Burdock

Burdock

(the plant with the purple flowers in the foreground, is Heal-all)

Burdock is a large, robust plant, easily recognized by her bristled purple flower heads and broad, ruffled leaves. The leaves can be huge, up to 2 feet long and 1 foot wide. They remind some people of rhubarb plants, but unlike rhubarb’s leaves, burdock leaves have a felt-y, fuzzy texture and are whitish on the undersides. The margins of the leaves are wavy, almost ruffled. Burdock is a biennial, producing a massive rosette of leaves in the first year, then completing its life cycle by flowering (large, purple thistle-like flowers) and making burdock seed in the second year. The deeply excavating taproot is edible during the first year of growth.This wild weed lives two years, producing a 4 - 5 foot tall flower stalk during its second summer. The flowers turn to the seed burs that give the plant its name. The burs, with their hooked tips, are said to be the inspiration for Velcro. 

Fresh burdock root is delicious in soup or stew. Prepare it as you would carrots and add it to cooked dishes. Harvest the long root in fall and spring, or in the winter if your ground doesn’t freeze and you can find the plant after its leaves have died down. The leaf may be picked as needed for poulticing or tea as soon as it reaches sufficient size. Moderate harvest of the leaves will not deter root development. The immature flower stalks are another excellent vegetable this common plant provides. Similar to the Italian vegetable cardoon, burdock stalks should be harvested before the plants flower, which is usually in mid to late spring.

Burdock is a popular herbal medicine that can help regenerate liver cells, is a blood cleanser, diuretic, a topical remedy for skin problems such as eczema, acne, and psoriasis, and inhibits cancer.

THANKS FOR YOUR VISITS, FAVS AND COMMENTS. AS ALWAYS, APPRECIATED VERY MUCH!

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY ELISE T. MARKS. PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS IMAGE ON WEBSITES, BLOGS OR ANY OTHER MEDIA WITHOUT MY EXPLICIT WRITTEN PERMISSION.

MY PHOTOGRAPHS ARE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE THROUGH ELISECREATIONS.NET

Disclaimer

My blog is meant to inform and I strive to be totally accurate. It is solely up to the reader to ensure proper plant identification. Some wild plants are poisonous or can have serious adverse health effects.

Stone Walls Of Vermont

Stone Wall Glory!

Some of the most amazing stone art I've seen while working on our new project about Stone Walls and Sugar Houses of Vermont.

Natural Stone Walls

with reflections on Joiner Brook

Natural Stone Walls

with reflections on Joiner Brook

Rock Wall At The Intervale

Built by Thea Alvin

https://www.myearthwork.com/thea-alvin

Gotta Love a great Hobbit Hole, 

especially with the rabbit door handle and the Heart Rock next to the door.

Built by Thea Alvin

https://www.myearthwork.com/thea-alvin

Gotta love a Stone Wall with an antique tractor on a lovely country estate in Vermont.

Stone Wall at Rockledge historic summer estate in Swanton, Vermont. 

Architect Charles Saxe in 1918 designed alterations to an early 19th-century farmhouse, that is the principal surviving element of an early 20th-century gentleman's farm. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

Natural Stone Wall in Westford

Stone Walls in Westford

Red Barn with a Stone Foundation

and a Great Stone House in South Hero.

Lovely Red Barn 

with a beautiful Stone Foundation in Hinesburg.

East Fairfield

South Hero

Garden Wall in Colchester

Arched Stone Wall At The Intervale

Built by Thea Alvin

https://www.myearthwork.com/thea-alvin

Stone Wall in Jeffersonville

Round Barn 

with a Stone Foundation at Shelburne Museum

Stone Wall With Birches in Fletcher

Thanks for your visits, favs and comments. As always, appreciated very much!

© all rights reserved by Elise T. Marks. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.

Chickens

 

Chickens Checking Me Out. I think they were hoping it was time for a snack.

This photo was Awarded Photo of the Day, on Capture My Vermont, for November 29, 2017.

Lovely Hens

My photographs are available for purchase through EliseCreations.net

Thanks for your visits, favs and comments. As always, appreciated very much!

© all rights reserved by Elise T. Marks. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.

Honeysuckle

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly On Honeysuckle

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly 

on The most Gigantic Honeysuckle Bush I've ever seen. It was a busy place for bees and butterflies. This Honeysuckle had a most powerful fragrance today.

The most gigantic Honeysuckle Bush I've ever seen.

It was covered in bees and butterflies. Honeysuckle has fragrance day and night but exudes its scent most powerfully during the evening.

Bush Honeysuckle with Hoverfly, also called flower fly, or syrphid fly, resemble wasps or bees but do not bite or sting. The larvae of many hover flies are predatory on aphids, so I’m glad to see them in my garden.

