Search: Ringless Honey mushroom

Allium canadense also called Meadow Garlic, the blue blossoms are spiderwort (also edible.) Photo by Green Deane

Wild Garlic usually cloves in April making it easier to spot. Photo by Green Deane

It’s April and locally that means wild garlic month. Allium canadense, starts its annual cycle in December. For several months is looks like grass with a small onion bulb. Then approaching April it puts three or more cloves on top making it quite distinct. One does not find this species often but when you do it is usually prolific. We marveled over them last week during a foraging class at Eagle Lake in Largo. They can be found in several locations near Gainesville, and a few east of Orlando. Email me if you want more specific locations. (GreenDeane@gmail.com)

The cloves can be used like commercial garlic (as can the rest of the plant.) Or they can be used like seeds to grow more garlic. The species like sunny damp spots (roadside ditches is a favored location.) The onion bulb on the bottom end is often about six inches deep in the soil. Further north in the South there is allium carolinianum which is actually native to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, western China, and Mongolia not the carolinas. It is far taller around two feet and has smaller cloves. It is also a prime example of why plant name’s can or cannot be changed. As it is native to western Asia and not the Carolinanas, the specie name cannot be changed because the region is wrong. There has to be a botanical reason to change a name. Pinus palustris has the same problem. Palustris means it likes to grow in swamps whereas it prefers dry soil. Just because the location is wrong the name can’t be changed. You can watch my video on wild garlic here.

These prime Ringless Honey Mushrooms are cespitose, all growing out of one spot. Photo by Green Deane

Maybe it’s about time to make a prediction. Locally we had several inches of chilly rain.  The ground temperature has not greatly warmed up from winter, nights are still cool. It is April. Those are acceptable conditions for a spring flush of edible Ringless Honey Mushroom. They don’t do it every April but the conditions might be right this year. Ground temperature and rain directly affect fungi production. Cool rain and cool ground in April equals Ringless Honey Mushrooms. Warm rain and warm ground in May/June equals Chanterelles.  

Ringless Honey Mushrooms have a good texture and taste. Photo by Green Deane

“Honeys” come with some conditions and warnings. Not all people can eat them. I know at least four folks for whom Honeys give severe gastro-intestinal distress, to put it mildly. This includes cooking them twice such as parboiling them first then frying. So the first time you try Honeys eat only a small amount. Next is method of preparation. Some people can’t eat them just fried, they have to parboil them first then fry them. I just fry them but much longer than store-bought button mushrooms. And parts…. most folks eat just young caps. They use the stems for flavoring. Honeys, in my opinion, is a good stewing mushroom. They holds its flavor and texture in a wet medium though frying the caps is my most common means of cooking them. Once they are cooked then I add other ingredients to the pan. I have a video about them  here  and an article. 

The Eastern Coral Bean is easy to spot this time of year. Photo by Green Denne

Also blossoming this time of year is the Eastern Coral Bean, sometimes called the Cherokee Bean. What is odd about this plant is the edible flowers produce toxic beans.  So we do not eat the red and black beans. A few of the red blossoms are edible raw — with precautions — but they are usually boiled then mixed with other foods notably scrambled eggs. When you boil the blossoms they turn light green. The distinctive uterine shape of the leaves makes the shrub easy to identify. Young leaves are edible boiled but are marginal fare. Like Pawpaws they prefer dry, sunny places. A few raw red blossoms seem okay but if eaten in larger amounts they can be mind altering and approaching dangerous. Boiled they are fine. (Juice from the shrub’s stems, by the way, has been used to treat scorpion stings and the toxic beans have a chemical that is close in structure to the alkaloid curare which can cause breathing paralysis.)  You can see my video about the species here or read more about the Eastern Coral Bean here. 

Marlberries aren’t too edible. Photo by Green Deane

Marlberries and I don’t meet too often, about once or twice a year and then usually while I’m conducting a class so I don’t have the time to get acquainted better. There is also a certain lack of motivation because even at its best marlberry is not a great trailside nibble. A complicating headache is there are several malberries of varying quality. They are also related to the invasive species Coral Berry, Ardisia crenata, which has been implicated in cattle poisoning. Reportedly found mid-Florida and south I have found Marlberries in Dreher Park in West Palm Beach, LaStrange Preserve in Ft. Pierce, and Emerson Point near Sarasota.  Around the same time and in the same habitat you find Marlberries you can also see Rapanea punctata, Colicwood, one of those mystery pants one finds in wet woods this time of year. It looks like a drab cross between a mangrove and a beautyberry and used to be called Myrsine guianensis. Colicwood’s small yellow blossoms and black fruit grow directly on the branches, helping you identify it. There’s not a whole lot of literature on the species so the berries are probably not edible. As it is called “Colicwood” suggest some medicinal uses. To read more about the Marlberry and its strange relatives go here.

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

Foraging classes: Steady weather prompts more foraging classes:

Saturday, April 13th, Red Bug Slough 5200 S. Beneva Road, Sarasota. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the parking lot.

Sunday, April 14th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Meet at Ganyard Road and Bayshore. 9 a.m. to noon.

Saturday, April 20th, Blanchard Park,  2451 Dean Rd, Union Park, FL 32817, meet beside the tennis courts, 9 a.m. to noon.

Sunday, April 21st, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL, meet at the dog park. 9 a.m. to noon.

Saturday, April 27th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  Meet at the bathrooms. 9 a.m. to noon.

Sunday, April 28th, Colby-Alderman Park: 1099 Massachusetts Street, Cassadaga. Fla. 32706. meet at the bathrooms, 9 a.m. to noon. 

Saturday, May 4th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park. 9 to noon. 

Sunday, May 5th, Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St.,  Gainesville, FL 32641. Meet at the picnic tables next to the pump house. 9 a.m. to noon.

For more information on these classes, to prepay or sign up go here. 

Pineapple Guava blossoms are always attractive. Photo by Green Deane

Also starting to blossom is the Pineapple guava. Perhaps no ornamental has been championed as much as the Pineapple Guava, aka Feijoa,  Acca sellowiana, Feijoa sellowiana. However the perfect shrub for many places never really caught on. There could be several reasons. It probably didn’t help that the Strawberry Guava is a severe invasive species in some locations.  The shrub also does not get showy. You have to hunt for the extroverted blossoms. While the entire blossom is edible most people only eat the petals. Five or six months from now they will be dark green fruit that stay green as they ripen. They just get softer. The shrub is easy to identify when in blossom. To read more about both guavas, go here.

