Autumn brings brilliant hues that brighten up the Nova Scotia landscape. In the salt marsh, maple leaves and red apples stand in bright contrast to the evergreens and grey waters.
Bright orange rose hips replace summer’s pink blooms on the wild rose bushes. Full of vitamin C, they’ll provide a nourishing treat for birds in the cold winter months ahead. They’re often dried for use in herbal teas.
Unlike the rose hips, the elongated nightshade berries shown at left, are NOT edible. Both the fruit and leaves of this plant are extremely toxic. Consumption of fewer than five of these berries can be lethal to children. It’s best not to eat any wild berries that grow in a similar oblong (as opposed to spherical) shape. These nightshade plants are numerous along the edges of the salt marsh trail and can be identified by their purple flowers during the summer months.
Nightshade was used to poison the tips of arrows by early people. It was also used to poison political rivals in Ancient Rome and employed by MacBeth to poison troops in Scotland.
This single long stemmed red rose was found wedged between two tree trunks along Rosemary’s Way, a small path that leads off to the side before the first bridge on the trail. How it arrived in this setting is a mystery. Besides heralding the cooler days ahead, it would appear that Autumn’s colours reveal the fiery passions that still lie beneath the surface.
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Nice walk this morning. Are those apples cultivated or gone wild? They look just perfect.
Now I’m going to spend all day thinking up stories around that rose.
Gerry, those apples may once have been cultivated but they are certainly out there in the wild. They’re close enough to photograph but because of their location along the edge of the trail, impossible to grasp. Only the birds and porcupines can get them. Let me know if you come up with any good theories about the rose.
Those apples looks delicious, – wonderful colour 🙂
My mother makes jam out of the rose hips. It is a bit of a hassle to clean out all those seeds, but it is very good, and as you said: chock full of vitamin C.
Eldrid
Eldrid, I’ve never heard of rose hip jam before. However, I did eat a sweet jam made from rose petals when I was in Greece.
Looks like you had a nice walk. I really like the rose in the trees. Maybe a young couple had a rendezvous there. Or maybe an older couple renewing their romance. 🙂 I think love was definitely in the air.
Jessica
Jessica, it was a wonderful walk. What a romantic you are! But I agree that love was indeed in the air.
We had sauteed wild apples and Vidalia onions last night with curried squash. I always mean to collect rose hips and make jam with them but never have. All the reds and oranges–bright to warm us through the winter!
Pamela, I had to look up Vidalia onions. They’re supposed to be quite sweet. It all sounds tasty. Warm colours seem to appear more in our food at this time of year too.
Ah, yes, the beautiful colours of Nova Scotia in Autumn! We don’t have the wide range of fall colours on the West Coast, and I miss them. So that’s what rosehips look like! I’ve often drunk rosehip tea.
Here’s my theory about the rose: High school sweethearts went separate ways due to career aspirations, and each eventually married someone else. Fifty years later, ea
Oops! Sorry!
To continue…
Fifty years later, they find each other again, and resume their friendship. One evening, he takes her out for dinner and gives her a dozen red roses. Then he invites her to go for a walk along Rosemary’s Way, seeing he named it after her so many years before. They stop next to these trees, where he asks her to marry him. After saying a joyful “Yes,” she takes one rose from her bouquet and places it between the trees, with the wish that some other couple walking along the same path will find it and find happiness with each other, too.
The End ;-D
Joan, I noticed that too about the fewer colours in BC during the fall.
That’s quite the story. Fifty years is a long time, but love usually has no problem transcending boundaries of time and distance and always finds the ‘Way.’
What wonderful autumn colours all around you. It must be a beautiful setting in which to live.
Jessica, it is a beautiful area, though the trees don’t grow as tall as they do farther south or out west. The seashore makes it all the more special.
So beautiful! I love your color theme. What a wonderful mystery of that rose. (Great story, Joan.) Just seeing it there must have made your heart swell. Or did it? 🙂