Forest Park
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Forest Park Trail
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Forest Park's vast woodlands, along with its cultivated areas and thickets, make it a great place for late summer foraging. This is an excellent park for gourmet wild berries. Kousa dogwood berries, hackberries, and hawthorn berries are among the choice fruits on the menu. Wild herbs and vegetables abound in partially sunny areas in the woods and in thickets. We'll be hunting for burdock root, honewort, sweet cicely, wood sorrel, field garlic, jewelweed, Asiatic dayflower, lady's thumb, mullein, black birch, and sassafras. One of the highlights of the tour will be a visit to the butternut tree near Myrtle Ave. and Freedom Dr. If it's been a good year for the tree, hundreds of flavorful nuts, unavailable commercially, will be littering the ground. |
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Butternuts
Dry the nuts to shrivel the green husk, crack open the nut, and use the nut meat in cookies, cakes, granola, and desserts. |
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If it has rained beforehand, we may also find gigantic chicken mushrooms, brittle russulas, savory honey and ringless honey mushrooms, and delectable puffballs. |
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The 4-hour walking tour begins at 11:45 AM, on Saturday, September 13, at the stone wall at Union Turnpike and Park Lane, near the Parks Dept.'s Overlook building. It follows a free family program at the nearby Woodhaven Library.
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Call (914) 835-2153 at least 24 hours ahead to reserve a place.
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