Green Deane Forum

Want to identify a plant? The Green Dean Forum is up and running again. Have you come to dislike Facebook, then join us on the forum. 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. 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. 

You get the USB, not the key.

172-video USB would be a good end of spring present and is now $99. My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out. The USB videos are the same videos I have on You Tube. Some people like to have their own copy.  Most of the 172 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. That will take you to an order form. 

Finally, a physical copy of the book.

Now in its second printing is EatTheWeeds, the book. It has 275 plants, 367 pages, index, nutrition charts and color photos. It’s available in many locations including Amazon.  Most of the entries include a nutritional profile.  It can also be ordered through AdventureKeen Publishing.

This is weekly newsletter #596. 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.

To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

This is a common place to find mustard or radish plants, a streak of yellow blossoms beside the road. Photo By Green Deane

Some years the seasonal changes happen with regularity. This year has been irregular. Though cooler weather has yet to arrive locally Wild Mustard and Ringless Honey mushrooms are ahead of schedule. Indeed, the mustard is blossoming, and the mushrooms are weeks ahead of their usual time. Conversely, edible persimmons are late this year. That all makes one wonder how the winter weather might vary from the usual this year.

Blossoms can range from yellow to white. Photo by Green Deane

Mustards in the warm south likelate fall they do and I usually start writing about them in late November. In season you can see Wild Mustards and Wild Radish not only along roadsides but in various fields from farm land to ignored citrus groves. The two species are used interchangeably and look similar. However Wild Radishes tend to be serpentine rather than straight and tall like Wild Mustard. They also have lumpy seed pods, or, more lumpy than mustard seed pods. Usually you will find a stand of one or the other. I don’t recall ever finding both in the same patch. Blossom colors can range from yellow to white with streaks of purple. But the leaves always have the biggest lobe on the end farthest from the plant. Look for them in sunny areas with fertile soil. Not native they came from Eurasia in the 1700s. And note the seeds can remain viable in the soil for up to 60 years. To read more Wild Radish go here, and for Wild Mustard, here.  

These hibiscus blossoms never open. Photo by Green Deane

We saw several species blooming this past weekend in my foraging classes. The Hibiscus were happy including the “Sleepy Hibiscus.” It’s a fairly easy shrub to identify because the bright red blossoms never unfurl. Also blossoming was the Bauhinia. It’s a tree that is both easy and challenging at the same time. The blossoms are edible, look nice in salads. Some of the species have edible seeds and some do not. (They are in the pea family and most pea trees — most not all — do not have edible seeds.) Sorting out which Bauhinia you have can be a challenge, nearly as bad as sorting out which Cereus you have. Like the Cereus cactus there are several man-made Bauhinia hybrids and perhaps even some fake botanical names. It can make species identification a real headache though as far as I know all the blossoms are edible. Only “discovered” 111 years ago the blossom of the Bauhinia blakeana is the emblem of Hong Kong. You can read about the Bauhinia here.

Tropical Almond’s “kernel” photo by Green Deane.

Tropical Almonds are now on Mother Nature’s dining table and we ate some during our recent foraging class in West Palm Beach. Terminalia catappa, which is really subtropical and not at all an almond, produces edible fruits for a few months. The ripe rind is edible as well as the “almond” inside which is really a little embryonic tree. It tastes like coconut9 blended with almonds. The only problem is the buoyant dry shells are quite tough and require a hammer or a couple of rocks to crack open. (For those who don’t know Florida does not have rocks. You can’t just rummage around and find a pair of rocks to break seed shells with.) There is some labor involved with eating Tropical Alomonds but they are still calorie positive. I usually have a couple of pieces of concrete hidden near this particular tree to get to the treat. To read more about the Tropical Almond go here.

Can two people independently come up with the same bad idea? The answer is yes when the idea is Daylight Savings Time, which we leave Nov 5th. A bug collector and a golfer in different parts of the world came up with the idea of Daylight Savings Time, and were correctly ignored until World War I. We flip forth and back every spring and fall though it now costs us more than it saves… Daylight Wasting Time or Daylight Slaving Time, take your pick… Only the government would cut a foot off one end of a blanket, sew it on to the other end and call the blanket longer. Personally I loathe the flipping and stopped doing so some 25 years ago. I stay on solar (standard) time and ignore Daylight Savings Time. So in a few days we will agree again. Not flipping is easy. I don’t change when I eat, go to bed, or feed the animals. I just ignore it. To read more about  time change click here or here.  Florida wrongly voted to stay on daylight savings time to avoid the flipping. But, as DST is a federal program the state needs congressional approval to opt out. Whereas no congressional permission is needed to stay on standard time. Hence, DST will haunt us again next spring. 

We’ve also been digging up a lot of wing Yam roots (Dioscorea alata.) While there are six species of “yams” locally the Winged Yam is the biggest caloric payoff. And it is a true yam not a variety of sweet potato (Ipomoea) which are improperly called “yams” and sold in cans and whole in grocery stores. Also called “Yam A” on my website   we are interested in eating its root not its distinctive dark brown “air potatoes.” The plant’s root can grow to many pounds — 30 unattended, 150 cultivated —  and is right below the surface usually. Boil it like a potato first then use like a potato. Its dark brown, misshapen “air potatoes” are quite visible this time of year hanging on the vine making it easy to find. As it’s seasonal demise is triggere by daylight hours you should be able to find it for a couple of more monhts. You can read more about the Winged Yam and others  here.

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

Foraging Classes:  The Wekiva Trail class also visits the Little Wekiva Rive Saturday.

Oct 28th, Seminole Wekiva Trail, Sanlando Park, 401 West Highland St. Altamonte Springs, Florida 32714.  9 a.m., meet at first parking lot on right.

Oct 29th  Blanchard Park,  2451 Dean Rd, Union Park, FL 32817 9.a.m. met at the pavilion by the tennis courts.

To read more about the classes, to pre-pay or sign up, go here. 

You get the USB, not the key.

150-video USB would be a good end of spring present and is now $99. My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out. The USB videos are the same videos I have on You Tube. Some people like to have their own copy.  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. That will take you to an order form. 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. 

Green Deane Forum

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. 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.

