Stamford Museum
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As part of the Museum's Take a Hike Week, during the course of 3 walking tours, we'll explore the nature center's vast 118-acre network of trails, fields, meadows, and lawns. There is so much in season at this time of year that there'll be different things to find on each field walk.
Sunny areas will feature edible/medicinal "weeds" such as corn-flavored chickweed, mild-flavored shepherd's purse, sour-flavored sheep sorrel, and chewy common mallow. |
Star Chickweed Loaded with nutrients, this common, tasty plant often grows in thick mats. Add it to salads to impart the flavor of corn; steam it, or put it to soups or stews, where it tastes more like spinach. Present to some degree all year, it's especially lush in early spring and late fall. |
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Along trail edges and in disturbed areas, we'll search for pungent garlic mustard and field garlic, flavorful stinging nettles, piquant Japanese knotweed, and hearty burdock root.
A highlight of the day will be wild garlic, one of the best-tasting members of the onion/garlic family. This may be the only tour this year where we'll be finding this delicacy. In sunny fields, we could find tasty wild carrots, sweet-and-hot common evening primrose root, and medicinal mullein. And forests will provide root beer flavored sassafras and wintergreen-flavored black birch. If there's been enough rain beforehand, we could even find rare early spring mushrooms such enokis, oysters, and tree ears. |
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The 3 walking tours run from 10 AM to 11 AM, from 11 AM to 12 PM, and from 1 PM to 3 PM, Thursday, April 15, at 39 Scofieldtown Rd. in Stamford, CT.
The tours are free with admission to the museum. Admission if free for members, $8 for non-member adults, $6 for non-member seniors and students, $4 for children, and free for children under 3. Call (203) 322-1646 for further information. No reservations are necessary. |
