Wild Lily-of-the-Valley

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 heartbeat; consuming any part of that plant could be fatal. It’s not unusual for different plants to share similar common names, which is why it’s important to use a plant’s correct scientific name when looking for information about how (or if!) to use it. Please don’t eat Convallaria majalis.

Our native Wild Lily-of-the-Valley is a common forest plant, although I also find it in grassy woodland edges, bogs, and even dune slacks (the low, wet areas between sand dune ridges). Each plant has one to three leaves that emerge from the ground in late April or early May. Those leaves are edible and are among my favorite spring delicacies – they taste like pea pods!

By late May or early June, Wild Lily-of-the-Valley is about 15 centimetres (six inches) tall and topped with a finger-like, fuzzy-looking cluster of white flowers. Over the summer, those flowers mature into berries that start out greyish and speckled before ripening into the red fruit you see here.

This time of year, Wild Lily-of-the-Valley’s red berries stand out in stark contrast to the rest of the plant (and to the surrounding yellows and browns of fall vegetation). They’re one of the few bright pops of colour left in the forest, and I always succumb to their invitation and eat them. The flavour is a pleasant sweet-and-sour combination, a bit like sweetened dried cranberries. Each berry has two hard seeds inside, but I don’t mind the crunch.

Wild Lily-of-the-Valley is a perennial that spreads both reproductively (by seed) and vegetatively (by rhizome), and so it can often be found in large patches. A big patch doesn’t necessarily mean lots of berries though! Take note of how many Lilies have two or three leaves compared to those with just one. Plants with a single leaf are vegetative only and will not flower. If you’re hoping for handfuls of juicy fall fruit, keep an eye out for patches with lots of multi-leaved, reproductive plants.

A few handfuls of berries are about the most I’ve ever harvested from Wild Lily-of-the-Valley, but that may be just as well. There are some reports that the fruit can cause stomach upset if eaten in quantity, and a few references to it being an effective laxative (although I suspect that may refer to consumption of under-ripe fruit).

I’ve never had any bad experiences from eating Wild Lily-of-the Valley and can recommend it as a beautiful and delicious part of PEI Untamed!