don’t really consider there to be any “weeds,” hehe (except for the cursed poison ivy!). Very often, the “weeds” are our favorite medicinal plants (think plantain!). I like this guide because it helps us identify plants while they are still just little babies!
- Usages autochtones des plantes médicinales du Québec: La Métisse’s guides are little gems packed with information.
Reference works
- A MAJOR classic: the Flore laurentienne by Marie-Victorin, which offers numerous identification keys and detailed information. Be careful, this is not bedtime reading nor a "field" book. It is a scientific reference book, an identification tool, a real brick! But a brick that I adore.
- A huge favorite is Forêt, the magnificent book by Ariane Paré-Le Gal and Gérald Le Gal. It is simply stunning. So beautiful, so practical… A true bible of wild edible plants, with magnificent illustrations and photos, a foraging calendar… We use it more as a reference book at home than as a foraging guide, as it is a bit big to carry in the woods, hehe.
Some Web references
- L’encyclopédie des fleurs du Québec: super practical. We can perform our searches by filtering results by color, flowering season, region, plant category, etc.
- L’Herbier du Québec: a government website that I really like, with numerous photos and specific details that aid in identification. An opportunity to consult unique and fragile documents online that are normally reserved for botanical specialists! Ooh!
- Flore du Québec: another interesting tool, somewhat in the spirit of an identification key.
- FloraQuebeca: a list of identification keys for certain plant families. Obviously, to use them, you need to know how to recognize plant families. But if that’s your case: go for it! Super practical.
Identification apps
More and more apps allow identification simply from a photo taken with your smartphone. Obviously, you have to remain cautious and validate the identification (with two other sources, as with everything), but it often gives us a very good idea of what path to follow!
There are also several Facebook groups dedicated to this!
Tips for success in your identification requests on groups or forums? Your post should:
- be accompanied by one or more good photos (forget the blurry ones, haha!);
- allow the plant to be seen in its entirety, sometimes with close-ups of details;
- provide information on the harvest location, which can be of great help. Plants on the North Shore will vary from those in southern Quebec, and those in a coniferous forest will differ from those in a wasteland or on the side of a road. The more information, the simpler the identification will be.
3. Do not forage species with protected status
Did you come across a beautiful plant but cannot identify it? Revisit point 2: it is better to abstain when you are not able to confirm the identification. Why? Because the plant may be in a precarious situation. You can find a list of plants with special status here.
4. Do not forage in national parks and conservation areas
Are you in the middle of a hike in a national park and noticed a beautiful patch of St. John's wort? Due to the preservation mission of national parks, it is forbidden to forage or remove any natural element whatsoever. Even if it is common and seems to be present in abundance. Tell yourself that with the quantity of people who visit national parks, if everyone tells themselves this as a green light… there won't be much left after a while. And for conservation areas? We abstain, obviously!
5. Forage reasonable and adapted quantities
The watchword? Respect.
Harvest only the amount necessary for your needs. We don't take everything in our path! Is the plant you are coveting the only one in its environment, or is it found in abundant quantity?
Respecting the plant’s regeneration capacity
First, ask yourself if harvesting can harm the plant’s growth and reproduction. As a general rule, we adjust our foraging based on the quantity of plants in the immediate environment, but also based on the parts of the plant being harvested.
1. Flowers and fruits
We can harvest fruits and flowers in abundance, while keeping in mind that they are also food for many birds, animals, and insects (think of our precious allies the bees and other pollinators!). Also, remember that in fruits, you find the seeds. Plants need their fruits for their own reproduction. We really like the following rule of three: 1 for us, 1 for the plant, 1 for the animals. Well, it’s a bit naive and doesn’t apply to everything, but it is a good idea to keep in mind that we are part of an ecosystem!
2. Leaves and shoots
For leaves and shoots, we can harvest sparingly, remaining aware that for a plant to survive, it needs to photosynthesize, and that happens mainly through the leaves. A fir tree deprived of all its young shoots will not survive for more than 2 or 3 years.
4. Roots
For roots, be aware that harvesting roots will kill the plant. You must therefore ensure it is present in abundance before removing it.
Respecting the ecological importance of every plant, even the most common ones: a priority.
They are the habitat or food source for other animals or insects. They all have a role to play in the ecosystem.
6. Respect private property
Finally, the last point, but not the least: we don’t venture just anywhere to harvest! Ask the owners for permission before foraging on private land. Is it not possible? You don’t know who the owner is? It’s unfortunate, but then, we abstain!
With these few basic concepts, patience, curiosity, a thirst for learning, and above all, respect for plants and their importance in the ecosystem, you are in business and you will be able to identify and forage in an ethical and reasonable manner.
Happy foraging!
