How Wild Is Wild?

Synonyms for “wild” include: independent, free, uninhabited (pertaining to place), uncontrolled, uncultivated, untamed, and uncivilized.

The boundary between a wild and a cultivated plant can be very blurred. Often, we can find a series of gradations of plants as they come into their domesticated forms. For example, dandelions, originally cultivated in numerous varieties in Europe, were either brought over or came with settlers in the New World unintentionally. Here they became naturalized into the landscape and now grow quite vigorously on their own. Or do people help a little?

The word “agrestis” is a Roman word that describes semi-wild plants growing on arable land, pasture land and fallow fields. This word can apply to dandelions, thistles, mullein, plantain and other weedy species that grow as early successional plants, moving into land which has recently been cultivated, mowed, logged, burned, or disturbed in some way. Thus, people actually create ideal habitat for weedy species and often spread their seeds through their activities. Joan M. Frayn speculates in “Wild and Cultivated Plants: A Note on the Peasant Economy of Roman Italy,” that, “The period in which wild and cultivated plants were not fully differentiated in Europe, and when an intermediate category existed, has usually been regarded as earlier than the classical age of Rome. J.G.D. Clarke refers to it: ‘…under primitive conditions the distinction between ‘wild’ and ‘domesticated’ plants is often slight and a multitude of gradations in status may exist between wild, protected, and fully domesticated species’ “.

Wildcrafting is not simply the act of harvesting from nature’s untouched lands and wilderness areas. Many people harvest mainly at the edges of the forest and agrestis-like habitats, which can often hold a larger diversity of plants than in the forest. I’ve spoken to a wildcrafter who considers harvesting the volunteer weeds that grow in the pots on her porch to be wildcrafting. What is the edge of wild?