Mandarin Honeysuckle

Honeysuckle Vine Budding

Honeysuckle Vine Flowering

This a Honeysuckle vine, I found growing in the woods, near water, in Vermont. 

Honeysuckle vine, Lonicera.

Honeysuckles are arching shrubs or twining vines in the family Caprifoliaceae, native to the Northern Hemisphere. Approximately 180 species of honeysuckle have been identified.

Sometimes called “woodbine.” The flower, seed, and leaves are used for medicine. The honeysuckle flower is commonly used to help ease the flu, colds and sore throat. Honeysuckle is also used for urinary disorders, headache, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and cancer. Some people use it to promote sweating, as a laxative, to counteract poisoning, and for birth control.

Honeysuckle essential oil is one of the most popular products derived from this plant, for medicinal uses as well as hair and skin care.

My photographs are available for purchase through EliseCreations.net

Thanks for your visits, favs and comments. As always, appreciated very much!

© all rights reserved by Elise T. Marks. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.

Disclaimer

My blog is meant to inform and I strive to be totally accurate. It is solely up to the reader to ensure proper plant identification. Some wild plants and mushrooms are poisonous or can have serious adverse health effects.

Painted Turtles On World Turtle Day

Painted On Green Shadow Of A Painted Turtle On Wood In A Pond Full Of Duckweed.

The painted turtle (Chrysemys picta) is the most widespread native turtle of North America. In the wild, painted turtles are omnivorous-they eat fish, insects, plants, fruit, carrion, and anything else they find. Painted turtles sleep underwater, buried in the sand or mud at the bottom of their habitat. They can breathe air and also absorb oxygen in water. Painted turtles do not have teeth. They have a hard beak that allows them to chew, but they prefer to swallow their food whole. A painted turtle shell is made of bone and is connected to the spine and ribs. The shell of a painted turtles is made up of 13 separate bone plates called scutes. When the turtle grows, it sheds the outermost layer of these scutes and grows new, larger plates underneath. The age of a turtle can be determined by counting the rings on the scutes; every time the turtle sheds an old scute, the new scute has another ring around its outer edge, giving it the same ringed look of a cross section of a tree. Turtles have no vocal chords, but they can sometimes make hissing sounds.
       Duckweed, or water lens, are flowering aquatic plants which float on or just beneath the surface of still or slow-moving bodies of fresh water and wetlands. Also known as "bayroot", Duckweed is an important high-protein food source for waterfowl and also is eaten by humans in some parts of Southeast Asia. The tiny plants provide cover for many aquatic species. Duckweed is being touted as a miracle plant for many reasons including: Cost effective renewable energy, biofuel Water filter, Mosquito prevention, Prevents algae growth, Reduces evaporation on bodies of water, Virtually free animal feed, Food for humans.

Painted Turtle On Wood In A Pond Full Of Duckweed

Turtles and their reflections at Indian Brook Reservoir.

This Baby Has Attitude

My photographs are available for purchase through EliseCreations.net

Thanks for your visits, favs and comments. As always, appreciated very much!

© all rights reserved by Elise T. Marks. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.

World Bee Day!

Save The Bees!

Bee Visiting Globe Allium

Tips to help save the bees:

 Plant diverse types of flowers in your landscape. Make sure you have something in bloom from April through the hard freezes of early November. The most critical time for bees is early spring. 

 Avoid purchasing plants that may have been treated with insecticides which could harm bees and other insects when they collect the plant’s nectar or pollen. Purchase plants that are labeled as neonicotinoid-free or better yet, GO ORGANIC.

Orange-belted Bumblebee 

on ground ivy, also known as creeping charlie. Bombus ternarius, or tricolored bumblebee, is a yellow, orange and black bumblebee. It is a ground-nesting social insect whose colony cycle lasts only one season, common throughout the northeastern United States and much of Canada.

Bee On Hellebore

Bumble Bee On False Indigo

Bumble Bee On Lilacs

Bumble Bee On Lobelia

Bees On Sunflower

Bee Napping On Cosmo

Bee On Purple Liatris

Bee On Bleeding Hearts

Bee On Anise Hyssop

Bumble Bee On Echinacea

Bumble Bee On Sunflower Maximillion

Bees On Echinacea

Bee On Echinacea

Bee In Gentian Flower

Bee On Black Eyed Susan

Bees On Globe Allium

Bees On Crocuses

Bees Dancing In A Crocus

Sweat Bee On Crocus

THANKS FOR YOUR VISITS, FAVS AND COMMENTS. AS ALWAYS, APPRECIATED VERY MUCH!

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY ELISE T. MARKS. PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS IMAGE ON WEBSITES, BLOGS OR ANY OTHER MEDIA WITHOUT MY EXPLICIT WRITTEN PERMISSION.

MY PHOTOGRAPHS ARE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE THROUGH ELISECREATIONS.NET