Pretty in Pink

After the blue of the lupines and Jacob’s ladder come the pink wildflowers—the wild roses and the fireweed. The fireweed isn’t blooming yet, but the wild roses are already here.

Photo by Andrew Stark
(Click for larger view.)

They’re pretty and pink, but if you’ve ever walked along a wild rose lined trail, you know the best thing about them is their perfume. They grow all across the northern hemisphere in the boreal forest and as far south as New Mexico in North America, so I’m sure many of you know exactly what I mean because you’ve smelled them, too.

What’s more, wild roses are edible. Grouse, hares, small rodents, deer, and moose, all enjoy nibbling on the tender plants. The rose hips (or berries) are consumed by bears, rabbits, and beavers. During the winter, rose hips provide food for birds when many other food sources are gone.

Have you ever eaten a rose hip? They taste like an apple—a very seedy little apple. You can pick rose hips after the first frost—a touch of frost brings out their sweetness—and use them to make rose hip jelly, which is surprisingly tasty, especially with a little added lemon juice for tartness. And its clear orange-red colour will make it the prettiest jelly in your pantry, I promise.

For the past two years, I’ve picked rose hips in the fall to freeze for tea all winter long. It takes 15-20 hips per cup, and they should be steeped for 20 minutes and then mashed with a spoon and strained. Rose hip tea provides a little bit of summer and a good dose of vitamin C in the cold dark days of winter.

The wild rose is also called the prickly rose, but not by me. I refuse to call them by their one nasty trait when they have so many admirable ones!

 Previous wildflower posts: 

• Lavender Charm
• Into the Wild Blue
• The Blue Belles
• Stopping on Yellow

Comments

[Dorothy]

They are lovely, indeed,...both to the eyes and the nose. I agree.