Native Plants of Fort Mifflin

Native Plants of Fort Mifflin. . , Many native plants of the marsh were once used by people for food and medicine. Today, the plants of Fort Mifflin help support wildlife such as muskrats and birds., The Versatile Cattail , The Lenape used cattails for food. Their spring stalks were eaten like asparagus. Later in the year, their flower spikes were prepared like corn on the cob, and in winter the plant’s rootstocks were crushed into a fine flour., Wild Rice , Wild rice grows only in fresh-water tidal marshes. It was such an important food plant to the Lenape that they reserved harvest rights in their treaties with the European settlers., Sumac , Sumac was an important medicinal plant for the Lenape. It was used in treating problems such as asthma and stomach ailments., Blackberries , When William Penn’s agents surveyed the area in the mid 1600s, they described the marsh where the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers met as “fruitful in whortleberries.” Whortleberry was a European word for blackberry. The fruit that the agents saw may have been an ancestor of the native blackberries that are found around Fort Mifflin today.