bimini wins!

Greenbriar, smilax...here we call it catbriar. A thorny vine that grows wild. The shoots in her picture are tasty and the fall berries aren't bad. I was out snacking on shoots this afternoon.

You want me around when the apocalypse comes. People that hike or backpack with me always freak when I start gathering a salad on the move. I learned wild edibles at a very young age and have studied them since. They are true gifts of nature.

Greenbrier/smilax?

OMG-- I just got it in before you announced it trach, and I hadn't read bim's post. ..... But my close only counts in horseshoes & hand-grenades :) She gets the prize!

I hope you're smiling in your sleep, bim.

I was gonna guess kudzu next :)
Tasty stir fried I hear

It is, Hawk. I've eaten it several ways. Treat it like spinach or collards.

Yeah, I Googled Kudzu after that first picture...but I couldn't find any flowers like those white ones.

And, indeed, I wish I had the knowledge of wild edibles. I guess I could learn! thanks, trach.

I do know about magic mushrooms...anything that makes me laugh that much has to be good for me, right?


(Disclaimer! in my early twenties. Haven't done them since...along with a lot of stuff: I know better now. I'm just lucky that in my stoopidity I never got hold of some of the poison ones.)

https://photos.smugmug.com/Featured-...0%281%29-L.jpg

A common sight right now...this flower always means Spring to me. :)

How pretty!

Very pretty.

Two series of books, bim: the ones written by Euell Gibbons, various titles, and The Foxfire Book series. Good places to start.

I think that's a female Allen's hummingbird.

But I'm not sure about the flower.

The flower is the question. :)

^^^ I figured. I worked on that flower but so far to no avail. Is the hummingbird right?

Dunno, C2. That can be the next question.

Hummingbirds are always already right, so we'll let her go -- definitely an elusive female -- and concentrate on the flower :)

Is this salmonberry? Rubus spectabilis

Indeed it is! First flowers of the summer, other than bulbs. Salmonberry is a miracle the way it leafs up, blooms and produces berries so quickly. Must be a Northern Tundra trick of adaptation to the short summers.

The most subtle delicious little berries...they'll be ripe in another week already! They come in lots of colors, all on the same bush and they're upright ten foot tall bushes here in the PNW, not vines. :)

https://www.mandycanudigit.com/wp-co...rose-fruit.jpg

And it's a rufous humminbird.

^^^ I'm not sure ...

Here's Allen's female:
https://s20.postimg.cc/rmwmiz9cd/allens_gunderson2.jpg

Here's Rufous female:
https://s20.postimg.cc/wzq2azcdp/ruf...ge-d64o0r7.jpg

Both overlap the area where salmonberry grows.

But this pursuit isn't conducive to enlightenment, although I enjoy looking at hummingbird pictures.

Next gift: