Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Carrion Flower Berries


Carrion Flower Berries, originally uploaded by Ontario Wanderer.

Some not-so-quick research yielded the following: The young shoots of the Carrion Flower plant may be eaten like asparagus. The roots may be made into a jello like substance and eaten. The "berries" are mostly seed with a tiny bit of flesh around them and are eaten by the following birds and animals that we have seen on our property: Wood Ducks, Ring-necked Pheasants, Wild Turkeys, Cardinals, Catbirds, Crows, Yellow-shafted Flickers, Mockingbirds, Robins, Fox Sparrows, White-throated Sparrows, Brown Thrashers, Cedar Waxwings, Pileated Woodpeckers, Opossums, Cottontail Rabbits, Raccoons, Foxes, and White-tailed Deer. Looks like a good plant to keep growing here! [From a Dover reprint of "American Wildlife & Plants: A guide to Wildlife Food Habits by Martixn, Zim, & Nelson.]

3 comments:

Taradharma said...

Your flickr sites are astounding! Love your images and the way your creative mind works. I'd like to invite you to submit for my plastic bag photo post later this month.

Homegrown said...

I have a plant that has flowers called Carrion and is a succulent, genus Stapelia of the milkweed family (Apocynaceae), native to tropical areas of southern Africa, is this the same plant you are speaking of? I would surely like to know as I have a lot of it and find that it also has some alkaloids that have been shown to kill staph infection. Will check back for reply. Carolyn

Ontario Wanderer said...

This is a different species, genus, and family from yours. There are two Carrion Flower species in our area. They are Smilax lasioneura & Smilax herbacea. They are both in the Greenbrier (Smilacaceae) family. Right now I don't remember which one this. I would have to look carefully and recheck my books.