Now being printed is EatTheWeeds, the book. It should have 275 plants, 350-plus pages, index and color photos. Several hundred have been preordered on Amazon. And it is being printed now. Most of the entries include a nutritional profile. Officially it will be published December 5th (to suit the publisher publicity demands) and apparently to appeal to the winter market.

This is weekly newsletter #577. 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.

Persimmon leaves are ultra high in vitamin C. Photo by Green Deane.

It is the bountiful time of year. This past week, we ate ripe persimmons, creeping cucumbers, winged yams, drying sea grapes, purslane, cocoaplums, sugar berries, fire bush, wild coffee, yellow pond lilies, podocarpus arils, ringless honey mushrooms, milk caps, and a couple controversial Armatillo (solanum diphyllum) 

The star right now is persimmons. Locally they can ripen as early as late August, as late as January though October is prime time. Usually the best ones are on the ground but as the end of the season approaches, sweet non-astringent fruit can be found on the trees. The ringless honey mushrooms are pushing the season, locally they are a common sight the second week in November. (Just remember to first eat just one cooked as a test, not all digestive systems like them.) 

Classes are held rain or shine (but not during hurricanes.)

Foraging Classes: rain become less of an issue for classes as we move into fall, but cooler weather makes itself known.

Oct 21 Bayshore Live Oak Park, Port Charlotte, 9 a.m., meet at the parking lot at Byshore Drive and ganyard Street. 

Oct 22nd Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  Meet at the bathrooms, 9 a.m.

Oct 28th, Seminole Wekiva Trail, Sanlando Park, 401 West Highland St. Altamonte Springs, Florida 32714.  9 a.m., meet at first parking lot on right.

Oct 29th  Blanchard Park,  2451 Dean Rd, Union Park, FL 32817 9.a.m. met at the pavilion by the tennis courts

To read more about the classes, to pre-pay or sign up, go here. 

Nustoc is an uncommon find.

Besides the Armatillo, another controversial discussion this week involved nustoc. It is best describe as large green algae one finds in fields or the like, often dried. It can contain a lot of potential cyanide. About the only way to tell if your nustoc is edible is that people locally have been eating it for centuries, as is the case in China and Peru. It is part of some famous Asian cuisine, and is sold commercially. I’ve never had the courage to eat the species I’ve found locally. Worse, scientists think not all of the potential forms of the cyanide is known, thus lab testing won’t prove a species is edible. It’s a case for now of look but don’t eat. 

In the old cartoon series BC, Wiley, a peg-legged curmudgeon, was the strip’s philosopher. One day he opined: “The bravest man I ever saw was the first one who ate an oyster raw.” He could have easily penned “who ate nostoc raw.”  

Nostoc can resemble a pile of disintegrating dog scat. Not exactly appetizing. If you add that there are some 300 hard-to-identify species Nustoc barely creeps into the realm of edible. As one might presume in parts of the world where there are billions to feed they eat it.  Perhaps the easiest place to find locally it is on the ground cover one walks on in nurseries. Apparently it is the cause of much slipping and falls. In the wild I see it now and then in high and dry ground with much water nearby and moisture in the air. It is particularly common near Haul Over Canal on the northwest scrubby side.

Nostoc was a mystery for centuries as folks thought it was alien and was seen after a variety of celestial events. We now know it is an algae plumped up by passing rain. Some flies like to lay eggs in it, apparently with bad effects. An article in the 2008 Journal of Ethnopharmacology reported in the Peruvian highlands Nostoc commune, when eaten as food, can produce the neurotoxic amino acid BMMA. From the Abstract:

Is Nostoc a no-no? Photo by Green Deane

“In the mountains of Peru, globular colonies of Nostoc commune (Nostocales) are collected in the highland lakes by the indigenous people, who call them llullucha. They are consumed locally, traded for maize, or sold, eventually entering the folk markets of Cusco and other neighboring cities. Throughout highland Peru, Nostoc commune is highly salient as a seasonal dietary item, being eaten alone, or in picante — a local stew — and is said to be highly nutritious. Nostoc commune has been known to produce unusual amino acids, including those of the mycosporine group, which possibly function to prevent UV damage. We analyzed 21 different Nostoc commune spherical colonies from 7 different market collections in the Cusco area for the presence of beta-N-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA), a neurotoxic amino acid produced by diverse taxa of cyanobacteria, using four different analytical techniques (HPLC-FD, UPLC-UV, UPLC/MS, LC/MS/MS). We found using all four techniques that BMAA was present in the samples purchased in the Peruvian markets. Since BMAA has been putatively linked to neurodegenerative illness, it would be of interest to know if the occurrence of ALS, Alzheimer’s, or Parkinson’s Disease is greater among individuals who consume llullucha in Peru.”  This was echoed in a Chinese study pondering its possible involvement with Alkzheimer’s.

Some have argued this is also why you should also not eat Alfalfa or Black Medic because of BMAA. Other studies disagree, such as “Toxicity and bioaccumulation of two non-protein amino acids synthesised by cyanobacteria, β-N-Methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA) and 2,4-diaminobutyric acid (DAB), on a crop plant.” (Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, 15 January 2021.)  All that said there is a general rule about algae and that is never eat blue-green algae. Green yes, blue-green never. A nitrogen fixer, you can read more about  Nostoc here. 

Has toxic seed oil.

Is it edible? Yes, no, maybe… The Chinese Tallow tree is both banned and championed. It’s edibility is also linked to why it’s even in the United States to begin with.  The tree was imported by none other than Ben Franklin (well… he sent some seeds to a friend.)  The purpose was to use the white external seed fat for making candles which beef suet, tallow, was once used for. Hence the tree’s name in English. In theory that small coating of saturated fat on the outside of the seed is edible. It is also very stable. But there are two problems. It can be very difficult to remove and inside the seed there is an oil toxic to humans. So the fat and the oil should not mix. Some people have experimented with crushing the entire seed and heating the mash thus melting the saturated fat along with releasing the toxic oil. When they settle the edible fat and the non-edible oil are separated.  In China, where the tree is valued, they steam the white saturated fat off. The tree, while an invasive species in some areas of North America — such as Florida — is being considered as a good candidate for bio-fuel. You can read my article about it here about it here. A later magazine article about the species is here.   

Caesarweed is in the hibiscus group.

