#florida flora

[wyldeplantlife]

Dendrophylax lindenii

Ghost Orchid

[herbwicc]

Beautyberry Jelly- a Fall and Winter recipe for attraction, beauty, abundance and prosperity. I’ll be using this in my jelly-filled strudels later!

Oh and where it says 1 1/2 - 2 cups of “jelly”, that’s meant to say sugar!!

[wyldefungi]

Cladonia perforata

Martin Co., FL

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Found by the turnpike

[verityseye]

flagging, September 2017

(c) Tragic Verity/Verity’s Eye (please leave caption and credits intact)

[herbwicc]

Dollarweed Chips- A Money Spell

This here is Hydrocotyle spp, commonly called dollarweed, pennywort, and marsh penny. It's considered a weed to most, and likes wet soil. Because Florida is a very marshy place, it's everywhere here!

With its silver-dollar shape and the large amounts found quickly spreading across any one area, this edible weed represents material wealth, prosperity, luck, and abundance.

I decided to harvest some and make them into baked chips for a money spell!

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WHAT YOU NEED:

- any cooking oil, I used olive oil.

- salt

- other seasoning/herbs. You can use other herbs that match the correspondence of the plant and intent. However, I find that these are pretty powerful little guys on their own, and so I season them by preference instead of correspondence. For this to work it's important that you actually ENJOY these, just as you'll relish and enjoy the comfort of your prosperity and wealth. So pick flavors you like! On their own, they have a slightly peppery taste and the bigger, older leaves can have a bitter aftertaste. So I made mine with teriyaki sauce and sugar 😍

- dollarweeds.

IDENTIFICATION:

These are often confused for Creeping Charlie (Glechoma hederacea) and Dichondra. Here's a site that points out the differences. Be absolutely sure of the plant you have, and that it wasn't foraged in areas that are sprayed with pesticides. In Florida, you may find many in golf courses, do not eat these.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Heat your oven to 275°F

2. Wash your dollarweeds well, and clip off the stem as close to the leaf as you can. Pat them semi dry with a cloth or paper towel, doesn't have to be all the way dry, but not dripping.

3. In a bowl, toss your dollarweeds with some of the oil. Just enough to get them all nicely covered.

4. If you don't have a nonstick baking pan, put some oil on that too.

4. After the oil, they tend to stick to each other. Separate them and place each one on the baking pan, making sure that they aren't overlapping. Visualize that each one you place down is an enchanted coin, and with each one placed the more your wallet/bank account fills. You can visualize each one as a $20 bill you find on the ground, seeing yourself picking it up and letting yourself feel the excitement of having found it.

5. Sprinkle it with salt and your other herbs. I highly recommend something sweet, just, whatever you pick I would add some sugar on top!

6. Bake for 5 minutes, check them to make sure they're going well, then they'll usually need about 2 minutes more. They're done when they're crispy!

Enjoy! As you eat them, imagine yourself enjoying the freedom, stability, and pleasures that come with more wealth- what are you gonna buy with the $20s you found? Visualize it, feel it, believe it, and let the wealth flow in! 😊💰💵🌿

[herbwicc]

American Beauty Berry

Connecting to the seasons as a green witch here in South Florida means you need to be extra attentive and connected, our changes are subtle (if not invisible) to most, but if you know where to look then you will find they're quite loud and exciting! And connecting to seasonal changes such as the Wheel of the Year will be SO much easier and more personal!

Here's the plant to which I've been practicing a connection this harvest season: American Beauty Berry (Callicarpa americana).

It'll flower in spring and summer, but by September/Fall you'll get these vibrant berries! The leaves also change color. Besides these pictures, you'll also be able to 100% recognize this berry by the smell. Crush one and sniff, it smells like strong perfume! A sort of floral-acidic smell that I looove.

Beauty Berry is unique and easy to identify. It can cause stomachache if eaten raw, so please don't (it doesn't taste good raw anyway, mealy and either tasteless or medicine-tasting).

Instead, it's often made into jam/jelly, sauce/syrup for glazing desserts, vinaigrette, and wine. When cooked in these ways, the taste is kind of like raspberry-elderberry-citrus!

Other historical uses: Leaves and branches were used to treat malarial fevers and rheumatism. The roots were used to treat dizziness, stomachaches and dysentery. Roots and berries were boiled and made into a drink to treat colic. Crushed leaves were rubbed on skin and placed under horse harnesses to repel mosquitoes. There are three chemicals in the leaves scientists are trying to replicate for mosquito repellent, claiming that it might be stronger than deet- callicarpenal is one of them, and it can repel fire ants and tics.

I made wonderful autumn beauty berry strudels for Mabon, they were so amazing!!

(I'll be creating a few posts with Florida witches in mind, showing our subtle changes in flora and fauna and where one could apply them to the wheel of the year, to help other Florida witches connect to our seasons. If you're interested, check out the tag #Florida Seasons, which I'll be using for future posts!)

[herbwicc]

To my fellow Florida witches: get this book!!!