Curly Dock

 Curly dock in Felicita park (historic photograph)

Curly dock is a great plant. Not only does it grow wild in commons and wastelands but it is also an edible plant and quite tasty at that. Just saute it with onions and tomatoes.


So we found some good looking curly dock in Felicita park when we first came. We harvested some leaves (always leaving the majority of the plant intact). The same common or meadow had sweet alyssum and nettle growing there as well. So you could get on a foraging expedition and be in and out in no time.

But something terrible happened. They (the park authorities) decided to use this common for the parking lot. They have not paved it but they destroyed all the plants. Curly dock was the first one to go. Then nettle, even it grew only on the hillsides and was not even visible. This all happened within one year. We witnessed the destruction of wild plants firsthand and it does not feel good.

There was still plenty of nettle in the park but you had to look in different places. But the park was getting to look more and more like a sports part: just the mowed grass and no more wild plants that do not look like the grass. That's the way things are.