This nature preserve, which features forests, fields, and meadows, provides a wonderful sampling of all the edible and medicinal plants springtime has to offer in the Northeast.

Grape vines, with leaves just waiting to be stuffed, grow near the entrance and throughout the preserve, and the I'll show you how to distinguish them from their poisonous look-alike, Canada moonseed. Jewelweed, which cures mosquito bites and prevents poison ivy rash, also grows near the entrance and throughout. Further along, wild bay leaf (northern bayberry) bushes grow along the edge of the trail. And in nearby fields we'll find sheep sorrel and mullein.

If you become depressed because you can't learn all the new plants at once, don't despair. The nearby fields also overflow with St. John's wort. The beautiful, yellow flowers relieve depression.

We'll have lunch near the corral, surrounded by yarrow, a wild herb tea; mugwort, good for PMS and dream enhancement; curly (yellow) dock, another delicious lemony green; and poor-man's-pepper, a spicy mustard.

After lunch we'll explore the woods for piquant-flavored greenbrier leaves and shoots; sassafras, the original source of root beer; spicebush leaves, a fabulous herb tea used for fever; flavorful violet leaves and flowers; garlic mustard, with garlic-flavored leaves and flowers; and sarsaparilla, a male tonic tea. We'll check out an overgrown area full of milkweed, a delicious potherb; and also find pokeweed shoots, fabulously flavorful and healthful if prepared correctly, poisonous if mishandled.