Week 2: Common + Hazardous Wild Plants of West Virginia

These are all kind of off the top of my head structured in the way that I think about them, and could use some expansion and adjustment when time allows if I make a comprehensive list. These are what we commonly see growing on our property, plus the assorted trees + bushes + cultivated plants for the edible and decorative gardens + the like. 

Photo: a basket of foraged plants for medicinal/edible purposes. (Summer 2020)

HAZARDOUS

Rhododendron (our state flower, beautiful and deadly)

Hydrangea

Poets Narcissus

Lily of the Valley (mistakable for ramps)

Mountain Laurel 

Yew

Poison Oak

Poison Sumac 

Poison Ivy 

Virginia Creeper

Jimsonweed 

Mayapple 

Cleavers

Pokeweed (berries are toxic, but people sometimes boil and eat leaves)

Poison Hemlock (looks a bit like Queen Anne's Lace)

Giant Hogweed (samesies)

Photo: a gorgeous honeysuckle bush. (Summer 2020)

COMMON WILD EDIBLES 

Ramps

Wild garlic

Morels (+ chantarelles and hen of the woods)

Blackberry 

Huckleberry

Garlic Mustard 

Chicory 

Dandelion 

Honeysuckle

Wood Sorrel

Purple Dead Nettle

Henbit

Daylily

Violets

Wild Strawberry

Sassafras

Sugar Maple

Chestnut

Black Walnut

Pawpaw

Goldenseal

Goldenrod

Crabapples 

Elderberry

Lilacs

Photo: harvesting lilacs for baking and preserving. (Spring 2020)

MEDICINALS/OTHER

Plantain

Ginseng

Burdock

Yarrow (mistakable for Queen Anne's Lace)

Pine

Bluets

Milkweed

Black Cohosh

Trumpet Vine

Butterfly Bush

Joe Pye Weed

Spicebush

Dogwood

Greenbrier