Caesarweed is a common sight locally but right now it is being a seasonal extrovert and blossoming profusely. Like the Chinese Tallow tree above, Caesar Weed is another plant intentionally imported for industrial use, in its case making fiber for burlap bags and the like. It’s not strong enough to make a sturdy rope like Skunk Vine (which is also blossoming now and was imported to make rope.) But if thrown in water and allowed to rot for a few weeks long blast fibers are left over. The tasteless flowers are edible, the seeds can be ground and used like corn starch, and the leaves have medicinal uses besides being a famine food. Young sprouts are edible raw. Mature leaves are hairy and upset the tummy. You can read about Caesar Weed here or see a video I did on it here.

Young iguana: photo by Green Deane

Seen but not tasted in West Palm Beach were iguanas. This little one watched us as we looked at some deadly Rosary Pea. Iguanas are quite edible and there are several way to capture them. One is to wait for cold weather, they will fall out of trees in front of you. Just don’t do what one hungry fellow did a couple of winters ago. He collected several cold adult  iguanas and put them in his car. As he drove home the heat in the car warmed them into defensive activity. To read more about them my article, Ignite of the the Iguana is here. 

You get the USB, not the key.

150-video USB would be a good end of spring present and is now $99. My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out. The USB videos are the same videos I have on You Tube. Some people like to have their own copy.  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. That will take you to an order form. 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. 

Green Deane Forum

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. 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.

Now being printed is EatTheWeeds, the book. It should have 275 plants, 350-plus pages, index and color photos. Several hundred have been preordered on Amazon. And it is being printed now. Most of the entries include a nutritional profile. Officially it will be published December 5th (to suit the publisher publicity demands) and apparently to appeal to the winter market.

This is weekly newsletter #576. 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.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Sea Rocket is ending its seasonal run. Photo by Green Deane

Ringless Honey Mushrooms grow from one crowded spot. Photo by Green Deane

The seasonal changing weather of April prompts changes in some forageables. Rain showers and cold nights can create a spring-time flush of ringless honey mushrooms. (left) There have been some reports of said on my Florida Mushroom Identification Forum on Facebook. And Sunday on the beach at Lori Wilson Park in Cocoa Beach we saw Sea Rocket (above) in transition, going to seed as we leave behind the cooler months all mustards prefer.

Sea Lettuce is perhaps the best of our local seaweeds.

On-shore winds from cold fronts on the west coast also allowed us to harvest sea lettuce in Port Charlotte Saturday. Sea Lettuce has something in common with wild mushrooms, it can’t be harvested in the wild and sold to restaurants. Long ago the way Florida decided to assure quality food supplies was to put a packing agency between sources of food and the sale there of. Thus it became the job of packing agencies to assure the food was what it said it was and was also of the quality to eat. So years ago when a restaurant in Port Canaveral had a sea lettuce salad made with Ulva lactuca, it was commercially grown lactuca not a wild harvest. For those curious the sea lattuce salad was a light delicate repast with sesame seed oil, chopped walnuts, water chestnuts and a few oyther Asian vegetables. Sea Lettuce is only two cells thick and mild in flavor. So additions provide the flavors. 

Eastern Coral Beans are easy to find this time of year. Photo by Green Deane

It is time to mention again Eastern Coral Bean, sometimes called the Cherokee Bean. What is odd about this plant is the edible flowers produce toxic beans.  So we do not eat the red and black beans. A few of the red blossoms are edible raw — with precautions — but they are usually boiled then mixed with other foods notably scrambled eggs. When you cook the blossoms they turn light green. The distinctive uterine shape of the leaves makes the shrub easy to identify. Young leaves are edible cooked (boiled) but are marginal fare. Like Pawpaws they prefer dry, sunny places. A few raw red blossoms seem okay but if eaten in larger amounts they can be mind altering and approaching dangerous. Boiled they are fine. (Juice from the shrub’s stems, by the way, has been used to treat scorpion stings and the toxic beans have a chemical that is close to the alkaoid curare which can cause breathing paralysis.)  You can see my video about the species here or read more about the Eastern Coral Bean here. 

Pineapple Guava blossoms are always showy. Photo by Green Deane

Perhaps no ornamental has been championed as much as the Pineapple Guava, aka Feijoa,  Acca sellowiana, Feijoa sellowiana. However the perfect shrub for many places never really caught on. There could be several reasons. It probably didn’t help that the Strawberry Guava is a severe invasive species in some locations.  The Pineapple guava also does not get showy. You have to hunt for the extroverted blossoms. While the entire blossom is edible most people only eat the petals. Leaves can be made into a tea. Five or six months from now the fruit will be dark green and stay green as they ripen. The fruit just get softer. The shrub is easy to identify when in blossom, and it is blossoming now. Look for it in parks. To read more about both guavas, go here.

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

April 22nd, Saturday, George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, FL, 34981, 9 a.m. to noon. 

April 23rd, Sunday,  Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789. 9 a.m. to noon 

Sunday April 29th, Eagle Lake Park, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park. 9 a.m.

Bring cash on the day of class or  click here to pay for your class

Tribulus terrestris is marginally edible. Photo by Green Deane

No leave it alone. Puncture vine, is a common low-growing sight now in park lawns. Cheery-looking, it is a questionable weight-lifting supplement in that it can shrink testes. The usual explanation is Tribulus terrestris — which is marginally edible — provides testosterone thus the gonads do not need to make it naturally so they give up the ghost so to say and shrink… permanently. A relative Kallstroemia maxima has the basic birth control pill hormone diosgenin. As Kallstroemia and Tribulus are closely related I would not make it a habit to eat or use either a lot whether male or female.  I also question the fogginess of several references regarding plant hormones T. terrestris, which can stimulate testosterone production, is different than K. maxima which has diosgenin. That hormone was originally isolated in yams and used to make birth control pills. More to the point calling K. maxima a green viagra” as some writers do, would seem to be heading in the wrong direction with the wrong sex. The entire plant has been reported as a contraceptive for women. That’s quite chemical difference than being an analogue molecule for or stimulant for testosterone. Diosgenin can through several bodily processes end up as testosterone but it can also end up as estrogen. Puncture Vine might be all right as a food now and then but uses beyond that — such as dried and as a supplement or tea — should come under close chemical scrutiny.

You get the USB, not the key.

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. 

Green Deane Forum

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 #554. 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. 

