Wild Edible Plants of Ontario

This guide covers a number of edible plants in Ontario, Canada including the Toronto, Ottawa and Hamilton areas and the Georgian Bay Islands, Pukaskwa, Bruce Peninsula, Point Pelee, and St. Lawrence Islands National Parks. Do not collect where prohibited.

This guide focuses on wild edible plants that that are relatively easy to identify and have no deadly poisonous look-alikes.

All plant parts described as being edible raw are also edible (and often more palatable) when cooked.

1. arrowhead
2. asparagus
3. bedstraw (aka cleavers)
4. bistort
5. bittercress
6. bracken
7. bugleweed
8. bulrush
9. burdock
10. camas (aka blue camas)
11. canada lily
12. carrion flower
13. catnip
14. cattail
15. chickweed
16. chicory
17. chufa
18. clover
19. cocklebur
20. coltsfoot
21. common orache
22. common sweet clover
23. cow-lily
24. dandelion
25. devils club
26. ditch-stonecrop
27. dock
28. elephanthead lousewort
29. false solomon's-seal
30. fireweed
31. fleabane
32. fragrant water-lily
33. garden orache
34. ginseng
35. goldenrod
36. greenbrier
37. ground ivy
38. groundnut (aka potato bean)
39. high mallow
40. hyssop
41. indian pipe (aka ghost plant)
42. jerusalem artichoke
43. knotweed
44. lamb's quarter (aka pigweed)
45. marsh-marigold
46. mayapple
47. musk mallow
48. mustard
49. northern water plantain
50. oxeye daisy
51. pearly everlasting
52. peppergrass
53. pickerel weed
54. pickleweed (aka glasswort, sea asparagus)
55. pigweed
56. pineapple-weed
57. plantain
58. prickly-pear cactus
59. quickweed
60. salsify (aka goatsbeard, oyster plant)
61. sea milkwort (aka sea milkweed)
62. seaside sandplant (aka sea sandwort, beach greens)
63. self heal
64. sheep sorrel
65. shepherd's-purse
66. silverweed (aka cinquefoil)
67. sow thistle
68. speedwell (aka brooklime, gypsyweed)
69. stinging nettle
70. stonecrop
71. stork's-bill
72. strawberry-blite
73. sunflower
74. swamp hedge-nettle (aka marsh woundwort)
75. sweet gale (aka bog myrtl)
76. sweetflag
77. thistle
78. violet
79. watercress
80. wild bergamot (aka horsemint)
81. wild licorice
82. wild mint
83. wild rose
84. wood betony
85. wood lily
86. woodsorrel
87. yellow clintonia
88. yellowcress