Posted by Les Mauvaises Herbes
Identifying and foraging wild plants—there’s something romantic about it, isn’t there?
Strolling through meadows with a wicker basket to gather beautiful flowers, drying them, and then infusing them to make a body butter, a serum, or an ointment… The ultimate goal for the American granola girl! (That’s us. Haha.)
It’s a fantastic and rewarding activity, yes. BUT you shouldn’t just start foraging overnight.
Here are six good practices to adopt before you get started, along with our book, guide, website, and app recommendations to help you with identification.
And pssst! Did you know we have a weed herbarium? The ultimate tool for responsible foragers!
A typical example: chaga
Disclaimer: the goal here is not to throw stones, but rather to inform and raise awareness in a caring way.
Chaga, that exceptional mushroom with its amazing properties, is all too often a victim of its own beauty, despite itself. We frequently come across amateur foragers who have started harvesting it, among other things, to sell it. We are convinced that this always starts from good intentions (curiosity, learning, connection to the land), but some important corrections are necessary:
- Harvesting chaga requires a wealth of knowledge. Harvesting it poorly can easily damage, or even kill the tree it grew on. Let’s just say… that’s pretty lame.
- This mushroom takes 3 to 5 years to grow. A bit long to abuse.
- It cannot be cultivated because its therapeutic properties come partly from the tree it lives on. Independent, and fragile.
- You also need to know how to dry it properly. Improperly dried chaga can carry dangerous molds for human health. Heylala… harvesting it without really knowing what you’re doing, and then wasting it on top of that. Do you really want to risk that?
We’re using this typical example because it applies to practically every point covered below.
Do you know how to harvest and prepare chaga? Perfect. Harvest only what you need, 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 responsibly, ethically, and respectfully.
1. Take. Your. Time.
When you discover a new passion, it can be tempting to want to learn everything and do things quickly. However, haste does not mix well with plant identification and foraging!
By trying to do too much too quickly, you can:
- misidentify a plant;
- harvest a plant with special status;
- harvest a toxic plant (remember the movie Into The Wild…)
- harvest a slow-growing plant or one that is highly important to a habitat;
- harvest and disperse the seeds of an invasive exotic plant;
- harvest too much;
- and so on!
You must first learn to “read” plants, nothing more, nothing less.
Learn the terms, the parts of plants, and 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?
- The arrangement of the leaves: alternate? Opposite?
- The parts of plants: sepals, petals, pedicels, blade, floral stalk, stolons…
- The type of inflorescence: capitulum, raceme, spike, umbel, cyme, spadix…
Well, the idea here is not to overwhelm you with name-dropping, but simply to show you how complex it is. There are about 2,800 different species of vascular plants in Quebec. It is unrealistic to think you can identify them all quickly. It is a process. You need to be patient.
How do we do it? One plant at a time. Quite simply.
2. Make sure you have identified it correctly before harvesting, and have a reason to harvest it!
Harvesting and identifying it afterward? Not a good idea.
Harvesting without having any idea what you are going to do with the plant? Not a good idea either.
Before harvesting, you must first make sure the plant will actually be useful to you.
Then, confirm your identification with at least three different sources. This is the most important part. Really.
Identification tools
There are many sources to help us identify a plant: identification guides, dichotomous keys, websites, forums, Facebook groups, and also certain apps.
Some book suggestions
Field guides
- The multiple identification guides from Fleurbec: they are a bit dated, but they are still so interesting and packed with information! We particularly like these ones:
- The Little Forest Flora of Quebec : a little classic, super practical, to carry in your backpack when you go out looking for plants. It accompanied me throughout my entire ecology degree!
- Trees and Forest Plants of Quebec and the Maritimes: a beautiful, comprehensive, and compact guide! It makes identification easy thanks to the color photos. Another guide we bring with us in the field, absolutely.
- Quebec Weed Identification Guide: you know us, we believe there are no real weeds, hehe (except for the darn horseweed!). Very often, “weeds” are our favorite medicinal plants (think of plantain!). I like this guide because it helps us identify plants when they are still little babies!
- Indigenous Uses of Medicinal Plants of Quebec: La Métisse guides are little gems packed with information.
Reference works
- A BIG classic: Marie-Victorin’s Flore laurentienne, which offers many identification keys and detailed information. Be careful, this is not a bedside book or a “field” book. It is a scientific reference book, an identification tool, a real brick! But a brick I love.
- A huge favorite for Forêt, the magnificent book by Ariane Paré-Le Gal and Gérald Le Gal. It is simply to die for. 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, because it is a bit big to carry in the woods, hehe.
Some Web references
- The Encyclopedia of Flowers of Quebec: super practical. We can do our research by filtering the results by color, flowering season, region, plant category, etc.
- The Quebec Herbarium: a government website I really like, with many photos and details that help with identification. An opportunity to view unique and fragile documents online that are normally reserved for botany specialists! Ooooh!
- Flora of Quebec: another interesting tool, a bit like 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! Super practical.
Identification apps
More and more apps allow identification simply from a photo taken with your smartphone. Obviously, you need to remain cautious and validate the identification (with two other sources, like for everything), but it often gives us a really good idea of which 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 blurry photos haha!);
- allow the plant to be seen in its entirety, with sometimes close-ups of details;
- provide information about the harvest location, which can be a great help. Plants from the North Shore will vary from those in southern Quebec, and those from a coniferous forest will differ from a wasteland or a roadside. The more information there is, the easier the identification will be.
3. Do not harvest any species with special status
You came across a beautiful plant, but cannot identify it? Go back to point 2: it is better to refrain 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 statuses here.
4. Do not harvest in national parks and conservation areas
You are hiking in a national park and you noticed a beautiful patch of St. John's wort? Due to the preservation mission of national parks, it is forbidden to harvest or remove any natural element whatsoever. Even if it is common and seems to be present in abundance. Just think that with the number of people who visit national parks, if everyone says this comment to themselves to give themselves the go-ahead… there will not be much left after a certain time. And for conservation areas? We refrain, obviously!
5. Harvest reasonable and appropriate quantities
The watchword? Respect.
Harvest only the quantity necessary for your needs. We don't harvest everything in our path! Is the plant you covet the only one in its environment or is it found in abundance?
Respect for the plants' ability to regenerate
First ask yourself if harvesting can harm the growth of the plant and its reproduction. As a general rule, we adjust the harvest according to the quantity of plants in the immediate environment, but also according to the parts of the plant 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, we find seeds. Plants need their fruits for their own reproduction. We really like the following little rule of three: 1 for us, 1 for the plant, 1 for the animals. Well, it's a bit naive and it doesn't apply to everything, but it's still 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, while remaining aware that for a plant to survive, it needs to photosynthesize and that this happens mainly through the leaves. A fir tree deprived of all its young shoots will not survive more than 2 or 3 years.
4. Roots
For roots, be aware that harvesting roots will kill the plant. You must therefore make sure it is present in abundance before removing it.
Respect for the ecological importance of each plant, even the most common ones: a priority.
They are the habitat or food source of other animals or insects. They all have a role to play in the ecosystem.
6. Respect private property
Finally, the last point, but not least: we do not venture anywhere just to harvest! Ask the owners for permission before harvesting on private property. Is it not possible? You don't know who the owner is? That's lame, but then, we refrain!
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 harvest in an ethical and reasonable way.
Happy harvesting!