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Sometimes foraging takes you up. Photo by Green Deane

Foraging occasionally  is not for the faint of heart. Sometimes you have to climb trees or diving ditches. The reward is free treasure. After Sunday’s class we visited four loquat trees and took home a bounty… standing on vehicles to get the top fruit. Then we went exploring for watercress, finding a lot of basswood trees in the process. Use their leaves like lettuce.

Eastern Coral Beans are easy to find this time of year. Photo by Green Deane

Every Spring another edible is easy to identify: Coral bean, or Eastern Cherokee Bean, which is semi-toxic. It’s blossoming habit reveals its hiding places. The blossoms are edible raw in moderation or cooked. They have a long history in central American cuisine. The problem is the beans the blossom create are dangerous and should not be eaten. Young leaves cooked are also edible. As one might suspect the shrub attracts humming birds. It is wind and salt tolerant and is a common find on barrier islands, near the beaches. A Japanese study published in the Journal of Natural Medicines, 29 Jan 2008, confirmed six antioxidants in the coral bean flower. I boil flowers for 15 minutes in plenty of water. They turn green and limp when cooked and reduce in size so collect a lot. The flavor is mild, like young spinach. You can read about it here.

Ripe Americanum solanum berries are edible. Photo by Green Deane

We’ve also seen a lot of fruiting American Nightshade. While the ripe berries are edible many have learned that they are toxic so it remains a controversial plant. There are basically three reasons why the plant is controversial. Early American botanists made a lot of assumption about the species presuming they were toxic like European species. Complicating the issue was a proliferation of botanical names over the centuries so it was difficult for researchers to know if they were discussing the same plant. And the unripe berries can make you ill.   What I look for when identifying this species is green shiny berries that a mottled and flecked with white. They ripen to dark purple. They are all at the end of the peduncle (stem.) It also has blossoms which occasionally go backwards, see photo left.  

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

Foraging Classes: Weather this month should be good for foraging and it is a prime time of year to look for wild edible. 

Saturday March 11th, Blanchard Park, 2451 Dean Rd, Union Park, FL 32817, 9 a.m. meet by the tennis courts.

Sunday March 12th,Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St.,  Gainesville, FL 32641. Meet at the pavilion by the pump house. 9 a.m.

Saturday March 18th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park 9 a.m.

Sunday March 19th, Bayshore Live Oak Park Park, Bayshore Drive, Port Charlotte, Meet at the parking lot at Bayshore and Ganyard Street. 9 a.m.

Saturday March 25th, Mead Garden, 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  Meet at the bathrooms. 9 na.m.

Sunday March 26th, Eagle Lake Park, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park. 9 a.m.

Bring cash on the day of class or  click here to pay for your class

Blueberries, Roan Mt. North Carolina.

It’s not June that’s busting out all over but rather Vacciniums, mostly blueberries. Last week I had the opportunity to see V. elliottii in south Georgia. This Sunday we saw V. myrsinites and V. darrowii in bloom. Expect ripe berries in a month to six weeks. Blackberries were also in full bloom this week. They also usually are ripe sometime in April. And if we get ten days of good rain in the next three weeks look for a second flush of Ringless Honey Mushrooms. The seasons are not static. 

You get the USB, not the key.

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. 

Green Deane Forum

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 #548. 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. 

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Turkey soup with Peppergrass for flavoring and pot herb. Photo by Green Deane

Your salad days are supposed to be your best days. We saw that for foraging last weekend. Despite the frigid weather it is the salad greenery time of year. Besides salad plants there are also plants for fermentation, tea, and flavoring. As of last week the only seasonal plants we didn’t see were chickweed, henbit, and western tansy mustard.

This is the common place to find mustard or radish plants this time of year, a streak of yellow blossoms beside the road. Photo By Green Deane

Many of the plants starting their seasonal run are spring or summer plants in more northern climates. It is too hot locally for them to grow in the our spring or summer, so they opt for winter. Several members of the mustard family can easily be fermented into sauerkraut or also dried to preserve them. Wild mustard, photo right, is a good candidate for either. Peppergrass, which is here all year, likes the cooler weather and is more plentiful now. It’s a good green to add to soups or stews for a bit of peppery flavor, magnesium and vitamin C.  Wild comestibles this time of year include young Caesar weed, West Indian chickweed, the aforementioned peppergrass, sow thistle, pony foot, false hawk’s beard, cucumber weed, young Spanish needles, true thistles, and lacebark elm leaves. I fermented some wild mustard this past week. And added some peppergrass to some smoked turkey soup. During our Urban Crawl we also saw many  flushes of Ringless Honey Mushrooms, a bit later in the season than usual, perhaps they were waiting for the cold spell. 

Canna can grow in a wet garden or a pond.

♣ Botany Builder #12. Do you remember the confusion in school over the words immigrant and emigrant? An emigrant is someone leaving a country, and an immigrant is someone entering a country. An emergent plant is one coming out of the water, such as Canna. It likes to grow in about a half a foot of water. It doesn’t like dry land and it doesn’t like deep water. It is emergent. Cattails are emergent, however some species of cattail — there aren’t that many — like to be close to shore and others like deeper water. What it really comes down to, can you get cattails from shore or do you need a canoe? Cann shoots can be cooked like asparagus, the long roasted roots are a staple food in Central America.

Classes are held rain or shine or cold. (Hurricanes are an exception.) Photo by Kelly Fagan.

One foraging class this weekend (Saturday) so we can all, reflect on New Year’s Day. 

Saturday December 31st   Blanchard Park, 2451 N Dean RD
Orlando, FL 32817. Meet at the pavilion next to the tennis courts.

Saturday January 7th  Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  Meet at the bathrooms. 9 a.m

Sunday January 8th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park. 9 a.m. 

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

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

Wester Tansy Mustard is an over overlooked wild edible. Photo by Green Deane

The Western Tansy Mustard is one of our shortest-lived wintertime forageables. It’s not flashy and is often either too small or too old to be seen. It also likes very dry places 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.

Eastern Gammagrass in blossom.

Grass and ice cream are usually not considered at the same thought unless it is Eastern Gamagrass. Why? Because livestock like the clumping Tripsacinae so much cattlemen call in Ice Cream Grass. While it can be used like wheat it’s a distant relative of corn and can be popped. Eastern Gamagrass, also called Fakahatchee Grass, is sod-forming and can reach up to eight-feet tall.  Though it is pollinating and seeding now the grass can seed from now to September.  The frilly male flowers occupy the top three-fourths of the seed spike and the stringy female flowers the bottom fourth. In this species the ladies are brown, hair-like structures. Besides fodder Eastern Gamagrass is also a common ornamental found in parks and residential areas. A bunch can live to be 50-years old or more. Fakahatchee, by the way, means either Forked River or Muddy River. Opinions vary.   To read more about Eastern Gamagrass go here.

