Foraging Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis)

[Watchman]

Bunch berries were one of the first edible wild fruits I learned to identify, after the common everyday ones like raspberries and blackberries. I was out walking with a friend, and he spotted a colony of low-growing creeping dogwood (as the parent plants are sometimes known), and actually started dancing with excitement.

He was that kinda guy, and though he didn’t know that many wild edibles, the ones he did know brought him immeasurable joy, and he couldn’t help but share this one with me. I didn’t consider myself a forager (yet), and eating a random berry from the forest floor on his say-so seemed a little suspect.

I watched him run from bunch to bunch, harvesting them by the handful and munching them with glee. He was just so darned enthusiastic about these little fruits, I couldn’t help but join him. READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE