Search: Cardamine hirsuta

Little Mustards are seasonal like this Hairy Bittercress, Cardamine hirsuta. Photo by Green Deane

Coronopus, Descurainia, Cardamine, Erucastrum and Sibara

There are numerous little mustards that show up seasonally populating lawns and fields with spots of green against dead winter grass, and then they are gone. Their variety is rich and variations are many. You may never know exactly which one you have. With most, not all, look for the four-petaled flower with six stamen,  four long, two short. Blossom can be yellow, white or pink. The seeds pods can be long like tooth picks or short little hearts or round scales.

This quintet of little mustards shouldn’t be dismissed but they are easy to miss. Their season is usually as short as they are. Locally the little mustards pop up in our cooler months, carpet some areas, and then are gone before one gets around to study or harvest them. There are many of them and variations are seemingly endless, which mean you can easily reach the conclusion you’ve got a little mustard but exactly which one it is will be open to debate. Fortunately, in small amounts at least, there are no toxic mustards. Huge amounts of any mustard, however can upset the human digestive system (and cows, too.)

Swinecress has distinctive seed pods.

Swinecress (Coronopus didymus, koh-RON-oh-puss DID-eh-mus) is called said because pigs like it. Low growing, it’s usually a bright green rosette against the fading grass of cold weather. Locally it is found at the same time and with wild radishes. Flowers are greenish and minute. The entire plant very pungent when crushed. From a consumption point of view it is a trail-side nibble, a salad addition, and if cooked in at least one change of water, a pot herb. How many changes of water depends upon your tastes and how strong a tummy you have. In small amounts it is considered by farmers to be good cattle food but in large amounts toxic because it upsets their cows’ chambered stomachs. So find out how you and it get along before indulging greatly.

Tansy Mustard

In this particular case, the botanical name is actually helpful. Coronopus is a forced amalgam of two Greek words meaning Raven and foot, or in English “crow foot.” And indeed the three-pointed leaves resemble a three-toed bird foot. Not only does the end of the leave look that way, but the little leaves off the side of the main leaf do as well. Those little leaves alternate, barely. At the end of the leaf they are without stem, near the base of the leaf they have a little bit of stem.

And as is the case quite often, the second part of the name is a bit earthy, though references try to make it politically correct. Didymus is often rendered as Greek for “paired.”  That is not linguistically accurate. While there are many words for “paired” in Greek one of the most common is  ζεύγος, ZEE-ghos which means “yoke” as in a yoke of oxen. In fact the word for spouse is σύζυγος, SEE-zee-ghos.  Got the idea? That is not the kind of pairing didymus means. Strictly said didymus means testes. And indeed the seeds of the Swinecress resemble two little you guessed it. Coronopus didymus. Crow Foot Testes. And you thought botany was sophisticated….

Hairy Bittercress like to grow in damp areas.

Our next little mustard is the Tansy Mustard because it, yep, resembles the tansy. Apparently botanists, when not thinking up dirty names for plants, aren’t too creative.

Exactly which Tansy Mustard you have will be a bit of a guess as well. Locally, here in Florida, I seem to find the Western Tansy Mustard. (It is called western so not to confuse it with one growing in Europe which is not called the Eastern Tansy Mustard.) And although I sit on the semi-tropical temperate line the tansy mustard is known as a plant found around the top of the world, not the equator.  There are also a lot of subspecies so you may never know exactly what tansy mustard you have.

Botanically it is Descurainia pinnata, des-koor-RAY-nee-uh pin-NAY-ta.) In this instance, the name doesn’t help much. The first part honors Francois Descourain (1658-1740), a French botanist, physician and pharmacist. The second part, pinnata, means feather-like, or feathery et cetera and this is true in the sense that the leaves are wispy.

Dog Mustard is perhaps the least common of the little mustards.

Perhaps I’m not looking for Tansy Mustard, but it does not seem to me to be as common as other little mustards but it certainly likes the same environment: Think dry pastures.  Six to 20 inches tall or so, fine, delicate, and like the other little mustards a nibble, a salad addition and when cooked to tolerability, a green. Its texture is mealy or hairy… kind of both.

The tansy mustard, also tansymustard, has one to several densely hairy stems, giving it a different texture than most Little Mustards. The basal leaves are divided twice into small segments, very hairy, stem leaves are divided into small segments once, very hairy. The flowers are bright yellow to almost white, fruit stalk long, elongated dark red seeds. If it looks like a tansy but is peppery like a mustard… it just might be the tansy mustard.

Quite common locally is the Hairy Bittercress, or Cardamine hirsuta, kar-DAM-en-neh her-SOO-tuh. Unlike the Tansy Mustard, it likes to grow where it is damp. In northern climes it germinates in the fall and stays green under the snow. Here in Florida we see it popping up in our winter, which is Christmas to Valentines Day. But it can be found in cooler shady wet spots for perhaps nine month of the year.

Sibara virginica

This little mustard is nearly hairless, stems are green or sometimes purplish in strong sun, not hairy, circular, tapering towards both ends, from a tap root. Usually many stems growing from a tap root. Basal leaves, however, have hairy stems. Leaves can be rounded to wedge-shaped, with little hairs, can flower when very small. Each leaf generally contains 4 to 8 leaflets arranged alternately along the leaf stem (rachis.) Seed capsule is 10 times longer than wide. Unlike other little mustards it looks like something one might grow in an herb garden.  Flowers are small, usually a group of them, four white petals, on the ends of wiry stems. The long narrow seed pods (siliques, said sah-LEEKS)  and alternating round leaflets are prime elements of identification. The little siliques tend to grow upright.

Shepherds Purse is another mustard clan of spring.

It is also often found in garden centers because of the watering, or in lawns. If you are an organic gardener, aphids love the Hairy Bittercress meaning you can use them as a trap crop. Leaves and flowers – raw or cooked — have a hot cress-like flavor, often used as a garnish or for flavoring. Can be used as a potherb but as with the other little mustards, proceed carefully.

Dog Mustard, also called the Hairy Rocket and French Rocket, is our least common little mustard, and the largest, getting up to a scraggly two feet under optimum conditions.  To my eyes it looks like a ratty wild radish. It was introduced into the US and Canada in the early 1900s and spread along the railroads. It can cross with the rape plant (from which seeds we get canola oil.) This is viewed as good and bad. It can cross on its own and change the plant for the worse or it can be a source of genes should the rape need a shot of new genetics.

Poor Man’s Pepper Grass can be short or tall.

The Dog Mustard grows upright from a foot to two feet tall, pale yellow to whitish flowers, 4-petals to a half inch wide, petals rounded at on top, narrowing at the base; in a cluster. The seed pod is thin, long, four-angled usually curving up. Lower leaves are oblong, deeply pinnately-divided, end leaflet the longest; stem leaves not clasping, leaves get smaller toward the top. In northern areas it usually begins to blossom in June or so.

Botanically it is known as the Erucastrum gallicum, er-roo-KAS-trum GAL-ee-kum. This time the name tells us little. The first word means resembling the Eruca, which was some ancient plant mentioned by Pliny the Elder. Gallicum means from France.  It is used as a pot herb but may need more than one change of water. Try sparingly.

Mustard Blossoms, regardless of size, have four petals and six stamen, four long two short. Here the short ones are on the sides.

Now we get to the mustard that is coming and going. If you think you have a Sibara (SIGH-bar-ah) , you might actually have an Arabis  (ARE-uh-bis or ARE-you-bis.) Arabis means from Arabia (read Eurasia ) and both the genera Arabia and Sibara used to be all Arabias. Then it was decided six species were native to North America, which hardly made them from Eurasia or Arabia. So those Arabis were renamed Sibara, which is Arabis spelled backwards.  Ain’t that almost clever. They are Sibara deserti, Sibara filifolia, Sibara grisea, Sibara rosulata, Sibara viereckii, and Sibara virginica.

This close up shows the female part of the flower in the middle, four tall stamen and two short ones.

This is a winter annual from a rosette of deeply dissected leaves, five to 14 divisions on each side of the main leaf stem. The leaves at the base of the plant are slightly hairy. Leaf segments are narrow, the terminal segment though is somewhat larger, or broader. Flowers are white with four small petals. The fruit (silique) is stalked, long, very narrow with around 15 flat seeds. You can tell it from the Hairy Bittercress above (Cardamine hirsuta) by having larger siliques and narrow leaf segments. The rosette overwinters. It likes disturbed, waste ground, unused fields, and roadsides.

Senecio glabellus often grows the same time as mustards and is toxic. It has a yellow daisy-like blossom.

Lastly, a common toxic look-alike in the rosette stage is the Senecio glabellus. When dried and fed to rats 20% of their body weight killed them. While the blossom is different than the mustards, the basal rosette can look similar.  S. Glabellus leaves are toothy and mild whereas the mustard leaves are not toothy and are usually  peppery. It has pyrrolizidine which is a chemical that can clog up small veins in your liver causing fluid retention and death.  The Senecio yellow blossom is daisy-ish whereas mustards have a four-petal X or H shape blossom.

The Western Tansy Mustard is one of our shortest-lived winter-time forageables. It’s not flashy and is often either too small or too old to be seen. It also likes very dry place and cool temperatures. I often find it dusty areas where you find livestock such as paddocks and corrals. Of all the Micro-Mustards it is the mildest in flavor, at least for humans. The texture is fuzzy. More confusing is there is no Eastern Tansy Mustard. You read about the Western Tansy Mustard here.

With recent cool spells it’s no surprise to find our winter mustards making their annual appearance though I call them the Little Mustards and Micro-Mustards. Prime among them is Bittercress, Cardamine hirsuta, sometimes called Hairy Bittercress. Frankly I’ve never found it bitter.

In northern climates Bittercress is a springtime herb growing into summer. Here in Florida it’s a fall herb growing into winter. It is also one of the few mustards, if not the only one, you can find growing in very damp or waterlogged soil. Unlike the Western Tansy Mustard, mentioned above, which adores dry ground, I’ve always found Cardamine hirsuta in well-watered lawns and landscapes or wet spots. In fact this past summer, which was Florida hot as usual, several of our spring-fed streams dried to a trickle exposing much stream-bed. In the shade of a cypress tree on one of those beds an unusual summer crop of Bittercress germinated. All it needed was a bit of shade — read cooler temperatures — and a damp spot.

Bittercress is naturally leggy, whispy, even at its best at the end of a season’s worth of growth. Its prime use is as an addition to salads or soups, more flavoring than material substance. Cardamine hirsuta is one of those plants that is not substantial enough to sustain you but with it potent flavor it makes eating and thus life better. To read about our small winter mustards click here and here.

Seasonally there are a lot of straddles now. Chickweed is in most areas. Poorman’s Peppergrass, Shepherd’s Purse and the aforementioned Western Tansy Mustard are at their seasonal height or approaching it. Swinecress, featured recently, is seeding. And along many dry roads banks now you can see Wild Mustards and Radishes forming yellow-blossom hedgerows. Native Plantagos are starting to seed signaling an end to their season. Early Sow Thistles are reaching maturity but are still starting seedlings. We saw both species in Winter Park this past weekend, the Common Sow Thistle and the Spiny Sow Thistle. I should mention Poison Ivy  has started it annual growth as has deadly Water Hemlock.

A fairly common “What is it?” seen now is Black Medic. It’s also an iffy edible. While the seeds and greens have been eaten it is not for everyone. Also, to the every-day forager it looks a lot like Hop Clover.  Native to the area of Iran, it came to the east coast of the United States around 1807 and went west over the next 130 years. It was on the west coast of the United States in time for the Great Depression in the 1930’s. Native Americans were eating it when surveyed during the Depression thus it got listed as a Native American food. Before the species seeds the easiest way to identity Black Medic from Hop Clover is look at the center leaf of the trifolium. Black Medic’s central leaf has a longer stem than the other two leaves. In Hop Clover all three stems are the same length. Also when they seed Black Medic has black seeds, Hop Clover has brown seeds. And locally Black Medic is common whereas Hop Clover is found mostly Florida’s northwestern counties. You can read all about it here.

Foraging classes: Quite a stretch this coming weekend, Ocala to Port Charlotte. This past weekend it was Sarasota and Winter Park. (It’s nice to hold a class now and then in which you can walk from coffee shop to coffee shop.) Ocala should have some nice winter species and Port Charlotte some salt-tolerant edibles.

Saturday, February 16th, Jervey Gantt Recreation Complex, 2390 SE 36th Ave., Ocala, FL, 34471. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the entrance to the pool, aka Aquatic Fun Center. 

Sunday, February 17th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the parking lot at the intersection of Bayshore Road and Ganyard Street.

Saturday, March 2nd, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. Meet near the tennis court near the YMCA building.  9 a.m. to noon

Sunday, March 3rd, George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, FL, 34981. 9 a.m. to noon. The preserve has no official bathroom or drinking water so take advantage of the various eateries and gas stations before arrival. 

Saturday, March 9th, Florida State College,  south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246.  9 a.m. to noon. We will meet at building “D”  next to the administration parking lot.

Sunday, March 10th, Haulover Canal, Merritt Island National Refuge, north of the Kennedy Space Center, 9 a.m. to noon or later. Because of its shape this class requires the most walking and climbing, about four miles. We meet at the end of the northwest jetty. Take the time change into account that day so you are on time. There are more directions below. 

Saturday March 16th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park.

Sunday, March 17th,  Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233.  9 a.m. to noon. 

To learn more about the foraging classes or to sign up go here.

The Florida Herbal Conference is next weekend, February 22-24. It’s their eighth annual event and for the eighth year I will be teaching there. I’m usually the 7 a.m. wake-up class. You can learn quickly at conferences because you are getting a distillation of information from teachers with years of experience. Any questions can be answered quickly and to the point, no rummaging around to resolve an issue. You’re also with like-minded folks so there’s instant camaraderie. You are the majority. For more information go to: Florida Herbal Conference.

There is a tiny edible that doesn’t get much coverage probably because it is small and not a great flavor, read a famine food. This is the Doveweed, or Murdannia nudiflora. It is often found with its relatives the Asiatic Day Flower and Spiderworts. This is a tiny plant, not usually seen while you’re standing up. When you are on your knees looking for something else is when you will find Doveweed. Locally I locate it in slightly damp locations and in semi- shade. To read more about the Doveweed go here.

“Did you ever eat a larch?” was the subject of a post on the Green Deane Forum (the button to join the forum is on the right hand side of this page.) Euell Gibbons got a lot of mileage from asking “did you ever eat a pine tree?” But what of the larch? There was a stand of them — a Larchhurst — about 300 feet from our front door where I grew up in Maine. One of the first things I noticed was it was a conifer that was not evergreen. It loses its “needles” in the winter. And local folks didn’t call it Larch. It was a “hatmatack” or “tamarack.” These trees can live 700 years, or so the experts say. The sap is edible and the inner bark in spring. Young shoots were cooked as vegetables. Lumps of sap were also chewed like gum. The dried sap was used like baking powder. These things I did not know when I was young though I did know the tree did not size up well for the wood stove. We heated and cooked with wood and my job (besides feeding five horses every day plus haying and manuring) was chopping wood, cord after endless cord of wood. I AM DANGEROUS with an ax.  What caught my interest in the larch recently is arabinogalactan. (If you want to try and say it you have two choices: Air-row-BEE-nah-gah-LACK-tin. Or… ah RAB-binn-know-gah-LACK-tin.)

What is arabinogalactan, or specifically Larch arabinogalactan? In two words, dietary fiber. Maybe the first inhabitants were onto something. It’s a ploysaccharide that increases the production of short-chain fatty acids in the lower gut, principally butyrate and propionate. This is from the increased number of friendly anaerobes such as Bifidobacteria and Lactobacillus. The ultimate point of arabonogalactan is to improve your health. How? According to one study it: “…can stimulate natural killer (NK) cell cytotoxicity, enhance other functional aspects of the immune system, and inhibit the metastasis of tumor cells to the liver.” See? There are good reasons to eat a tree.

Soon it will be Tulip season in Europe. The bulbs are edible if properly prepared. Do you know how?

The flavor of Tulips bulbs depend on how hungry you are, and whether you have prepared them correctly.  If you have an excess of untreated Tulip bulbs they can be made into a life-sustaining meal or a trip to the hospital. Similar to an onion, the outer layer is removed and the small proto-tulip in the center of the bulb has to be removed. The remaining material can be then processed in a variety of ways, from just boiling to dying, to grinding  and adding to flour for baking. The petals are edible as well. To read an interesting bit of history about Tulips click here.

Donations to upgrade EatTheWeeds.com have gone well. Thank you to all who have contributed to either via the Go Fund Me link, the PayPal donation link or by writing to Green Deane POB 941793 Maitland FL, 32794.  There are many needs left such as expanding the foraging teacher page and the page on monotypic edibles. I’m still having a hard time finding articles I wrote!  There’s always something and such things get more complex and expensive every year. Indeed, the average email cost to send each newsletter is $20.

Want to identify a plant? Looking for a foraging reference? Do you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object you want identified? On the Green Deane Forum we chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations around the world share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. One special section is “From the Frightening Mail Bag” where we learn from people who eat first then ask questions later. You can join the forum by clicking on “forum” in the menu.

All My Videos are available for free on You Tube. They do have ads on them so every time you watch a Green Deane video I get a quarter of one cent. Four views, one cent. Not exactly a large money-maker but it helps pays for this newsletter. If you want to see the videos without ads and some in slightly better quality you can order the DVD set. It is nine DVDs with 15 videos on each for a total of 135 videos.  Many people want their own copy of the videos or they have a slow service and its easier to order then to watch them on-line. The DVDs make a good gift for that forager you know especially on long, cold winter months. Individual DVDs can also be ordered or you can pick and choose. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right hand side of this page (if your window is open wide enough.)  Or you can go here.

If you would like to donate to Eat The Weeds please click here. Or you can use my Go Fund Me  link, or by writing to Green Deane POB 941793 Maitland FL, 32794

This is weekly issue 342.

Hairy Bitter Cress growing along a wall in Savannah Georgia in December. Photo by Green Deane

Hairy Bitter Cress had “tooth pick” seed pods. Photo by Green Deane

Members of the mustard family usually like cooler weather. They are a spring and summer plant in northern places like Canada. They’re a fall and winter plant in southern climates. There are big mustards and little mustards, some three or four feet tall, others that barely break a foot. One good thing about the managerie is that there are no toxic mustards. No matter where you are in the world, if it is in the mustard family it’s edible. This is not to say there are no warnings even if edible. Some mustards are strong flavored thus better cooked than eaten raw. Indeed when I made my life move from Maine to Florida I left behind a mild mustard I could eat raw. What I found here was a strong wild radish that I must cook or the stomach aches. Farm animals also have varying responses to the mustard clan. That can range from irritated digestive systems to mustard-tasting milk. So while mustards are comestibles some caution is reasonable for you and your livestock.