Begonias’ flavor varies with color and growing medium. Photo by Green Deane

This might be a good time to mention that Begonias are edible. We saw some this weekend furing out Urban Crawl.  Unfortunately a rather popular book some 30 years ago said they are not edible. I actually spoke with the author once and she told me in subsequent editions that mistake would be changed but the book never went into second edition. Thus the mistake can be found on the internet. Begonias are not only the favorite of growers (and cemetery pots) they are naturalized locally. I see them often in damp spots such as stream banks or drainage ditches. The leaves are edible as well as the blossoms. They can be prepared in a variety of ways and the juice is also a vegetarian rennet. My favorite are wax begonias (and the flavor can vary with their color.) You can read about them here.

You get the USB, not the key.

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. 

Green Deane Forum

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 #537. 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. 

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Ringless Honey Mushrooms, right on time. Photo by Green Deane

It is the ringless honey mushroom time of year, (which is a fundamental misstatement. ) One can find Ringless Honey Mushrooms any time of year. I have collected them off a Banyan in West Palm Beach in July. But usually they show up in fall, when the weather breaks to cooler days and nights. In Florida that is usually the first couple of weeks in November. In the Carolinas early September. Early cold fronts and rain can make the timing fuzzy.

The bouquet above was seen in the parking lot of  the Vehicle Registry building in Seminole County, Wekiva Springs Road (there are more growing there.) I’ll eat the younger ones on our right and put the older one on some trees I want to see gone. Ringless Honey Mushrooms have a destructive relationship with living trees. To me they have a slight maple flavor. Opinions of them vary from “choice” to “not edible.” No matter how cooked they give some folks digestive upset. Try only a little at first.

Flattened Iguanas still have several edible parts. Photo by Green Deane

What’s for dinner, besides mushrooms? When this web site was created it took the title of eattheweeds and other things too, because if you’ve ever been truly hungry you eat other things such as road kill. There used to be two road kill cafes in Florida. A year from now one might ask what is the price of meat and the answer might be half a gallon of gasoline.

Why a half a gallon? That gets my small car about 17 miles which is plenty of distance to find numerous items of road kill on SR 60 early in the morning. Instead of driving to the meat department you take a trip on a local highway, there can be plump raccoons, scrawny rabbits, lean pigs, possums, squirrels, armadillos, turtles, ducks, and deer. The latter you can legally take home. As neighbors can be spying, it is better to tell the local sheriff that you took a deer carcass home that way you can’t be accused of poaching. You cannot haul home a road kill alligator or any part there of. And they don’t taste that great. Wild Alligators are, in my estimation, famine food with a taste of the swamp.

As someone who has scraped many a meal off the road there are some “tools of the trade” I wear EMT gloves to keep from getting poison Ivy off the animal. Yes that has happened to me. Gloves and a COVID mask a good idea when handling armadillo (which after cleaning you parboil first before cooking.) And I wear a swimmer’s nose plug when cleaning possums, They have an awful aroma that does go away upon cooking. 

In West Palm Beach Sunday we saw dozens of iguanas. Should there be a food shortage local residents won’t starve. The next rifle down from a .22 is a .17. They are  legal most everywhere including suburbs. Besides shooting iquana a way to capture on is with a long surf -rod with a tightening loop at the end. 140 lb. fishing line is fine. They also fall out of the trees in cold weather. Just drop them into you freezer. You can read about iguanas here. 

Papaya leaf on left, Castor Bean on right. Photo by Green Deane

Many botanical terms can be confusing among them palmate and pinnate. We’ll address pinnate another time. Palmate shouldn’t be difficult but it can be. It means shaped like your hand but… there are small grape leaves that are “palmate” and about the size of an adult hand. Then there are palmate leaves that are a foot across. Here are two, one from the edible Papaya tree and the other from the deadly Castor Bean. The papaya leaf, on our left, is palmate with lobes. It has seven sections, seven main veins and two sections on the bottom. Stem attachment is on the edge. The Castor Bean, right side of the photo, is also palmate but has eight sections, the sections have teeth, eight main veins total, and three sections on the lower side. Stem attachment is not on the edge. There’s more about the Papaya here. 

Lyre-Leaf Sage. Photo by Green Deane

In his book Edible Plants of North America, Francois Couplan writes on page 384: “the leaves of the S. lyrata, Eastern North America, contain an acrid principle and should not be ingested. They have been used to remove warts.” That said I know an herbalist who makes a tea from the leaves and a foraging instructor who cooks the young leaves and eats them. I’ve heard other reports of them being eaten. That can leave a person in a tough spot as to what to do with the plant. To eat or not to eat, that is the question.

This sage made me wretchedly ill.

Another example is also a sage, Salvia coccinea, also known as Tropical Sage. A small piece of the blossom of this species — a very tiny piece, 1/8 inch square — made me horribly sick for several weeks. It attacked my stomach with viciousness and I was go-to-the-emergency room miserable. Coca-cola syrup and Pepto-Bismol combined were my salvation from doubled-over pain.  I was actually “field testing” this plant for edibility at the time, one reason why I am very opposed to field testing. Yet, I know of two people who have eaten the young leaves with no problem. Perhaps it was an allergy on my part. I don’t know. But I do know I will never eat any part of that plant again. Ever. Lesson painfully learned. Yet it might be edible, or maybe some folks really do have cast iron stomachs. I know I don’t. Eating this sage is one of those “you’re on your own” kind of things.

Some people eat it with out any apparent problems.

