Maine's Green Desert

    ​I recently hosted a springtime foraging seminar in the Moosehead Lake Region. One of the points that I stressed was that edible plants rarely grow in the deep woods. In fact, our northern conifer forest is a virtual desert, regarding edible wildlings. 

Maine's deep woods are home to little more than trees and moss, with very little to forage.

    My seminar consisted of a Friday night slide show and discussion, complete with specimens that I had brought from home. This was followed by a field trip on Saturday morning. I spent much of Friday driving around and walking through potential sites. And as expected, the best place I found was not out in the wilds of northern Maine, but rather on property owned by the Maine Department of Inland  Fisheries and Wildlife (DIF&W), in downtown Greenville. Here, the ground had recently been bulldozed, allowing for a host of wild plants to self-seed. Also, a seasonal stream flowed through the site, adding more edible plant habitat. 
    On that one site, we found winter cress (a mustard-like plant with delicious, broccoli-like flower buds), jewelweed, wild mint, wild evening primrose (we dug some of the edible roots), dandelions and red dock. Several other plants of interest grew there as well, mostly wildflowers. 
    After leaving the DIF&W site, we headed for Little Moose Township, in the big woods. Here, except for where loggers had constructed tote roads, there were no wild edibles. But along the roads, where the sun shone bright, and just inside the woods where there was dappled sunlight, we found enough edible plants to make our trip interesting. 
    The contrast between these two sites proved my point wonderfully. Nothing much except trees and mosses grow in dark, thick woods. Add the human element, with roads, woodyards and so forth, and plants suddenly find a place to take hold. So in this instance, anyway, we humans are not the problem. We are the enablers. 

Tom Seymour, Maine writer and naturalist, has written over a dozen titles including: Getting Your Big Fish: Trolling Maine Waters, Wild Plants of Maine: A Useful Guide, Forager’s Notebook, Wild Critters of Maine: Everyday Encounters, and Hidden World Revealed: Musings of a Maine Naturalist from Just Write Books LLC, Topsham, Maine. Seymour has also written a multitude of monthly features including his popular “Maine Wildlife” for The Maine Sportsman Magazine.

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The text of this blog post was taken from Tom Seymour's 2008 book Hidden World Revealed: Musings of a Maine Naturalist.