this plant that you see is called lobelia inflata. there area couple ways you can tell this, one of the ways is because of these inflated seedpods. you can see these inflated seedpods here. these seedpods form at the base of the flowers after the flowers have been pollinated. and you can see them starting up here. on the stem of lobelia you will notice theses little hairs. it gets hairier and hairier as you go down the plant. i'll show you the base of the plant here. you can see all these little bitty hairs. this is one of the identification factors of lobelia inflata. you can see the inflated seedpods and what was left of the flower. if you squeeze these seedpods, they'll feel as if they are inflated. as if there is air inside of them. this plant has alternating leaves as you can see here. they alternate all the way down the stem. the underside of lobelias' leaves are hairy as well. whereas the top of them is not. the leaves are lance shaped and they are toothed. you'll also notice these little white specks on the leaves. the flowers are pale blue in this species. this plants flowers are in a tube shape and it has five petals.
the top two as you can see here lip upwards, and they split. sorry about that. the three lower petals hang down. here you can see the five petals the two upper petals that lip upwards have a split. you can see they're fully split, all the way down to the corolla. hey guys this josh here with trillium: wild edibles and i'm doing a little deer hunting today. i'm here in front of my little spot, in front of my ground blind. i found these little oyster mushrooms so i thought i would shoot a little video on them today. you can see these little oyster mushrooms aren't that big. this is typical of oyster mushrooms this time of year i don't notice them getting too big. though the oyster mushroom is a delicious mushroom to eat. it's commonly foraged from the spring all the way to the fall. there are two types of oysters, you got summer oysters and then spring and fall oysters. this is one of the spring of fall oysters. there are a couple ways you can tell this is an oyster mushroom. one of the ways is this color. you can see how this is starting to brown towards the tip? as this mushroom ages it's going to become browner and browner. here you can see how the edge is scalloped, and you can see how the edge hangs down. this gills of the oyster mushroom are forked and they are decurring.
you can see here at the top how these are forked gills. you can also see how the gills go all they way down the stem. that's very important to keep in mind. the oyster mushroom is a shelf mushroom that prefers trees. obviously you see it growing on a dead log here. the types of trees that it prefers? i usually find mine on tulip poplars, as a matter of fact that's what this is right now. as a matter of fact that's what this is on right now is a tulip poplar. i generally find them on hard-softwood like tulip poplars and maple, things like that. i usually don't find them on oaks or beeches or anything of that nature. however you can find them on pine trees, though the way i understand it those aren't so good to be eating. i don't know why, but i hear they make some people stomach upset. but i've never eaten them off pine trees, i gather all mine off of tulip poplars or the like. this shrub that you see here is called spicebush or lindera benzoin. it's called that because it does actually contain benzoin which is actually a medical compound. spicebush is a common shrub here in the eastern woodlands. you're going to find it generally in moist areas. i usually find mine on slopes, generally where there is good amount of runoff, or next to a creek.
spicebush is a really plant to identify overall and is extremely aromatic. to me it smells kind of like a mix of allspice and sassafras the leaves of spicebush are very broad, as you can see here. there's three of my fingers so that's about three inches in width at it's widest. they're smooth on the margins, you'll notice there are no teeth on the margins of these leaves. they're oval or elliptical in shape. whichever you prefer to call this shape. spicebush produces these oval oblong shaped red berries that are very shiny and glossy, you can see the gloss on this one here. usually these berries will cover the entire plant, but they start out of the nodes of the stems like you can see here. so that's kind of something to keep in mind, and here you can see the oblong oval shape of these berries. and i'll compare this spicebush to another...actually i'll compare this spicebush to a couple of other bushes in the area so you don't get them confused. on spicebush if you take one of the berries and you give it a squeeze in between your fingers really hard. these berries do have a large seed that's really hard. here you can see the seed, and you can also see that juice on my hand. whenever you crush the berries you will smell a mix of allspice and sassafras.
these berries are extremely aromatic and you'll note that they are really oily and slippery. but you can actually take these berries and you dry them and ground them up and make a substitute for allspice out of them and use them in baking for breads and cakes and things like that. spicebush can grow to a variety of heights and the bush that you see in front of me is about five feet tall. i've found spicebushes that are six to seven feet tall, but in the eastern woodlands i don't see them getting much taller than ten feet usually. generally by that point they are starting to spread outwards and cover more of a surface area instead of reaching for the sky. there are other bushes that look lie spicebush and they do have red berries on them as well. however the berries are shaped differently, the leaves are shaped differently, and they do not have that distinct smell. here's the first bush that some people confuse with spicebush, generally from a distance. i think some of it is because of these red berries. however you can see these berries are circular, or in a sphere, whereas spicebushes berries are an oval shape they're oblong. another way to tell the difference is these leaves are oval shaped or tear dropped shaped. they have a very narrow point at the end. you can also see how on this one the leaves are opposite. whereas on spicebush, you can see that the leaves alternate. this is a different spicebush than the one we were looking at in the woods, however that kind of helps to give you guys an idea of what they actually look like. i have no clue what this bush is, i just know that it looks similar to spicebush and i've seen people confuse this with spicebush. i also know you don't want to put anything in your mouth if you don't know what it is.
here we'll go over to another shrub here, and you can see again the difference in those leaves. these leaves are very long and narrow lance shaped almost but they are smooth and have a vary sharp point. if we take this leaf and we come over to a spicebush and set that leaf on top we can see the different shapes in these leaves. my preferred method to determine if i'm looking at a spicebush besides all the things i just showed you is i just like to pluck a leaf off and rub it between my fingers and take a smell. if i smell that allspice and sassafras smell then i know i've got spicebush.