Our area’s enormous plant diversity makes getting outside an adventure, with every trail or country road having something interesting to see, feel, or smell. If you’d like to add taste to some of your outings, there are several common plants that provide a variety of flavors to enjoy as a beverage. Here is a rundown of some that I have tried and enjoyed. Be sure of correct identification before consuming any wild food, and try only a small amount at first in case of food allergies.

Sourwood does not stand out in the forest except this time of year when it is in bloom, and perhaps in the fall when it displays brilliant red colors.

Sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum) is locally called "sorrel” and is common in our area. It tends to be a small understory tree growing under larger tree canopies. The bark is a gray-brown color and has a blocky appearance when mature. The leaves are lance shaped, thin, and finely toothed along the edge. If you chew one, you'll get a sour taste. In late June/early July the tree produces lovely sprays of small, white, urn shaped flowers that form in clusters that look like Lily-of-the-Valley. The flower nectar is very attractive to honeybees.

Summer is my least favorite season with all the bugs, heat and humidity. With winter when it’s cold you throw on another layer of clothes and your good, but with summer you can run around buck naked and still be miserably hot just standing around. And then there is all the sweating, a particular negative in public, with the B.O. and wet spots on your clothes. Summer season is sweaty season, something I do not like. However, some personal research has revealed that I need an attitude adjustment, for it turns out sweating does the body good.

Everyone knows that we sweat to keep our body temperature from spiking, a condition called hyperthermia. We sweat through glands located in our skin, the largest organ we have. These sweat glands make our skin essentially a third kidney. When we sweat all over while doing outdoor activities on a hot day, it not only cools us off, but the sweat also carries toxins out of our body, which in turn boosts our immune system. Here’s a rundown of the benefits of building up a good sweat.

Chicory was a popular wild plant back in the day when it was used to make a coffee-like beverage. It is very common in our area and can be seen right now growing along roadsides and abandoned places.

Chicory is easy to identify by its blue, dandelion-like flowers that have fringed, flat tipped petals, which can sometimes be white or pink. The flower will usually close up in the late afternoon or on overcast days. The leaves at the base of the plant are dandelion-like (they are in the same family) and will similarly bleed a milky sap when broken off. Chicory stands around two feet tall.

The hemlock is one of my favorite trees because of its huge size and that it grows along mountain springs and creeks that are usually picturesque and nice places to visit.

The eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) is our local native, and there is also a western species found from the Rockies west. The local name for the tree is spruce-pine. As mentioned, it likes to grow up in the mountains near streams where the soil is cool and moist. It is a majestic tree, reaching a height of 100 feet when mature, and can have a trunk up to 4 feet in diameter. Standing in a grove of large hemlocks makes me feel like I’m in a church cathedral and I can get into a spiritual, awestruck mood.

By Steve Roark
Volunteer Cumberland Gap National Park

Though their numbers vary from place to place, you likely have seen and for sure heard the periodical cicada, which has emerged this year in vast numbers and is creating a loud drone during the warm part of the day.

By Steve Roark
Volunteer, Cumberland Gap National Historical Park

From personal observation and talking with others, it seems to be a good year for carpenter bees, as there are plenty of them. Usually when I get asked about them it’s how to get rid of them.

By Steve Roark
Volunteer Cumberland Gap National Historical Park

Walking in the woods you are bound to rocks, soil, even the base of trees covered with a thick, green carpet. Moss may appear fairly plain, but it has a few features that call for more attention. It is an old and venerable life form unique to other plants you find in the forest.

By Steve Roark
Volunteer, Cumberland Gap National Historical Park

Some time you find an immature bird that has fallen out of the nest, which can happen in the spring when the birds are old enough to move around in the nest but too young to fly. Their flopping about sometimes puts them on the ground and in serious trouble. So what to do?

My Grandpa Roark was really into doing farm activities according to the signs, be it planting crops, killing weeds, or dehorning cattle. And his preference was to go by a system that used human body part signs to tell when it was a good time to do things: plant root crops when the signs are in the head and kill weeds when the signs are in the bowels. I grew up hearing this stuff and had no clue what they were talking about, except that they always used a calendar given out by one of the local banks that indicated what the signs were on a particular day. With gardening season upon us, I set out to finally figure them out…I think. The astronomy and astrology involved is mind boggling but let me take a shot at sorting it out.