Locally the big mustards, such as Wild Mustard and Wild Radish, don’t sprout for another month or so and can be found around Christmas into the new year.  Some of the Little Mustards can be found now. During a foraging class this past weekend in Orlando we found Hairy Bitter Cress. It’s a mustard member one can find for seven or eight months or all but the hottest time of the year. Botanically Cardamine hirsuta (which means Hairy Cress) it’s a nice addition to salads and the like. The entire plant’s edible. It likes disturbed soil, and in warmer months close to water and drying stream beds. Unlike Swine Cress, it is not a common lawn plant. It’s extremely common in pots and around plant nurseries. You can read about it here.

Horses don’t like plants in the mustard family — it’s toxic to them — so the seeds collected in the chaff in the hay barn. (That’s my mother on Ginger, left, Lois Curit on Bonny, center, and me on Chico.  The dog is Rex. Photo by Robert Hartley Jordan

(If I may continue  the mustards as an aside: Way back in the late 50s and early 60s my father built our house and barn in Pownal, Maine. For modern folks that’s about five miles west of L.L. Bean. Pownal, which has only 400 more citizens today than it did 160 years ago, has some king-decreed untaxable land that has been passed down eldest son to eldest son since the 1600s. It has caused centuries of legal problems. No taxes no services such as fire or electricity… Anyway, our place had no “lawn” for several years as lawns aren’t a priority out in the country. Early one spring my father took wheel barrows full of chaff from the hay barn and spread it out where the lawn was supposed to be. By the time school let out the lawn was a jungle of tall mustard plants that gave away over the summer to tall lambs quarters, all edible. It took many years to convince grass to grow there. Grass has to be coaxed and pampered to survive, weeds take care of themselves I have a video about large mustards here.)

Younger fruit is preferable than older fruit. Photo by Green Deane

Now is also a good time to look for last-of-the-season fruit that sounds like it was the star of a 1950’s sci-fi film: Latex strangler Vine. The fruit — which is used like a vegetable — is easy to describe: It looks like a smaller, greener chayote. That only helps if you know what a chayote looks like. It’s a light green vegetable usually found in the grocery store with the squashes. It has an unmistakeable butt crack, a fold along the entire bottom. Does one have to say the state of Florida and native plant societies loathe the vine? Its main horror was to cover citrus trees with shade until the tree died. That might become a moot point as greening removes citrus from the peninsula’s landscape. Millions was spent trying to eradicate the vine without success. Indeed, the best place to find Latex Strangler Vine is in or around citrus groves. And as there are thousands of acres of untended citrus groves it is a relatively easy vine to spot. You can also locate it readily on fences. The vine does have latex so it is one of the few plants with a milky sap that we do eat. And nearly all of the plant is edible one way or another except the root. There are two warning of sorts. The fruits get tough as they age and in time will dry, break open, and spread milkweed-like seeds. At some point it becomes too dry and tough — mature — for us to eat. That is when we don’t eat the seeds or coma. And the entire plant is toxic to cows. I have a video about it here.   To can read about go the vine here.

Perhaps it is time to revisit Bacopa. This weekend from Sarasota to Orlando the species was happy, abundant and blossoming. We actually have two Bacopas locally. The one we are interested in is very common. The other, which actually tastes better, is harder to find but may not have the proven beneficial affects.

Bacopa monnieri resembles purslane. Photo by Green Deane

Bacopa monnieri, aka Water Hyssop but known universally in health food stores as Bacopa, is bitter. It is not a wild edible most will like. But, as a medicine it is a wonder drug so to speak. What does it do? It coaxes the brain into making new memory cells. A double-blind study — the gold standard — showed 12 weeks of supplementation with Bacopa monnieri improved the memory and executive functions dramatically and permanently in 65-year olds who were having such problems. However as one does not lose function overnight recovery is not overnight. It took at least three months of daily supplementation to improve those functions. Bacopa is also anti-inflammatory. I personally know four people who took Bacopa monnieri for memory issues and had significant improvement. Best of all if it works for you it grows wild here. Its relative, Bacopa caroliniana, is called Lemon Bacopa. That Bacopa makes a nice tea that tastes like lime and is probably not good for you at all. I have video on the Bacopas here. You can read about Bacopa monnieri here.

Foraging classes are held rain or shine. Photo by Nermina Krenata

Foraging Classes: This weekend classes are on both sides of the state,  Melbourne and Port Charlotte. Each location has its own particular uniqueness.

Saturday, October 28th, Wickham Park, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335.  9 a.m. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park.

Sunday, October 29th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte.  9 a.m. Meet at the parking lot at the intersection of Bayshore Road and Ganyard Street.

Saturday, November 4th,  Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. Meet at the covered picnic table by the tennis courts near the WMCA building.

The read more about the classes go here.

Foraging DVDs

All of Green Deane’s videos available for free on You Tube. They do have ads on them so every time you watch a Green Deane video I get a quarter of one cent. Four views, one cent. Not exactly a large money-maker but it helps pays for this newsletter. If you want to see the videos without ads and some in slightly better quality you can order the DVD set. It is nine DVDs with 15 videos on each for a total of 135 videos.  Many people want their own copy of the videos or they have a slow service and its easier to order then to watch them on-line. The DVDs make a good gift for that forager you know especially on long, cold winter months. Individual DVDs can also be ordered or you can pick and choose. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right of this page. If it is not working — the site is under construction and being updated — you can go here.

Do you know this plant? You would if you read the Green Deane Forum

Want to identify a plant? Looking for a foraging reference? Do you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object you want identified? On the Green Deane Forum we chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations around the world share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. One special section is “From the Frightening Mail Bag” where we learn from people who eat first then ask questions later. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

This is issue 275.

If you would like to donate to Eat The Weeds please click here.

The link to the university’s site to buy the book — I do not get a cut — is here.

The list of known edibles in the book is below. Many of them are covered in separate articles on site.  Click on the common name.

