Know the plant before you take it.

Arctostaphylos uva-ursi

Kakahsiin Blackfoot · ah-chi-kah-si-pah-kwah Cree

A low evergreen mat of small leathery leaves with dry red berries. The dried leaf is the base of the smoking mixtures used across this territory.

Sandy and gravelly ground · Mountain forest · Foothills and shrubland · Open prairie

Plantago major

A low rosette of ribbed oval leaves that grows in paths, yards and hard ground. Not native here, it arrived with settlement, and it has been taken up widely as a poultice plant for bites and scrapes.

Roadsides and disturbed ground · Open prairie

Shepherdia canadensis

A bitter red berry full of natural soap that whips into a foam when beaten. Sharp, distinctive, and used in small amounts rather than eaten by the handful.

▲ Deadly look-alike: Baneberry

Aspen parkland · Mountain forest · Foothills and shrubland · Coulee slopes

Typha latifolia

The brown sausage heads standing in every slough. Food at four different times of year, plus mats, bedding and the down that goes inside a cradleboard.

▲ Deadly look-alike: Wild iris

Sloughs and wet meadows · Riverbanks and willow flats

Juniperus communis

The prickly-needled juniper of the foothills and open forest, named in the Blackfeet, Chippewa-Cree, Nakoda and Northern Cheyenne blends. Different from the flat creeping juniper of the coulee rims.

Foothills and shrubland · Mountain forest · Sandy and gravelly ground · Coulee slopes

Juniperus horizontalis

mih-kwápémakwahtik Cree

A low mat-forming evergreen of dry slopes and gravel, with blue berry-like cones. Both the greens and the berries are used, and the smoke is used to clean a space.

Coulee slopes · Sandy and gravelly ground · Open prairie · Foothills and shrubland

Grindelia squarrosa

A sticky yellow prairie daisy whose flower buds are wrapped in curled bracts and coated in white gum. Used on skin and for coughs.

Open prairie · Roadsides and disturbed ground · Coulee slopes · Sandy and gravelly ground

Chamerion angustifolium

The tall magenta spike that comes up first after a burn or a cut line. Young shoots are eaten, and the leaves are dried for tea.

Roadsides and disturbed ground · Mountain forest · Aspen parkland · Foothills and shrubland

Ribes aureum

A thornless currant of coulee bottoms with clove-scented yellow flowers in spring and dark fruit in late summer.

Coulee slopes · Riverbanks and willow flats · Aspen parkland

Equisetum arvense

A jointed hollow-stemmed plant with no true flowers, gritty with silica, used for scouring and polishing. It carries real cautions when taken internally, so it is listed here mainly as a material.

Riverbanks and willow flats · Sloughs and wet meadows · Roadsides and disturbed ground · Sandy and gravelly ground

Rhododendron groenlandicum

The muskeg tea plant. A low evergreen shrub of bogs and wet spruce ground whose leaves roll under at the edges and carry rusty wool beneath. One of the most widely drunk plants in the north.

▲ Deadly look-alike: Bog laurel, Bog rosemary

Sloughs and wet meadows · Mountain forest · Foothills and shrubland

Pinus contorta

oskâhtak Cree

The straight slender pine of the foothills, and the tree that gave the lodgepole its name. Needles for tea, inner bark for food, pitch for wounds.

Mountain forest · Foothills and shrubland

Artemisia frigida

The low silver cushion sage of dry, hard, overgrazed prairie. Softer and finer than prairie sage, and used alongside it.

Open prairie · Coulee slopes · Sandy and gravelly ground · Roadsides and disturbed ground

Artemisia ludoviciana

mos-tos-wi-kahs-kwah Cree

The silver-grey aromatic sage of the open prairie, and the plant most people mean when they say sage here. Cut, tied and dried for smudging, and laid down in ceremony.

Open prairie · Coulee slopes · Roadsides and disturbed ground · Sandy and gravelly ground

Pediomelum esculentum

A starchy prairie root that was a staple food across the plains, dug in early summer, peeled, braided by its own tails and hung to dry for winter.

Open prairie · Coulee slopes

Rosa acicularis

Alberta’s provincial flower, and a shrub that gives food twice: petals in summer and hips through the winter. The hips hold on through the cold and are sweetest after a hard frost.

Aspen parkland · Coulee slopes · Riverbanks and willow flats · Foothills and shrubland · Roadsides and disturbed ground

Salix bebbiana and related species

mohkspotsil Blackfoot · spitsii Blackfoot · mihkopémak Cree

Willow grows along every creek and slough here, and it is named in the smoking-blend lists of the Blackfeet, Chippewa-Cree, Nakoda and Northern Cheyenne alike. The bark is the original aspirin.

Riverbanks and willow flats · Sloughs and wet meadows · Aspen parkland

Amelanchier alnifolia

The berry shrub of the coulees, and one of the most important food plants in this territory. Sweet purple berries in midsummer, dried in quantity for the winter and pounded into pemmican.

Coulee slopes · Aspen parkland · Riverbanks and willow flats · Foothills and shrubland

Abies lasiocarpa

kutoyiss Blackfoot · sitapikwan Cree

A mountain fir whose needles carry a sweet citrus smell. Traded down out of the mountains into Blackfoot country for a very long time, and used as a smudge and a scent.

Mountain forest · Foothills and shrubland

Hierochloe odorata

siputsimo Blackfoot · wi-kahsk Cree

A soft grass that smells of vanilla as it dries, braided in three and burned as a smudge. It has been picked hard across the prairies and is thin on the ground in many places.

Sloughs and wet meadows · Riverbanks and willow flats · Open prairie · Aspen parkland

Picea glauca

Patakh'i Blackfoot · sihta Cree · iyinâhtik Cree

The spruce of the river valleys and the north. Spring tips are gathered for tea, the inner bark is food in a hard winter, and the pitch is used on the skin. Named in both Blackfoot and Cree.

▲ Deadly look-alike: Yew

Mountain forest · Riverbanks and willow flats · Foothills and shrubland · Aspen parkland

Monarda fistulosa

A prairie mint with a ragged lavender flower head and a strong oregano smell. Used for colds and sore throats, and a strong scent plant.

Open prairie · Coulee slopes · Aspen parkland · Foothills and shrubland

Mentha arvensis

wácask mícówin Cree

The mint that grows along creeks and in wet meadows. Easy to identify by smell, easy to dry, and a good first plant to learn with children.

Riverbanks and willow flats · Sloughs and wet meadows · Aspen parkland

Allium textile and Allium cernuum

Small wild onions come up across the open prairie in spring. They are excellent, and they grow in the same ground as death camas, which kills people and livestock. The smell is the whole test.

▲ Deadly look-alike: Death camas

Open prairie · Coulee slopes · Aspen parkland · Sandy and gravelly ground

Rubus idaeus

Thorny canes in coulee bottoms, clearings and burns. Fruit in late summer, and a leaf tea that is one of the most widely used mild remedies in the north.

Coulee slopes · Aspen parkland · Mountain forest · Roadsides and disturbed ground

Fragaria virginiana

Small wild strawberries, far better than anything in a shop, in open woods and grassy clearings through early summer. The leaf makes a good mild tea.

Aspen parkland · Open prairie · Foothills and shrubland · Mountain forest

Achillea millefolium

A feathery-leaved plant with a flat white flower head, found almost everywhere in this territory. Long used on cuts and scrapes. It also has two deadly look-alikes, so read the identification carefully.

▲ Deadly look-alike: Poison hemlock, Water hemlock

Open prairie · Coulee slopes · Aspen parkland · Roadsides and disturbed ground · Foothills and shrubland