Fruit of the rose

My wild Arizona rose was covered with its single pink blossoms early this summer; which led in due time to an equal number of fruit, called rose hips. Old fashioned folk made jelly and teas from rose hips; the herbally conscious make all manner of medicinal concoctions, from syrups to powders.

I promised my crop, once ripe, to Georgene to make into a syrup, chock-a-block full of vitamin C (rose hips beat citrus fruits on that count).

Not a bad haul from one plant, eh?

And here is the final product -- a honey and rose hip syrup. Quite yummy. If you also have a productive rose bush, here are some recipes.

Linkage: One doesn't expect to hear about floods in Jeddah; in fact, residents of the Arabian city are ill prepared for a major rainfall. Fortunately, Susie of Arabia was out with her camera to get pictures of this highly unexpected weather. This interesting woman, incidentally, was once a Prescottonian. Next -- a forthright discussion of the problem of dying aspen in the higher elevations around Flagstaff; it would seem that the immediate culprit is the huge increase in number of elk, caused, in turn by the lack of predators and the prevalence of water thanks to stock tanks.

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Before pharmacology, there was herbalism -- the study and medical use of plants. Most documented herbal know-how concerns Eurasian plants, with the most scientific study done under German auspices. However, in the Southwest and Mexico indigenous use of native botanicals continues. To learn more about uses of the plants around us, you can refer to these resources: Michael Moore's Southwest School of Botanical Medicine and the Arizona Ethnobotanical Research Association.