Page 10:   Commelina diffusa, young tips boiled in ample water, blossoms raw. Dayflowers.
Page 11:   Murdannia nudiflora, same as above.  Doveweed.
Page 14:   Cyperus esculentus, tubers, raw, boiled, roasted or candied, oil from tubers, seeds roasted as a coffee substitute. Chufa
Page 19:   Cyperus rotundus, edible after drying, fresh are an insect repellant. See above.
Page 26:   Anthoxanthum odoratum, dry leaves as tea, grain, caution as it is a blood thinner.
Page 31:   Cenchrus echinatus, use as grain after burning off spines, or winnowing between leather pads. Sandspurs.
Page 32:   Cenchrus incertus, same as above.
Page 34:   Dactyloctenium aegyptium, dry seeds to make a flour, or mush, beer et cetera. Crowfoot Grass.
Page 65:   Allium vineale, wild garlic, use like said. Wild Onion, Wild Garlic.
Page 67:   Mollugo verticillata,  leaves as potherb.
Page 71:    Amaranthus blitum, Livid Amaranth, use cooked like spinach.
Page 72:   Amaranthus hybridus, Smooth Pigweed, use cooked like spinach.
Page 73:   Amaranthus verdis, Slender Amaranth, use cooked like spinach.
Page 88:   Cirsium horridulum, all true thistles are edible, first year root raw or cooked, second year stalk peeled raw or cooked, leaves anytime peeled of spines, raw or cooked. Bull Thistle
Page 89:   Conyza canadensis, barely edible as a spice, significant medicinal. Horseweed.
Page 90:   Eclipta prostrata, young leaves and shoots cooked.
Page 91:    Emilia fosbergii, from non-flowering plant, young leaves raw, or cooked, occasional use, long-term use can cause liver tumors.
Page 92:    Erechtites hieraciifolia, raw or cooked, an acquired taste. Fireweed.
Page 103:  Hypochoeris radicata, young leaves cooked (usually boiled.) False Dandelions
Page 105:  Lactuca canadensis, young leaves cooked (usually boiled.) Lettuce Labyrinth
Page 107:  Pyrrhopappus carolinianus, young leaves cooked (usually boiled.) False dandelions.
Page 109:  Sonchus asper, young leaves cooked (usually boiled.) Sow Thistle.
Page 110:  Taraxacum officinale, young leaves cooked, blossoms as tea or to flavor wine, panckakes, roasted roots. Dandelions.
Page 113:  Youngia japonica, young leaves raw or cooked. False Hawksbeard.
Page 115:  Capsella bursa-pastoris, young leaves for seasoning or greens after boiling, seeds as pepper, grind root add to salt and vinegar for horseradish substitute. Peppergrass.
Page 116:  Cardamine hirsuta, leaves and seed pods for seasoning. The Little Mustards.
Page 117:  Coronopus didymus, leaves and seed pods for seasoning. The Little Mustards.
Page 118:  Descurainia pinnata, leaves and seed pods for seasoning. The Little Mustards.
Page 119:  Lepidium virginicum, same as Capsella bursa-pasatopris. Peppergrass.
Page 120:  Sibara virginica, young leaves and seed pods as seasoning. The Little Mustards.
Page 128:  Erodium circutarium, young leaves boiled. Stork’s Bill
Page 129:  Geranium carolinianum, young leaves boiled, very bitter, more a medicinal. Stork’s Bill
Page 130:  Glechoma hederacea, young leaves cooked, much written about this plant. Henbit
Page 131:  Lamium amplexicaule, young leaves raw or cooked. Henbit.
Page 132:  Lamium purpureum, young leaves raw or cooked. Henbit.
Page 133:  Prunella vulgaris, young leaves raw or cooked, tends to be bitter raw.
Page 134:  Stachys floridana, root edible raw or cooked, leaves dried for tea, leaves boiled as famine food, musty flavored. Florida Betony
Page 137:  Desmodium triflorum, threeflower ticktrefoil, in India traditionally boiled then mixed with dry fish. Yum. Tick Clover
Page 141:  Medicago lupulina, seeds edible, leaves edible cooked but implicated in auto-immune diseases. Iffy. Black Medic
Page 146:  Trifolium compestre, leave edible raw or cooked, blossoms, too. Family does not digest well.
Page 147:  Trifolium dubium, leaves edible raw or cooked, blossoms too. See above.
Page 148:  Trifolium repens, leaves edible raw or cooked, blossoms too. Clover.
Page 150:  Vicia sativa, seeds cooked, leaves cooked, but some reports of toxicity in the lab, not in the field.
Page 152:  Modiola caroliniana, leaves used to make a drink. Carolina Bristle Mallow
Page 154:  Boerhavia diffusa, tender young leaves and shoots – cooked and used as a vegetable, root – baked, rich in carbohydrate and protein, though the flavor is bland and the texture sometimes woody. Seeds – cooked. It can be ground into a powder and added to cereals when making bread, cakes et cetera. If the root chemically burns mouth after cooking do not eat. Red Spiderling.
Page 157:  Oxalis intermedia, leaves raw or cooked, entire plant edible. Sorrels
Page 158:  Oxalis stricta, leaves raw or cooked. See above.
Page 159:  Plantago aristata, young leaves raw or cooked, young seed spike raw or cooked, seeds raw or cooked. Plantains
Page 160:  Plantago lanceolata, same as above
Page 161:  Plantago major, same as above
Page 162:  Plantago virginica, same as above
Page 163:  Polygonum aviculare, young leaves, seeds, and blossoms, raw or cooked (probably P. caespitosum, too.) Blossom the hottest but also bitter. Large raw amounts can raise blood pressure..
Page 165:  Rumex acetosella, young leaves raw or cooked (makes a nice tartlet with sour cream.) Root – cooked. It can be dried, ground into a powder and made into noodles. Seed – raw or cooked. Easy to harvest, but the seed is rather small. A drink similar to lemonade is made by boiling the leaves. Sheep Sorrel
Page 166:  Rumex crispus, young leaves and seeds, raw or cooked, similar to above.
Page 168:  Portulaca oleracea, entire plant above ground raw or cooked. Purslane.
Page 172:  Duchesnea indica, berries raw, leaves cooked. Reports of it being poisonous are simply wrong. Indian strawberry
Page 176:  Galium aparine, young shoots and leaves raw or cooked, seed roasted make an excellent coffee substitute. Old leaves toxic with silica.  When the plant is young it stimulates the immune system and is good for the lymph system. Goosegrass.
Page 190:  Centella asiatica, Gotu Kola, leaves edible raw or cooked, better cooked. Pennyworts.
Page 191:  Daucus carota, root cooked, thin and stringy, flower clusters can be french-fried to produce a carrot-flavoured gourmet’s delight, the aromatic seed is used as a flavouring in stews et cetera, the dried roasted roots are ground into a powder and are used for making coffee substitute. Wild Carrots.
Page 192:  Hydrocotyles, young leaves raw or cooked, better cooked, too many leaves raw will lower your blood pressure. Pennyworts.
Page 193:  Parietaria floridana, young leaves, stems, flowers raw or cooked, diuretic, can make some itch, try sparingly at first. (In more than 20 years I have not met anyone who gets the itch.) Pellitory.
Page 196:  Viola, above ground parts edible raw or cooked. Romans made blossoms into wine. Root is toxic.  Violet Virtues.
Page 197:  Viola arvensis, same as above
Page 198:  Viola rafinesquii, same as above

I did not list many of the grass seeds as edible, but probably they are as I do not know of any native toxic grasses in North America.

