The last couple of weeks have seen many signs of fall – termination dust on the mountain peaks, high numbers of migrating sparrows (accompanied by a few lingering warblers), the few clear nights bring chilly mornings with frost covered ground, and there are patches of color. There are some trees that have been planted around town which are fairly reliable for showing bright colors in the fall, but for the most part you won’t find many plants poking you in the eye with their colors around Sitka.

As I understand it, cold nights and warm days tend to result in more colorful leaves. Predominant weather patterns in these parts during late September and October don’t really lend themselves to such days, so perhaps that plays a part in the lack of color. (Of course it doesn’t help that most of our land cover is conifer forest, and the primary deciduous trees, Red and Sitka Alder, don’t seem to be capable of showing any thing approaching a bright color, regardless of conditions.) Today while walking by Crescent Harbor I noticed the colorful fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium) shown above and wondered if the cold nights and warm days we’ve somewhat uncharacteristically experienced over the past week may have contributed. I noticed a few other fireweed plants showing some color as I walked over to UAS, but none stood out quite so much as this lone plant.

Lady Fern and Fireweed before steaming for dinner.

I had a couple of different ideas in mind for this week’s Wild Food Wednesday, but in the end (lack of) time and opportunity made the decision. We picked some Fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium) and Lady Fern (Athyrium filix-femina) fiddleheads. We probably would not have picked the fiddleheads, but Rowan insisted, and it turned out to be better that she did. I did not have much time, so we only spent a little bit of time gathering, though Connor and Rowan both gathered a little bit more after I went back inside.

Rowan picks lady fern fiddleheads.

I prepared the greens by steaming and buttering them. Connor and Rowan opted to have some salt. We each tried some of both, but all found the fiddleheads to be much tastier than the fireweed. Connor is the only one who was willing claim the fireweed was tasty, but even he made a face at the aftertaste. Rowan liked the fiddleheads enough that she even wanted to have an extra bite of mine.

The fireweed was already starting to leaf out, and it may have been later than optimal for picking and eating. They really started shooting up with the warm temperatures and sun of the last week.