What's Growing Wild In Your Backyard?

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During a backyard barbecue at a relative's new house, I took a stroll with my niece and showed her the different plants growing wild in her Aunt's backyard. It's quite surprising that kids really don't know the names of the very plants that surround them, and can barely identify poison ivy when they see it. My niece said, "Comes in threes, don't touch these!" Well, she's right, poison ivy leaves do come in threes. But every plant that she saw that appeared to have a three-leaf stalk, she pointed to and said,"Poison ivy!" No one ever bothered to tell her that they are glossy-leafed, that they bear white berries, and that they turn color in the Fall. So I walked her through the yard, pointing to all the various things growing in the lawn and on the fence-line. There were several varieties of Clover, some Giant Buttercups, Wild Strawberry, Poke, Dandelion, Chickweed, Traveler's Joy, Bittersweet, Woody Nightshade, Japanese Maple, and some really big Squaw vines. When I mentioned to her that several of these are edible, even my Mother gasped and said that I should be writing a website about it. Sometimes I wonder--to the ordinary person, they're all weeds, aren't they? They have no idea that most of the clovers, the flowers, leaves, and shoots of some of these plants are eaten with great gusto all over the wold! It seems that only in the USA do we tread on these plants, weed whack them out of existence, or put down chemicals to destroy perfectly edible plants. Do you know what's growing in your backyard? Do you know which is poisonous, and which is edible?