Hairy Bittercress, one of winter’s little mustards

With temperatures in the 30’s in Ocala this past week it was no surprise to find our winter mustards making their annual appearance though I call them the Little Mustards. Prime among them is Bittercress, Cardamine hirsuta, sometimes called Hairy Bittercress. Frankly I’ve never found it bitter.

Hairy Bittercress has four-petaled mustard blossoms.

In northern climates Bittercress is a spring time herb growing into summer. Here in Florida it is a fall herb growing into winter. It is also one of the few mustards, if not the only one, you can find growing in very damp or waterlogged soil. Unlike the Western Tansy Mustard which adores dry ground and also shows up this time of year, I’ve always found Cardamine hirsuta in well-watered lawns and landscapes or wet spots. In fact this past summer, which was Florida hot as usual, several of our spring-fed streams dried to a trickle exposing much stream-bed. In the shade of a cypress tree on one of those beds an unusual summer crop of Bittercress germinated. All it needed was a bit of shade — read cooler temperatures — and a damp spot.

Bittercress is naturally leggy, whispy, even at its best at the end of a season’s worth of growth. Its prime use is as an addition to salads or soups, more flavoring than material substance. Cardamine hirsuta is one of those plants that is not substantial enough to sustain you but with it potent flavor it makes eating and thus life better. To read about our small winter mustards click here and here.

Holly berries are toxic

There were three nice finds in the Gaineville class. The first was a Yaupon Holly with a lot of berries (which are toxic but attractive.) Usually this time of year the holly tree with the most overt display of berries is the Dahoon, which is of little use to foragers. The Yapon also produces (toxic) berries, usually just a few. But we saw one Yaupon that was unusually fruitful. See the holly key below. Another find was a stand of Ringless Honey Mushrooms, without stems about four pounds worth. I also saw two Ganoderma shelf mushrooms, well-touted for their medicinal uses. Better known as Reishi mushrooms I still have to sort out which species they were. These discoveries are what can happen in a long state with three different climates, temperate, subtropical and tropical.

Ringless Honey Mushroom on oak stumps.

Mushrooms are normally not part of my classes for a variety of reasons among them most students are just beginning to learn green plants and aren’t ready for non-green ones. Mushrooms require a high level of identification discipline. Small details can mean the difference between a tasty meal, being sick or death.  Should you want to learn about an in-season mushroom — note I said learn about, I did not say eat — then the Ringless Honey Mushroom is a good one to start with. Again, note I am not recommending you eat it. I am recommending you study it if you want to move in the direction of learning about mushrooms and identifying them. Why study the Ringless Honey Mushroom? First it is in season across most of the state if not the south. It grows on wood, usually oak stumps, or on buried oak roots. Next it has definite identification elements that don’t require a microscope to sort out. It’s a good mushroom to study to learn the various parts of the plant, the terms, and what they mean. It’s more definite than ambiguous. More to the point learn about it this year and maybe next year when its season comes around again you might be able to identify it with confidence. Mushrooms are a detective story and you cannot miss a single detail. To read more about the Ringless Honey Mushroom go here.

Seed To Seed by Suzanne Ashworth

Getting Weeds to Grow when or where you want them to grow can be more complicated than one would think. It usually starts with “why didn’t that wild seed grow?” There is no easy answer. Here’s one guess. You took the wild mustard seed inside for the winter where it would be safe and warm and now it won’t grow because it needed to be outside all winter. Or those ground cherry seeds you so carefully picked and dried before the fruit rotted when the seeds needed to be in that moldy, melting fruit. Maybe you did not soak the poke berry seeds in battery acid to replicate a bird’s gut… Getting seeds — cultivated or wild — to germinate is a complex topic and worthy of entire books. Most of those books are written about cultivated species. But, they are some help to forager who want to sow or grow wild plants because most cultivated species have wild brethren. So the techniques used for say, tomatoes, usually work for ground cherries. There is more to perpetuating plants than just sticking the seeds in the ground. The one book I have on my self for reference is Seed To Seed by Suzanne Ashworth. While it cannot answer all your questions about wild seeds it does provide a lot of guidance.

Typical Florida Dandelion

One of the few foraging disappointments about moving south is Dandelions. The warmer the weather the less they like it. In Florida dandelions are 90-pound weaklings. They are small, scrawny and often sun burnt towards purple, never large luscious and happy. Yet if you look around you can find some this time of year when it is cooler and more to their liking. They are not the luscious love-to-grow plants of northern climes. Here they hide in the grass with only a dandelion blossom to give them away. To read more about dandelions go here.

Don’t forget about the Florida Herbal Conference this February 15-17 and the discount you can get by signing up early and by using the code EATTHEWEEDS. If you register by Dec. 15th and use EATTHEWEEDS that’s a 20% discount. Conferences are so educational and rewarding. You have access to high-quality information and teachers who are experienced at making it enjoyable and understandable. You also spend a few days around other similar-minded folks so you don’t have to explain yourself. You become the majority. For more information and to sign up go to: Florida Herbal Conference.

Edward demonstrating his winning, fatal competitive bug-eating form.

And now a follow up. You do remember you mother telling you to chew your food properly.  Edward Archbold apparently forgot that advice. You remember Ed, the 32-year-old man in Miami who died October 6th after winning a cockroach eating contest. The autopsy report said Archbold, 32, died of  “asphyxia due to choking and aspiration of gastric contents,” The report from the Broward County medical examiner’s office said his airway was obstructed by the roach body parts, which prevented him from breathing. Archbold died after eating the roaches as well as worms in a contest to win a pygmy python. He became ill right after the contest and collapsed in front of the store. He was pronounced dead at the hospital. About 30 people downed insects in the contest but none of the other contestants became ill. Remember, children, chew your cockroaches thoroughly.