A third plant that falls into the crack between edible and not edible is Richardia scabra, aka Florida Pusley. It is in a genus that has species used to make you throw up. In fact one is called Richardia emetica. That is not encouraging. Some people mistake R. scabra for chickweed, which is a Stellaria, a totally different genus.  The plants vaguely resemble each other if one ignores several details and that fact that real chickweed only grows here in the winter time. R. scabra is a species for which I have never found any ethnobotanical references to regarding edibility. In fact it is one of three common plants that seems to have either not been used by the natives or somehow were not reported. The other two are Amaranthus australis and Hibiscus moscheutos. I know from modern reports that A. australis is edible but as for the H. moscheutos I am not sure though it comes from a very edible genus. Thus R. scabra is not on my site as an edible because I can’t find any historical reference to its use. Yet I know two people who mistook it for chickweed and ate it for quite a while. And I know two people who did not mistake it; they know it is a Richardia and they eat it from time to time. That might be a key element. Without any ethnobotanical reference perhaps a little now and then is okay but a steady diet of it is not. It is one of those unknown things.

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

As parks recover from Hurricane Ian we range in Central Florida this weekend, Mead GardenjJust north of Olando and Wickham Prak, Melbourne. 

Saturday October 29nd, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.

Sunday October 30th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335 9 a.m.

For more information about the classes, to pre-pay, or to sign up go here.    For all communication with me use GreenDeane@gmail.com (other emails are now not valid.)

You get the USB, not the key.

Changing foraging videos: As my WordPress pages are being updated the video set will go away.  They are the same videos I have on You Tube. Some people like to have a separate copy. The DVD format, however, is becoming outdated. Those 135 videos plus 36 more are now available on a USB drive. While the videos were played from the DVDs the videos on the USB have to be copied to your computer to play. They are MP4 files. The 171-video USB is $99. If you make a $99 “donation” using the link at the bottom of this page or here, that order form provides me with your address, the amount — $99 — tells me it is not a donation and is for the USB. 

Green Deane Forum

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. 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.

This is weekly newsletter #528. 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.

To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Chickasaw Plums are starting to ripen. Photo by Green Deane

Chickasaw Plum leaf tips have red terminal glands. Photo by Green Deane

This was a “Prunus” foraging week. While rummaging around our usual class location in Gainesville we sampled Chickasaw Plums. They were not completely ripe but give them a week or two. They are usually all gone by the 4th of July.   Black Cherries are also ripening but are often more difficult to find because the birds also like them. Cherries and plums are in the same genus, Prunus, so it’s not surprising they are ripening at about the same time.  Also setting fruit are the Flatwood Plums but they are different story and are included in my related article. I have a video on the Chickasaw plum here, Black Cherry here. To read about the Black Cherry go here, the Chickasaw Plum, here.  . 

Neolentinus lepideus which until recently was Lentinus lepideus.

It’s been a strange week for edible wild mushrooms. Ringless Honey Mushrooms favor the fall but the right weather conditions in the spring can cause a minor flush of them. This week there were sporadic reports of said about the South and we found some in Port Orange last weekend. I have even seem them on a Banyan in West Palm Beach in July. They give some people digestive upset. Also seen this week was a Neolentinus lepideus, an edible tough mushroom that grows on pines or pine stumps. It’s fairly easy to identify. The stem is extremely strong. It has scales and the gills are ragged. The cap is often brown on top. Nice aroma. DO not eat if growing on treated wood like fence posts (which if often does.) 

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

Before COVID I had monthly classes on the campus of Florida State College in Jacksonville. Then whether the school was open became a constant problem so classes were switched to a different location. We return to the campus this week. 

Saturday, June 11th Florida State College, south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246. 9 a.m. We meet at Building A next to the administration parking lot. Whether the college bathroom are open is always  in question. 

Sunday June 12th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. Meet at the picnic shelter by the tennis courts. 

Saturday, June 18th Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789. 9 a.m.  Meet at the bathrooms.

Saturday, June 25th Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park.

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

No plant produces more starch per acre than cattails.

If you were starving and came upon a patch of cattails (blossoming now) you would have great cause for celebration. You have found food and water. You will survive. But if you are not starving and do not have all the time in the inter-connected world you just might find cattails highly overrated. It is true that no plant can produce more starch per acre than cattails, about 3.5 tons under cultivation. And it can produce a lot of starch economically if you can mechanize the extraction. But hand extraction is time- consuming and labor intensive. It is also wet, smelly work all of which can be worsened significantly by harvesting in cold weather. So yes, cattails are food but the time demand is such that harvesting food has to be your prime occupation. A similar argument can be made for kudzu. The roots do have edible starch but it takes a gargantuan amount of work to get the starch out, literally hours of steady pounding. It is not a calorie positive activity. It moves you closer to starvation. But, mechanize the process with some hammers run by falling water — or hammers run by a horse fed on an endless supply of grass — and kudzo becomes a reliable calorie-positive food. You can see my video on cattails here. pounding. I also have an article on Finding Caloric Staples with links to relevant videos. 

Locally the American Beautyberries are blossoming and soon they will have magenta berries. I’m trying to make some into some wine.  That said Beautyberries are near the bottom of the list on flavor, insipid more than offensive. But they make a great jelly… and perhaps a blush wine. They are not good pie material and in muffins they turn green. The shrub itself has been known for its ability to repel insects. “Diane” wrote a letter from  in praise of the Beautyberry and insect control

Edible berries and the leaves repel insects.

“We have been plagued by mosquitoes and those biting deer and horse flies while riding our horses in the woods. Last week we had to dismount and brush about 30 of them from underneath our horses bellies just in order to keep them from going crazy and bolting off. Even though we don’t like using the traditional store-bought horse fly sprays, we did try several over the last couple of years and none of them really work all that well. After reading [your article] we experimented this weekend with the beautyberry. We cut small branches we tucked into their tack. We also rubbed some fresh leaves all over ourselves and the horses. We could not believe the results! We had a two-hour ride each day this past weekend and we’re not troubled by any biting insects. There was an occasional fly that attempted to make a problem but was easily shooed away. We are so lucky to have tons of this bush growing all over our pastures. It is also along every trail that we ride on so it is easily acquired along the ride as well. Thank you!”

You get the USB, not the key.

My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out and replaced by 171-videos on a 128-GB USB, see left.  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. 

Green Deane Forum

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: Fermenting potatoeswith yogurt, make a water filter, nixtamalization at home, Stale Bread and Cod Liver Oil, Life’s a Grind, 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.

Unfinished businesss: You will note there are no foraging classes on SUndays towards the end of this month. I am moving from Orlando to Lithia Florida, some 100 miles or 20 miles east of Tampa. I hope to hold classes there next year. Thanks to all those who helped and offered suggestions. And my book Eat The Weeds is scheduled to be published the 12th of May 2023. Let’s hope there is still paper available then. National in scope it will have 296 species, color photos, 284,000 words and 753 pages (they cut out 75 species.) It will soon be available to pre-order.

