OOOOH! Have I posted about this before?

[conuly]

Nature tours - finding edible plants! I've got to go to one.

And they've got them through December! I think I may have found Jenn's next birthday present. If I don't give her free babysitting again, that is.

Isn't this the coolest thing ever? (I've had the site for a few months now, let's be honest, but I didn't realize they ran into the winter like that.)

Here's a question now, before I sign myself up for one of these and drag Elise with me (she needs something to do): Most people in the world around me seem to think that virtually everything out there will kill you.

But I'm thinking, munching on the oh-so-poisonous mulberries - is that true? I mean, we evolved on this planet. Is everything really poisonous, or is most of it harmless or at least only mildly toxic to us? I'm not about to start tasting everything to check, of course - it just is a question that has popped into my head.

And another question, which maybe somebody has an answer to. There's a tree I've only ever seen on Staten Island. It looks a lot like a Honey Locust, but the thorns are only on the trunk, in huge clumps that complete encircle it for a bit, then stop. So it's trunk, trunk, CIRCLE OF THORNS!!!!!, trunk, trunk. There are smaller clumps on the rest of the trunk (that show signs of growing into the aforementioned thorncircles), and a few clumpettes on the larger limbs - but they aren't evenly spread out on branches the way the thorns on Honey Locusts appear to be. Any ideas?

Comments

[appadil.livejournal.com]

Yes of course! It just makes sense to me that we'd evolve so not everything is gonna get us by nature - though it might most of it taste bad, as you said.

Like I said, it's an arms race- sometimes we're behind, sometimes we're ahead, a lot of the time it's fairly even. There are some poisons like amatoxins that will kill you very nastily, and others like mint oil that we're so immune to by now that they're not even considered toxic. (And then there are non-toxic defense mechanisms like thorns.) Additionalyl, some of nature is actually more or less on our side. Many plants are more than 'willing' to let animals chew on parts of them if it means their pollen or seeds will get distributed better. Fruits and berries in particular are often meant to be eaten, albeit not always by humans or other mammals.

Yes, definitely, and thank you for the thought-out-ed-ness.
I'm glad I was able to be of help.

[appadil.livejournal.com]

Er... scratch that about the mint, probably. A significant part of its harmlessness is probably because we're not the intended targets rather than because of evolution... capsaicin would have been a more accurate example, but it's late here and I'm starting to get a bit muzzy.