The Mineral Exhibit

Recently the Manitoba Centennial Centre renovated Steinkopf Garden (the area between the Concert Hall and the Museum). I was part of the consultation process with the landscape architect company Hilderman Thomas Frank and Cram. I suggested including some native plant species in the garden since that way we could potentially use the area for programming. The architects were willing to do so, having used native species successfully in the past. One of the plants I suggested was a species of milkweed (Asclepias ovalifolia) since I thought it would help to attract Monarch butterflies (Danus plexippus). So one of the raised flower beds was planted with 44 Dwarf Milkweed plants last fall.

I went for a walk through the garden recently and was absolutely astounded. Not only were Monarch butterflies attracted to the plants, they outnumbered them! I counted 73 monarch caterpillars crawling around! Some were big and fat, and others still just little babies. And they were eating like mad. In fact they had eaten almost every single plant down to the veins. You’d think that being a botanist this would bother me but monarchs are just too cute to stay mad at!

My astonishment soon gave way to concern. The big, fat monarch caterpillars might be able to successfully enter the pupal stage and become butterflies but I was afraid that the little ones would starve. I decided to rescue a few of them and put them on the milkweeds that I grow in my backyard. Shortly after transplanting them they were happily (at least I assume they were happy but you never really know do you?) munching my milkweeds. I also contacted the other staff at the Museum to see if they could rescue a few as well.

The Museum staff came through with flying colours, relocating just about every single caterpillar to backyards, and community and public gardens. Apparently this abundance of Monarchs is happening all over North America with unusually large numbers of butterflies seen in Canada (Click for Winnipeg Free Press article). Growing milkweeds in your yard is a great way to help save these beautiful creatures from extinction. Plus you get to enjoy watching some of the loveliest insects in Manitoba!

As the Museum’s botanist it is important for me to know not just how to identify plants but also how people traditionally and contemporarily use wild and weedy plants. Although I am familiar with the edible fruit and nut plants of the prairies (and am quite enthusiastic about eating them!), I have been less inclined to try the edible wild greens. The main reason behind my reluctance had to do with the fact that I wasn’t quite sure when and how to harvest and prepare said greens.  When I heard that an acquaintance of mine, Laura Reeves, offered workshops on how to prepare and eat wild edible plants (amusingly called “you can eat that?”), I determined that it would be beneficial for me to get some first-hand instruction.

One of the plants with a wide variety of uses is cattail (Typha spp.). First Nations traditionally ate cattails, which are also an important food source for animals like muskrats and geese. Our morning began by removing and munching on a few cattail shoots, which were crunchy yet tender and reminiscent of cucumber. We then proceeded to carefully dug up a few roots which we later washed to remove the starch; the wet starch was used later to make cattail pancakes. Cattail pollen can also be used as “flour” and the green flower heads (which we couldn’t try because there weren’t any yet) can apparently be eaten like corn on the cob.

We went on to harvest the roots of burdock (Arctium lappa), sweet cicely (Osmorhiza claytoni), caraway (Carum carvi), and dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), the spring shoots of milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), the leaves of basswood (Tilia americana), stinging nettle (Urtica dioica), lamb’s quarter’s (Chenopodium album), maple-leaf goosefoot (Chenopodium simplex), and stinkweed (Thlaspi arvensis), and the flowers of caragana (Caragana arborescens). With our buckets full of wild plants we went on to wash, rub, scrape, chop, roast, boil, steam, and bake our plants into a delicious meal of:

Basket of washed dandelion roots ready for roasting.

For the last several months I have been helping to organize the 23rd North American Prairie Conference (NAPC) (click here for conference details) which will be held at the University of Manitoba from August 6-10. This is first time that this conference has been held in western Canada (it is usually held in the mid to western U.S.). I’m looking forward to learning more about prairie conservation and restoration initiatives from other Canadians  as well as our American neighbours. This conference will feature a number of prominent prairie enthusiasts including Canadian authors Sharon Butala and Candace Savage as well as Dr. Wes Jackson from the Land Institute in Kansas and Dr. David Young from the Natural Resources Institute in Winnipeg. Ojibway elder David Daniels will be talking about Canada’s native plants and their traditional use.

Conferences like this provide a great opportunity for professionals to meet and exchange information that will assist with their work. But it is also a chance for people who are just concerned about prairie conservation to learn more about these beautiful and intricate habitats that are now almost gone. Hope to see you there!

On occasion I’ve met people who would ask, in reference to a plant that I was studying, “what good is it?”. I was initially somewhat baffled because I assumed that most people knew that plants are needed for an ecosystem to function properly, and that since ecosystems provide humans with clean water and air, they are important. But sadly many people view species from a complete utilitarian viewpoint, assuming that if you can’t eat it or cut it down to make furniture, it is useless and therefore expendable. One argument for the conservation of all plants is that we simply don’t know which ones may yield chemicals potentially useful to humans. What is considered a useless plant one day could be a life saver on another.

The Pacific Yew tree (Taxus brevifolia) was long considered a “weed” by foresters. In the 1960’s an extract from this species called paclitaxel was found to kill cancer cells. The drug Taxol was approved by the FDA in 1992 and is now a commonly used in the treatment of ovarian and breast cancer.

It was nice to hear that another much maligned plant, namely the common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), is also being investigated for its anti-cancer properties (read the CBC article here). An extract from dandelion roots dug out of the lawn by graduate students at the University of Windsor was found to kill leukemia cells but not healthy cells (see details here). I find it very ironic that a plant that people have spent thousands of dollars trying to get rid of (in the process of doing so exposing themselves to potentially cancer-causing toxic chemicals) may actually hold the key to curing a form of cancer: leukemia.

What people may not know is that dandelions have actually been used medicinally in ancient China and in Europe since at least the 11th century for its diurectic and detoxifying properties. Modern herbalists prescribe dandelion root for a variety of ailments. The dried roots are typically harvested, dried, and brewed to make a tea that tastes somewhat like coffee. Dandelion leaves are also edible and very nutritious, being especially high in vitamins A and C. You can collect the young tender leaves and throw them in a salad (just make sure they come from a lawn that hasn’t been doused with herbicides!). The roots and flowers can also be made into alcoholic beverages such as dandelion wine and root beer. Other “weedy” plants that are edible include burdock (Arctium spp.) (its roots are edible) and Lamb’s-Quarters (Chenopodium album) (it’s leaves are very nutritious). Burdock seed heads were actually the inspiration for velcro!

Ralph Waldo Emerson said that “a weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered”. It’s time for us to appreciate the virtues of weeds like the dandelion!