I remember eating the arrowhead-shaped wild sorrel (we called it sourgrass) and oxalis something-or-other (sour clover).

We used to moosh up Amur honeysuckle berries for war paint, and re-arrange the sections of horsetails(equisetum whatever) to make bracelets and necklaces....

There was a species of Viburnum that we called 'poopberries'...I could look it up, but i'm too lazy...we never got tired of squeezing the blue-purple flattish fruits and watching the brown squiggle come out.

I have vivid memories of the first ripe puffball i found, and later the earthstar and birdnest fungi that i would save (with all my other animal/vegetable/mineral curiosities).

Oh, and the spurs of wild Aquilegia have lots of nectar too!

Then there was my Euell Gibbons infatuation...i was maybe eleven when i got my hands on the first book, i was obsessed...and to this day, i can't look at a daylily without nausea after eating a LOT of the surprisingly cornlike-flavored unopened flowerbuds sauteed with butter..then becoming violently ill for two days....

made necklaces with white clover blooms,made ladies in ball gowns out of burned matchsticks(my uncle smoked a pipe) and 4oclock blooms,sucked the nectar out of honeysuckles. Ate sour dock

I used jonquils for coloring flowers with food colors. If i can find queen Anns lace, will try it now.I bet that is pretty.

Snapdragons make lovely earrings and look smashing with the clover necklaces and bracelets.

I used to eat sour clover too, 'cause my Mama told me she did. Sucked the nectar out of honeysuckles. Made clover crowns and my kids and I use to braid them in the horse's mane too. Make ink out of poke berry, 'cause my Mama use to. LOL. Nothing new under the sun there is there? Loved to pop the seed pods of touch me nots and blow dandelion seed heads much to my father's dismay. And of course pull petals out of daisies......he loves me, he loves me not.

I still sip on honeysuckle and play around with horsetail segments. Will try the ink of Pokeberry as I deliberately left a couple in far corner ...I think it's an elegant plant. We used to "iron" flowers between wax paper to make Valentines...learned this in VA where there was also a flatfaced golden flower which we held under our chin...supposed to somehow tell if we were jealous or not...curious now as to what flower it was. Gathered acorn cups for fairy teacups and leaf for plate with various berries for "food" for the fairies. And built toad houses from mud using our foot as a mould to shape little quonset huts...lol

Plucking daisy petals and weaving with white clover heads, blowing dandelion seedheads are still fun to me, especially with my 5 year old GD.

In my small highschool the guys went out harvesting great heaps of smilax for prom decorations...we would have been amazed at the limos and orchids of today's promgoers. We even borrowed rolls of artificial grass from undertaker to use for a photo corner in the gym...lol josh

Little dolls from hollyhock flowers, like prim little Victorian ladies all in a row.

Josh ~ buttercups (rananculus); also held under the chin to see if your sweetness would glow. Always did of course, but a nice way to bolster a toddler's self-esteem.

Yes, Meldy, that's it, thank you. The wild Ranunculus is lovely ...I think I'd just seen photos of the overblown hybrids. And well named the Buttercup. Gosh that was in 1944...lol...this is a great thread. josh

We'd hold dandelions under our chins to see the yellow reflected. Hollyhock flowers were made into little dolls with wooden clothespins & we'd use the flowers from the catalpa trees as finger puppets. Later we'd gather up the big cigar-like seed pods from the same tree & pretend to be smoking them (it was the 1950's!).

We'd chew on stems of grass and for some reason we all liked to pick stalks of rhubarb and suck on them with the bitter juices making our mouths pucker up.

To the great consternation of my mother, popping the buds of the flowers on her hostas was something that was an eternal fascination. I'd kill kids doing that to mine now.

decorated my mudcakes (I didn't make pies)

made grass whistles (hold it between your palms, thumbs and forefingers pulling it taut, then blow hard)

popped the fuchsia buds

make forts out of the really dry tall grass in late summer

throw maple seed pods into the air watch them copter to the earth

breathed in the four o'clocks

sipped honeysuckle nectar

blow dandelion seeds, smell the flowerheads and rubbed the pollen everywhere like eyeshadow, or blush, on my hands

Andie made me think of something else we used to do. We smoked cattail punks .a couple of times. They tasted awful but we thought we were really cool..I must have been in the 5th grade when we did that.

Ditto, Marda, on the smoking of cattails... at about the same age... for reasons I still don't understand.

My dad taught us to pluck petunia blossoms and suck the sweetness from the base of the flower like he used to when he was young.

I liked to pick dandelions, hold the stem in my closed fist with my thumb just under the yellow flower, sing "Momma had a baby and her HEAD popped off!" and on the word "head" flick the flower as high in the air as I could make it go... but my mom was wary of me playing with dandelions after the Mother's Day Incident when I was five: I picked her a huge bouquet, she dutifully put them in a vase, and then had a severe (and terrifying) allergic reaction to them and our neighbor had to take us all to the ER.

Snap dragons make lovely puppets (they open their mouths when you squeeze them), but I mostly like them for the "upside down human skull clusters" their dried seed heads make. This is the first flower I remember being fascinated by, and the skulls are the reason.

I didn't see a balloon flower until I was an adult, but now that mine are blooming their fool heads off, I like to go out back everyday and pop them. Sometimes I allow small children to accompany me, but mostly I indulge in this alone.

Andie, hosta buds can be popped too? I'll have to try this out tonight! Who knows, I might just have to change my opinion of this plant!

Buttercups under the chin to see if you liked butter.

Daisy chains.

Making terrible noises by stretching a thick blade of grass between thumbs and forefingers, with hands cupped, and blowing, so the grass acts like a reed.

Cherry blossom confetti.

Snapdragons snapping.

Playing hide and seek behind the tall phlox.

Threw fuzzy grass head 'darts' at each other and watched them get stuck in our friends' clothes and hair.

Eat nasturtium leaves in our sandwiches.

Oh, I just remembered! We made a fort inside a huge spirea bush in the neighbor's yard.

And it's nice to know there were lots of other flower poppers out there besides myself.