The Node
Woodlanders' resource center for plant education, how-tos, garden inspiration, and news.
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Edible Medicinal
18 articles
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Pawpaw (Asimina triloba): The Tropics Came North Once and Left This Behind
Plant Highlight · Asimina triloba · Southeast. For about three weeks in September the woods of the eastern United States produce a custard, and almost nobody notices, because the fruit...
Hibiscus mutabilis: White by Morning, Red by Dark
Plant Highlight · Hibiscus mutabilis · China and the American South. The cotton rose spends a single day working through three colors, white at dawn, pink by noon, red by...
Leaves Like Lacquered Shields: The Elephant Ear Fig in a Southern Garden
Plant Highlight. Ficus roxburghii carries the largest leaf a Deep South garden can reasonably hold, dies to the ground most winters, and comes back reaching. Where the fig came from,...
Physic in the Hedgerow: Southeastern Native Plants and Their Medicinal Past
Education · Medicinal Natives · The Southeast. Four in-stock native plants with a genuine, documented healing history, and an honest word about the ones that only look the part.
The Apothecary That Stands
Essay on the living apothecary. How people found medicine in bark, root, and resin long before we could isolate a compound, and why the woods, not the herb bed, are...
Yellowroot (Xanthorhiza simplicissima): The Buttercup That Went to Wood
Plant Highlight · Xanthorhiza simplicissima · Southeastern Streambanks. The only woody member of the buttercup family: a quiet shade groundcover with a chrome-yellow root, a berberine dye, and a deep...
A Field Guide to Cold-Hardy Citrus
Field Guide · Cold-Hardy Citrus · Zones 7–9 — A practical guide to choosing, siting, and keeping citrus alive north of the citrus belt: the hardiness ladder, the three families...
Yerba Mate (Ilex paraguariensis): The Holly You Can Drink
Plant Highlight · Ilex paraguariensis · Ethnobotany — South America's caffeinated holly: the gourd-and-bombilla ritual, its kinship to our native yaupon, and how to grow and cure your own in...
Bayberry, Chinese bayberry, and yangmei: a field guide to the genus that keeps changing its name
Field Guide · Southeastern Natives · Rare Edibles Bayberry, Chinese bayberry, and yangmei: a field guide to the genus that keeps changing its name The word "bayberry" has been applied...
Yuzu Ichandrin: the cold-hardy citrus that grows where lemons can't
From the Nursery · Cold-Hardy Citrus Yuzu Ichandrin: the cold-hardy citrus that grows where lemons can't A mountain fruit from the high-elevation citrus regions of China and Japan —...
Myrica rubra (Yangmei): The Fruit That Won’t Wait
Plant Profile • Orchard Curiosity • Cultural Fruit Myrica rubra (Yangmei): The Fruit That Won’t Wait An evergreen tree with a famously brief season, part botanical riddle, part culinary obsession,...
Baccharis halimifolia (Manglier): Medicine Along the Marsh Edge
Drive the Atlantic or Gulf coast in late fall and you might think it has snowed along the ditches. There, at the edges where the land hesitates and then...
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