Foraging classes: I will be having them in Winter Park, near Orlando, and in Jacksonville. Find more details by clicking here.

Because of the interest in local hollies below is a key to them.  Like many trees, hollies can be confusing to identify when you finally decided to know your trees better.

Group One

With thin, membranous leaves:

1) Leaves evergreen, entire or rarely denticulate, fruit dull purplish, to black, plants of south Florida only ….. Ilex krugiana

With deciduous leaves

1) Leaves pubescent on most of the upper surface, margins serrate, Leaf blades elliptic with a rounded leaf base, 6-9 cm long….. Ilex amelanchier
2) Leaves smooth on the upper surface, margins crenate to serrate, Leaf blades oblanceolate to ovate, 2-6 cm long, margins crenate ….. Ilex decidua
3) Leaf blades elliptic to ovate, margins serrate to crenate,

3a) Leaves with conspicuous veins, flowers and fruit appear singly or, in clusters up to 3, in the leaf axils….. Ilex verticillata

3b) Leaves without conspicuous veins, flowers and fruit appear, clustered from spur shoots ….. Ilex ambigua

Group Two

Leaves leathery, evergreen

Subgroup A: fruit red to yellow

1)  Leaf blade with sharp pointed teeth, these are usually regularly spaced ….. Ilex opaca
2) Leaf blade entire, crenate or serrulate, Leaf blades with a rounded apex ….. Ilex vomitoria
3) Leaf blades with a sharp, pointed apex, Leaf blades 1-4 cm long and usually less than 1.5 cm wide,
margins entire, tip sharp pointed ….. Ilex myrtifolia
4) Leaf blades generally longer than 4 cm and wider than 2 cm, may have a few teeth at the tip or with a single sharp point ….. Ilex cassine
Subgroup B: Fruit black

1) Leaves crenate, leaves often cupped, 3-5 cm long, ….. Ilex glabra

2) Leaves with a few small teeth, leaves somewhat cupped, 4-7 cm long, ….. Ilex coriacea

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Wood Violet Photo by Green Deane

A common blossom that’s easy to identify is the violet. It’s cultivated brethren is the pansy. There are a huge variety of violets in North America ranging from field pansies to those that like to grow down hill from the septic tank. Whether wild or cultivated violets are attractive, personable blossoms, usually on the sweet, viscous side. There are a couple of precautions, however. The first is to make sure the soil they are in — either a pot or bed — is wholesome and that the water they are getting is good. If they come from a garden center they might have pesticides on them. The other precaution is a bit more esoteric: Yellow blossoms tend to have a laxative effect. Also notice the leave are somewhat heart shaped, NOT a triangle. You can read about violets here. I have a video about them here.

Swinecress is an easy to identify winter mustard. Photo by Green Deane.

During a class seasonal mustards were also on display. Poor Man’s Pepper Grass is everywhere. Hairy Bittercress was found nearby as was Swine Cress (article here, new video here.) Also well-represented this past week was Shepherd’s Purse, Capsella bursa-pastoris, a much milder relative of Poor Man’s Pepper Grass. They have similar blossoms but differently shaped leaves and seed pods. The Shepherd’s pods look more like hearts than “purses.” One interesting aspect about Shepherd’s Purse is that I personally have never seen it growing south of the Ocala area. It’s found in 18 northern counties of Florida, one west central Florida county, Hillsborough, one southern Florida county, Dade, and throughout North America. It’s just kind of sparse in the lower half of the state. Also not see yet this season is Western Tansy Mustard. You find it in dry, sandy places like

Stinging Nettles are making their seasonal debut. Photo by Green Deane

Our mighty stinging nettles are up. They’re one of the most popular wild edibles.The most powerful stinging nettle is in New Zealand (Urtica ferox) which kills animals and has claimed at least one human life. Our nettle, Urtica chamaedryoides, has a sting like a giant wasp and can burn for days or more. While its common name is a deceptive, “Heartleaf Nettle” its botanical gets to the point, “Stinging Dwarf.” Quite edible but you must handle it with care. If this particular species stings me it is not only extremely painful but a welt develops and the site is sensitive to temperature changes and any liquid for more than a week. The irritant compounds are histamines and acetocholines.  Apparently I am quite sensitive to them though I can eat the plant raw or cooked (crushing the needles disarms them.) Also don’t confuse this plant with another stinging plant called the Spurge Nettle, Cnidoscolus stimulosus (video here ).  That has an edible root but the leaves are usually not eaten. To learn more about the Heartleaf Nettle go here. For a video, here.

The purge Nettle is well armed. Photo by Green Deane

Don’t confuse the stringing nettle with the spurge nettle.The sting of the Cnidoscolus stimulosus, or spurge nettle, is more like a sun burn than a sting. The area it touches gets hot for about an hour, not unbearably so, and then it goes away. If there is a saving grace to its sting, in comparison, it is that the sting isn’t too bad and goes away rather quickly. The stinging nettles (Urtica)  are seasonal, the spurge nettle (Cnidoscolus)  is nearly year-round. It is not quite the problem plant that the Urticas are, but that is a matter of debate and opinion.

Spruge Nettle root, photo by Green Deane

A young mother wrote to me asking how to get rid of the spurge nettle. She said she had a couple of acres and the plants were all over the place, bothering her children and her dog.  I wrote back and said “lucky you. The roots are quite delicious, eat them.” She replied saying that I just did not understand her. She wasn’t interested in eating them; She wants to get rid of them. I told her that I had two good students living very near her who would love to visit her property on a regular basis and dig them up. I added that she could mow the area constantly and in a few years the roots will become exhausted and the plants will die off.

The exchange led me to wonder what was missing? Or better still, what is, as they used to say, the operant factor? That factor is for most people food comes from a store.  Said another way food just does not come out of the ground in your suburban back yard. Even gardeners are viewed as a throwback and a tad eccentric. Here is someone who has a replenishing pantry of a staple crop that must be gotten rid of. Those spurge nettle roots easily could represent hundreds of pounds of wholesome, tasty, starch-based food most of the year that does not have to be purchased or stored. Perhaps it is time to consider a different approach: Train the dog and kids to stay away from the plants, kind of have your plants and eat them, too? To read about the spurge nettle go here.

Foraging classes are held rain, shine, hot or cold. Photo by Nermina Krenata

Foraging classes span mid-state this weekend, from the west coast to tidal water on the east coast. 

