A question of Pennsylvania natives

I love when someone asks me a gardening-related question that I don’t know the answer to and that takes me down a new avenue. This happened last week on one of those beautiful days when it seemed like everyone was out working in their yards and gardens. Time outside, weeding, gave me the first opportunity in a while to have an over-the-garden-fence chat with my neighbor, Beth.

After we got through family updates, Beth said, “My sisterin-law just asked me the other day if there are any fruits and vegetables native to Pennsylvania. I told her that I knew someone to ask. So — do you have any idea?”

“Wow!” I replied. “I’ve never even thought about that.” My brain started buzzing. “Give me a minute.” Our conversation wandered off into other areas, giving me a chance to mull over this new query in the back of my mind.

I did finally manage to come up with a few ideas. “Serviceberry,” I suggested. “And cherry. The forests around here used to be full of black cherry trees before they were logged out for making furniture.” I wasn’t exactly sure, but said I thought that there was a mulberry native to our state. “Oh — and strawberries. And black walnuts.”

Of course, when I was finished in the yard and went back indoors, I did a quick internet search to see what I’d missed. I was a little embarrassed that I hadn’t remembered pawpaws and persimmons. And happy that I was right about mulberry; the red mulberry (Morus rubra) is a PA native. Besides black walnut (Jugland nigra), there were other nuts on the list: American hazelnut (Corylus americana), butternut (Juglans cinerea), mockernut hickory (Carya alba).

American plum (Prunus americana) and Chickasaw plum (P. angustifolia) were on the list along with common hackberry (Celtis occidentalis), pin cherry (Prunus pensylvanica), and creeping barberry (Mahonia repens). Also on the list was chokecherry (Prunus virginiana), but care needs to be taken if you plan to eat the fruits of this cherry tree as the seeds contain a substance that the body converts to cyanide.

So, that’s a nice showing of native fruits and nuts, but what about vegetables? I thought about the traditional “Three Sisters” plantings practiced by Native Americans: corn, beans, squash. It looks like some beans and squash (pumpkins) are native to North America, but corn is native to (most likely) southern Mexico.

It was fun to discover how many food plants are native to Pennsylvania, but the fact is that most of the vegetables that show up on our plates and in our salad bowls originated outside of the Americas and are the result of centuries of cultivation and trade. Lettuce and broccoli have their roots in the Mediterranean region, carrots in Iran/ Afghanistan, cucumbers in India, most beans in Peru, cabbage in mainland Europe. And our beloved tomatoes—along with peppers and potatoes—are from Central and South America.

“What about rhubarb?” Beth asked. Rhubarb is such an “oldtimey” standard in American gardens that I thought it might be native to our commonwealth. But I learned that even rhubarb comes from far away and long ago, dating back thousands of years to Siberia.