Photosynthetic organisms, commonly called plants, and algae, begin most food chains and webs.  Many of the green organisms will have an impact, directly or indirectly, on upcoming recreation gathering seasons including picking berries, hunting deer, taking an interesting photograph, or getting skin rash.  

Individual plants may be hazardous (stickseed), poisonous (poison ivy), photogenic (poke weed), rare (ginseng), edible (Mayapple) or economically valuable.  Many fit several categories.

Plants to get to know will vary greatly with the individual, locality used for recreation, and season.

Even now, before a new tree stand is leaned against a white oak tree, just walking into a deciduous forest ecosystem is likely have us brush against a poison ivy vine, herb or shrub.  

A trek may result in picking up hitchhikers from stickseed..  A lemon-like fruit on Mapapples is edible but with caution.  Wild ginseng, Wisconsin’s state herb, may be a surprise find and need protection.  Poke weed, becoming more common, is a poisonous pest plant mentioned in the lyrics of a song, Poke Salad Annie; destroy it.

Throughout camping and gardening seasons poison ivy (never poison oak) appears in the news, which sometimes adds confusion. 

This harmful plant grows as a vine; shrub and herb, always has compound leaves, each leaf having three leaflets.  The leaves are a beautiful purple-red in spring, shiny green in summer, and spectacularly colored in autumn before leaf drop.  Tiny flowers become pea-sized white fruits lasting into the winter.  All plant parts are poisonous during  the four seasons and have poisonous oils causing a rash in most people.  The oil can be transferred second hand, dog to human, clippers to human, and from a dried floral bouquet to a party goer.  

Know the plant’s many forms and colors.  

Mayapples are one of the first plants to emerge in spring forests.  Calling it umbrella plant is a good way to picture the young stems with one or two leaves.  The white flowers are under the umbrella-shaped leaves on plants with two leaves. This position makes both the flower and developing, edible fruit, almost impossible to see.  All other plant parts, except the fruit, should be avoided.  It is unlikely a spring turkey hunter hasn’t smashed hundreds of Mayapple plants walking toward a gobble.

Stickseed is most easily identified too late, that is when the tiny, four-seeded fruits are clinging by the hundreds on a blaze orange jacket.  The best time to destroy the plant is May to August when it is 3-5 feet tall and has tiny whitish blooms.  It pulls easily after a good rain.  

I doubt a deer is shot in southern Wisconsin during the archery or gun seasons that doesn’t have stickseeds on its legs.

Poke weed had a most unusual, interesting and attractive flower and fruit cluster with greens, reds and purples mixed in during various stages.  The plant is perennial and it has to be dug or otherwise destroyed to kill it.

Ginseng is most easily identified in a forest understory when the berries are bright red and the leaflets turning golden.  Like poison ivy ginseng’s leaves are compound but instead of three leaflets, there are five making up a ginseng leaf.  The number of leaves on plants varies from one to four, rarely five.  While many would assume the reason to recognize it is to know it and harvest the root with a $15 digging license, but there are two better reasons.  

The plant is beautiful.  The plant is valuable, and if it is growing on your land, you may want to preserve and protect it and maybe selectively harvest a few roots someday, but only after purchasing a license.   This plant is protected, can be dug only when having at least three leaves and during a harvest season beginning in September.

A good way to begin to recognize a few plants we encounter when recreating is to start with photographs from books or the internet.  

Kate Mosley, at Kate’s Bait near Governor Dodge State Park, and Wayne Smith, an outdoorsman in Lafayette County, both put poison parsley on a short list of plants for summer outsiders to know and respect having experienced the rash developing from this plant’s juicy stem and sun exposure.

Most beginning lists might have ragweed, poison parsnip, showy orchis, wild cucumber and chicken-of-the-woods mushroom, too, or instead.

A gathering trip may be to get a photograph, pick a fruit, or simply admire the plants beauty or dangerously exciting, such as wanting to see a timber rattlesnake in the wild.

Nature continues to mature.  Fawns spots are fading.  Walnuts and hickory nuts look fabulous.  Blackberries are ripe.  Corn is pollinating; deer are eating the immature ears.  Mushrooms are beginning to push up.  Pole beans are fruiting.  Bald eagles have fledged.  Ragweeds are ready to flower and cause discomfort.  

Don’t miss any of it.