Everyone who has heard of ramps, loves ramps! Also known as wild leeks, they are one of the most exciting and abundant foods to greet us in the springtime. The flavor is like an exquisite onion — strong, pungent, and healthy as garlic but surprisingly sweet. Every bit of the plant is a premier wild edible, from the tip of the leaves to the base of the bulb.
Virginia bluebells are among our most beautiful spring ephemeral woodland wildflowers. I love the lush green-and-blue carpets that blanket the forest floor in mid-April in southeastern Pennsylvania.
These bluebells, Mertensia virginica in Latin, are members of the borage or forget-me-not family (Boraginaceae). Their electric-blue coloring as well as the elongated, pendulus, trumpet shape of their flowers look alike to kindred cousins such as borage, viper’s bugloss, comfrey, waterleaf, and others.
