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The Hazen's Notch Association is a non-profit conservation organization located in montgomery center, vermont.

The hna provides environmental education programs for schools, conducts a summer camp for children, maintains a network of trails for cross country skiing, snowshoeing and hiking on 2,500 acres of land and serves as a local land trust.

Your membership in the Hazen's Notch Association supports our work in conservation, environmental education, recreational trails, scientific research and stewardship of natural resources.

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Hazen's Notch Association
Nature News from the Green Mountains of Northern Vermont
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Plant News

Spring

   As soon as the snow melts, the edges of roads show the first flowering plants to emerge including Colt's foot, Tussilago farfara, a plant that blooms on stems even before the formation of leaves.

  Shortly, the purple tips of Trout Lily, Erythronium americanum, will emerge through matted fallen leaves in woodlands and produce beautiful yellow lily flowers above mottled green and purple leaves.

  In rapid succession, we will enjoy Red Trillium, Trillium erectum; Dutchman's Britches, Dicentra cucullata; and Squirrel Corn, Dicentra canadenesis.

  Toward the end of April, a Spring wildflower will present its leaves first from energy stored in the previous year's growth: Wild Leeks, Allium tricoccum. It won't be until mid to late summer that it will produce flowers and seeds.

- Deborah Benjamin

Fiddleheads may cause mild illness

BURLINGTON — The Department of Health is reporting that four recent cases of mild food-borne illness in Windham and Bennington counties were likely related to the consumption of fiddleheads, a seasonal delicacy served in many restaurants and sold in grocery stores in Vermont.

With proper preparation fiddleheads are safe to eat, but the health department is advising that anyone preparing fiddleheads boil or steam the ferns for 10 to 15 minutes before consuming them.

"Although cases of food-borne illness from fiddleheads are uncommon, if not prepared right, eating them may occasionally lead to illness," State Epidemiologist Dr. Cort Lohff said in a prepared statement. "Symptoms like stomach pain and diarrhea may happen 30 minutes to 12 hours after eating them, but will eventually go away without treatment."

For more information, contact the Vermont Health Department at 802-863-7240.

Article originally published in the Rutland (VT) Herald, May 14, 2005

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This page was last updated on February 18, 2006

Hazen's Notch Association l P.O. Box 478 l Montgomery Center VT 05471 l info@hazensnotch.org l 802.326.4799