Tropical Forest Ecology

Central Park provides a great window into the world of wild foods of mid-spring. It's the peak of the season for wild salad greens, and we'll be finding great quantities of renewable ingredients: Spicy mustard greens, such as garlicky garlic mustard, hot hedge mustard, and even hotter poor man's pepper, will abound on lawns or under trees anywhere,...

This is one of the best places in the world for fall foraging, with a wide selection of wild herbs, greens, roots, nuts, and mushrooms, even in late fall. Habitats include miles of mature forest, as well as the trail edges and the disturbed, overgrown, and cultivated habitats, all providing homes for many diverse, renewable species. Before we even...

Forest Park is one of the best places for foragers in mid-spring. Get lost in this vast park, and you'll have plenty to eat (that is, if you can distinguish the gourmet plants from the deadly ones.) It boasts a large, mature, secondary growth forest, trail edges, thickets, and cultivated areas—all overflowing with wild plants, and Violet Brill,...

Prospect Park provides such a superabundance of wild foods in mid-spring, it's hard to cover them all in just four hours. We begin with spicy hedge mustard, corn-flavored chickweed, and spinach-flavored lamb's quarters, all growing near the park's Grand Army Plaza entrance. Then we move along to goutweed, taking over along the path near the Vale...

Join herbalist Dawn Petter in Prospect Park and acquaint yourself with many of the local healing plants and weeds that grow so abundantly all around us, right here in New York City! You will learn how to identify and wildcraft these potent healing plant allies

Central Park provides a great window into the world of wild foods in  early spring. Making a meal with these plants is simple at this time of the year. For an appetizer, try simmering field garlic bulbs in diluted vinegar with Italian seasonings, to make an outstanding pickle. It's the peak of the season for wild salad greens, and we'll be finding...

This is an outstanding park for foragers in mid-summer. We'll explore cultivated areas, the seashore, and woods, all in one day.  The most spectacular find in this park grows within sight of the ocean. Dozens of blackberry bushes in nearby thickets provide thousands of exquisitely delicious berries. Smaller than their commercial counterparts,...