Saturday January 14th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park.

Sunday January 15th the Princess Place Preserve, 2500 Princess Place Rd, Palm Coast, FL 32137, 9 a.m. Meet at the parking lot in the middle.

 Saturday January 21th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte, 9 a.m. meet at the parking lot at Bayshore and Ganyard street. 

Sunday January 22nd, Red Bug Slough, 5200 S. Beneva Road, Sarasota. 9 a.m. Meet at the playground.

For more information, to pre-pay or sign up go here. 

Hairy Bitter Cress hays “tooth pick” seed pods.

Weed Seeds: You can plant many weed seeds to get a crop of edible weeds closer to home, if not in your own yard (now you know why my putting-green neighbors loathe me.) Weeds are designed to take care of themselves and do quite well even when ignored. I have planted wild radish, peppergrass, chickeweed, purslane and crowsfoot grass on my “lawn” and they have done quite well. Many weeds can be planted in your garden. Chinopodiums and amaranth are two that need very little encouraging. Make them a row, barely cover the seeds with soil and you will have a mess o’ greens. Mustards are a bit pickier to grow. Their seeds, such as peppergrass, should be stored in a dry area for about four months between 50 and 68 degrees F for optimum germination.  A cellar stairs is just about perfect for that, or outdoors in a Florida winter. Other seeds need special treatment.

My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out and replaced by 171-videos on a 128-GB USB, see right.  The USB videos are the same videos I have on You Tube. Some people like to have their own copy especially if social order falters.  The USB videos have to be copied to your computer to play. If you want to order the USB go to the DVD/USB order button on the top right of this page or click here. That will take you to an order form. Or you can make a $99 donation, which tells me it is for the USB (include a snail-mail address.)  I’d like to thank all of you who ordered the DVD set over the years which required me to burn over 5,000 DVDs individually. I had to stop making them as few programs now will read the ISO files to copy them. Burning a set also took about three hours. 

Want to identify a plant?  Perhaps you’re looking for a foraging reference? You might have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane and others from around the world — chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. Recent topics include: Stale Bread and Cod Liver Oil, Killing Bugs with Tobacco Plugs, Eating weeds: Is it safe? Have they mutated? Not the Eastern Red Bug but the Pink Tabebuia, African Tulip Tree, Asparagus densiflorus, Green Deane’s Book… You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

This is my weekly newsletter #539. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page. My website, EatTheWeeds.com, which is data secure, has over 1500 plants on it in some 428 articles. I wrote every one myself, no cut and paste. 

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Cardamine pensylvanica: Petite Pot Herb

The first time I saw Bittercress I knew it had to be an edible. I just didn’t know which one.

Bittercress

How did I know? Plants are in families and it looked like a lot of wild edible plants in the Brassica family, or Cruciferae:  Scrawny, leggy, skinny little leaves, minute four-petaled flowers, seeds in a pod on stems, peppery leaves.  The only odd element was I found it in very wet soil, next to a stream. Come to find out, it likes rich, damp soil, and a close relative that looks very much alike, likes dry terrain.

Cardamine pensylvanica (yes one “N” in pensylvanica thanks to the dead language of Latin) really isn’t bitter, or at least the ones I’ve had haven’t been. Actually several Cardamines are available in the United States and at least four in Florida, C. pensylvanica, C. parvifolia, C flexuosa and C. concatenata. Other ones found and consumed in the U.S. are C. hirsuta, C. amara, C. oligosperma and C. pratensis, for leaves; and C. rhomboidea and C. diphylla for their leaves and/or roots.

It is not at all unusual for the roots of such plants to be ground up and mixed with vinegar and salt to make a horseradish kind of sauce. I’ve done it often with the roots of the Lepidium virginicum, or Poor Man’s Pepper Grass.

If you find a Cardamine in Florida growing where it is quite dry it is probably the C. parvifolia. If wet, then probably the C. hirsuta (see separate entry.)  Incidentally, there are four endangered species of Cardamine in the U.S.  (C. constancei, C. incisa, C. micranthera and C. pattersonii) so harvest conscientiously.

While C. pensylvanica is the most common locally the only native one is C. concatenata, or Cutleaf Bittercress. The Iroquois used it as food, raw, with salt or cooked. It was also used as a medicine. They mashed the roots and used them to treat headaches, colds, to encourage the appetite, for heart problems and injuries. It was also considered slightly hallucinogenic.

The botanical name, Cardamine pensylvanica, is said kar-DAM-in-ee pen-sil-VAN-ee-ka. You will also see kar-da-MY-neez, which is the British way of saying it. Cardamine is from the Greek word kardamis, for a kind of cress. Contemporary Greeks call cress κάδαμο  (KAR-tha-moe.)  Pensylvanica means “of Pennsylvania, or Eastern North America. Parvifolia (par-vee-FOH-lee-uh) means small leaf.  Concatenata (kon-kan-teh-NAH-tuh) means linked or chained together. Hirsuta means hairy, referring to the lower stems.

Thee are some 150 species in the genus and are found at every location on the rotation except the Antarctic. The leaves vary greatly from plant to plant, species to species, from minute to medium-sized, pinnate to bipinnate, basal to cauline (growing on the upper part of the stem.) The edges of the leaves smooth or toothy. And you have just to got to love those arguing botanists. The genus Dentaria and the genus Cardamine are the same genus, just different egos at conflict.

Under cultivation C. pensylvanica can be coaxed to grow to more than a yard high and wide. A perennial herb, it can be trained into round shrub. Oddly, when raised intentionally it does not like to be wet and one has to water it moderately.

Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile

IDENTIFICATION:

Scraggly plant to two feet, weak taproot, flowers white, tiny, about 1/16 to 1/8 inch across. Silique seed pods, elongate, narrow, middle membrane,  many seeds. Basal leaves and middle leaves long, deeply lobed, with great variation. Leaves have three distinct veins.  Stems  multiple, upright or spreading, branched, green to purplish, round to angled in cross-section, hairy towards base.  Upper stem can be non-hair, lower stem can have fuzz.

TIME OF YEAR:

Flowers April to October, leaves and seed pods for several months

ENVIRONMENT:

C. pensylvanica  prefers wet feet, C. parvifolia likes it dry

METHOD OF PREPARATION:

Young leaves raw, older leaves cooked, seed pods raw or pickled, some roots can make a good horseradish substitute.