Quiz tests plant enthusiasts Mainers who think they know Maine may be surprised

This quiz, courtesy of Lois Stack at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, may surprise even the most avid plant enthusiasts.

1. What native plant produces our biggest fruit crop in Maine?

2. What winter food did Native Americans in the prairie states make by mixing the fruit from our native Saskatoon serviceberry with buffalo meat and fat?

3. What popular perennial has escaped from our gardens and naturalized on grassy slopes along roadsides, where it produces tall blue, purple or pink flowers every June?

4. How many different types of maples are native to Maine?

5. What rose is not native to Maine but has been naturalized along our rocky coast for hundreds of years?

6. Which of our native shade trees is the most common source of wood used for baseball bats?

7. Highbush cranberry, a popular landscape plant, is actually a member of what genus of shrubs?

8. Which native evergreen is threatened by the recent introduction of a wooly adelgid insect?

9. Which native tree was the source of wood for masts for the ships of English kings?

10. Which native shrub produces berries whose waxy coating has long been used as a scent in candles?

11. What old-fashioned skin ointment is made from an extract of a fall-flowering native shrub?

12. Which spring wildflower is named for the red sap in its roots?

Answers: 1. Lowbush blueberry; 2. Pemmican; 3. Lupine; 4. Six: box-elder, moosewood, red, silver, sugar and mountain; 5. Rugosa rose, also called saltspray rose; 6. White ash; 7. Viburnum – it’s one of Maine’s seven native viburnums; 8. Canada hemlock; 9. Eastern white pine; 10. Northern bayberry; 11. Witch hazel (made from common witch hazel); 12. Bloodroot.