Ethnobotany
There are many native plants of Saskatchewan which can be prepared as vegetables, teas, wine, jams, syrups and flour. Other plants have medicinal qualities. The harvest of various plants varies. Shoots, and leaves of some plants are harvested, while roots and tubers of others are picked like potatoes. When locating native plants, it is important to note which season to harvest them and what habitats to search for. Marshy pond edges reveal broad leaf cattail, or yellow pond lily (Nuphar advena).
Disturbed sites produce chickweed, and plantain (Musa). Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) shoots grow near roadsides. There are plants which are poisonous, and edible plants which have poisonous look alike.
Strawberry (Fragaria vesca), wild mint (Mentha arvensis), and Labrador tea leaves can be steeped in boiling water for tea. Saskatoons, blueberries and other berries can be hand-picked for jam, jelly, syrup and juice preparation. Blackberry, dewberry, blueberry, buffaloberry, currant, huckleberry, prickly pear, raspberry, and rose hips all make delicious jams or jellies. Pies can be made of currants, blackberries, mountain ash, or strawberries, for example. Hull grass seeds and grind them down into flour.
Herbal solutions used as remedies for ailments could be ingested as tea, used as ointments, or poultices or inhaled as smoke or steam from a decoction. Cow parsnip (Heracleum maximum) and broad-leaved water plantain (Alisma plantago-aquatica) are two herbal remedies which were cultivated by the Cree. However, the cow parsnip does have a poisonous look-alike species, the western water hemlock, (Cicuta douglasii, poison hemlock).
Flora of Saskatchewan have also aided humans in other ways; trees provide wood such as birch bark for canoes, reeds could be fashioned into whistles and baskets. Sphagnum mosses were used for their insulating qualities, as well mosses were absorbent for diapers, and had antibacterial properties.
Read more about this topic: Flora Of Saskatchewan