PEI has more than 30 native, wild plants with edible berries, but here’s one of the lesser-known: Bearberry ( Arctostaphylos uva-ursi ).     Bearberry doesn’t compete taste-wise with some of our other wild fruit. Raw, the berries are dry and bland (but that’s probably just as well, because too many raw berries can have a laxative effect). Cooking improves their flavour and texture, and Bearberries make pleasant preserves, interesting additions to soups or stews, and excellent

You may think of summer as peak season for PEI’s wild berries, but a few tasty treats are at their best this time of year. One of my fall favourites is Wild Lily-of-the-Valley (aka Canada Mayflower, Maianthemum canadense).   Wild Lily-of-the-Valley is NOT the same as the popular garden plant of the same name. The sweet-smelling European Lily-of-the-Valley ( Convallaria majalis ) contains toxic cardiac glycosides that can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, and irregular heart

Welcome back to Mushroom Monday, your weekly look at some of PEI’s easy-to-identify fungi. Today’s mushroom is large, showy, common, and...

Welcome back to Mushroom Monday, your weekly look at some of PEI’s easy-to-identify fungi. Today it’s not one species, but a group: the...

If you’ve been enjoying PEI’s famous beaches during this hot weather, you may have noticed a distinctive silvery-green plant standing out...

Hurricane Fiona brought many changes to our Island landscape: some dramatic, others subtle, and a few that are – paradoxically – both. ...

What comes to mind when you think “species at risk” on Prince Edward Island: Piping Plovers? Bats? Swallows? If you said any of these,...

Making a living in PEI’s coastal habitats isn’t easy. Conditions are harsh: temperature extremes, salt spray, low organic matter, and...

Today we have another of PEI's lesser-known coastal habitats: Grey Dunes (Photo 1). The sand dunes featured in Island photos are almost...