This is my weekly newsletter #511. 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.

                             To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.  

Wild Plums can be as sweet as cultivated plums. Photo by Green Deane

This was a “Prunus” foraging week. While rummaging around Ocala we saw Chickasaw Plums. They are still green and sour and should be ripe in a month to six weeks.  Black Cherries are also ripening but are often more difficult to find because the birds also like them. Cherries and plums are in the same genus, Prunus, so it’s not surprising they are ripening at about the same time.  Also setting fruit are the Flatwood Plums but they are different story and are included in my related article. I have a video on the Chickasaw plum here, Black Cherry here. To read about the Black Cherry go here, the Chickasaw Plum, here.  

The Indigo Milk Cap is edible and easy to identify. You’ll find them for several months.

It’s been a strange week for edible wild mushrooms. Ringless Honey Mushrooms favor the fall but the right weather conditions in the spring — rain in April or May and cool weather — can cause a minor occurrence of them. This week there were sporadic reports of said about the South. I have even seem them on a Banyan in West Palm Beach in July. Also seen this week were a few mushrooms in the Milk Cap group. They all used to be Lactarius. Some still are but others were renamed Lactifluus (as if mushrooms weren’t confusing enough.) I saw a couple of hot Milk Caps this week — hot as in peppery — and also the one shown left, Lactarius indigo. It is indeed a pretty mushroom and edible though its texture can be a tad grainy. With rains between now and the end of the month the summer mushroom season should get a good start. Hopefully by mid-June the Orlando Mushroom Group (OMG!) can have a forage. 

Note the long stem on the middle leaf.

You’re probably seeing a lot of this and wondering what the species is. This little plant with the little yellow blossom is Black Medic. It’s generally considered edible and like many weeds is from Europe. That kind of excludes it from being a significant Native American food (though some sources call it that… It’s a long story.) The headache is that from a distance of about five or six feet (where most people’s eyes are from the ground) Black Medic can look like Hop Clover. Here’s quick way to tell them apart: Hop Clover tends to have red stems, Black Medic has green stems covered with fine white hair and has a longer stem on the center leaf. After the two species go to seed they are easy to sort out: Black Medic has black seeds… hence the name. Hop Clover brown seeds. I personally don’t view Black Medic as much of an edible but you can read more about it here.

American lostus seeds are choice. Photo by Green Deane

Yellow ponds, that’s how I think of it, or in some places, yellow rivers. That’s because the American Lotus is in blossom. The first time I saw a small lake of these blossoms was when an old dry lake was deepened for a housing development. The next spring suddenly what was for decades a dry lake was full of American Lotus blossoms. This is because the seeds can stay viable some 400 years, or so the experts report. Talk about a survival food! There are multiple edible parts on the American Lotus but I prefer the seeds. I also think when collecting by hand the seeds provide the most calories for the amount of work. The roots are edible but digging them up can be a messy, laborious job because the plant doesn’t suggest there its root is located. Locally American Lotus are easy to find now: Just look for a lake with large yellow blossoms on long stem a foot or more above the water. Further north and west they are a favorite sight on rivers such as the Mississippi. To read more about the American Lotus go here.

Blackberries are ripening

Acres of wild blackberries... well, perhaps not acres but certainly a lot of them. Where? On the bike trail between Lake Monroe Park and Gemini Springs Park in south Volusia County. That part of the bike trail wends its way for a little over a mile between two parking lots. Look for the powerlines… this same area will also have in a couple of months bushels of Passiflora incarnata, Maypops… along the way to this location on the southern side are many cattails and to the west of Gemini Springs Park (in the cow pasture) there are a lot of Pawpaws. The things ones see while riding a bike. And… if you like to travel by train there is a Sunrail stop (Debary) directly west of the patch (and a path to said on the east side of U.S. 17-92.) As they are wild blackberries they are well armed. And a reminder that foraging is illegal in Florida so proceed stealthily. Why is foraging illegal? Unanswerable officials have to have something to do. If we had a Commissioner of Ants there would be all kinds of ant rules, do’s and don’t’s and fines et cetera. The more government the more rules and the more functionaries to interfere with your life. In theory elected official were supposed to make all the rules and be accountable for all of them. And if we didn’t like the rules or decisions we vote them out of office. But then politicians made unanswerable committees, commissions and departments to make and enforce rules. These add-on bureaucracies do not answer to the people or to the elected officials that created them. If a wildlife commission makes a truly stupid decision and citizens don’t like it, tough. Thus the second rule of foraging is “no witnesses.” The third rule is “eat the evidence.” The first rule of foraging is wash your hands BEFORE you go to the bathroom ’cause you never know what you’ve been touching… 

Foraging classes this weekend are in south Carolina. They will resume locally May 14th

Saturday/Sunday May 7th & 8th,  Honea Path, South Carolina, classes at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. each day.

Saturday May 14th Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. 9 a. m. to noon Meet just north of the science center. 

Sunday may 15th, Mead Gardens, 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  9 a.m. to noon Meet at the bathrooms.

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

Seeding Seablite. Photo by Green Deane

Saw large amounts of Seablite recenty. Depending where you are in the state it is either starting its seasonal run or close finishing it. An excellent contender for a commercial crop it’s in the Chenopodium family. There was copious amounts of it at Canaveral Seashore National Park. I also saw Sea rocket and Silverhead but the prime edible was Seablite. Curiously on the mainland side of the park some of the Seablite was bitter. It is usually a very mild green edible raw or cooked. You can read about Seablite here or see my video here. 

Blueberries, Roan Mt. North Carolina.

One group that is starting to ripen is Blueberries (which can be black.) We saw some in our foraging class Sunday in Wickham Park, Melbourne in a flat wood scrub. Blueberries like soil on the acidic soil, a pH below 7 on a 14-point scale. I grew-up in poor-soil Maine where one could find 120-acre fields of nothing but Blueberries. Yet where I live now, in Florida, Blueberries are found in small colonies in isolated pockets. Why? One answer is Florida is a limestone plate (alkaline not acidic) so it is a waste of time to look for Blueberries unless there are acid-producing pines, oaks or perhaps cypress nearby. I planted Blueberries specifically bred for Florida but one has to tend to the soil — the amount of acid — nearly as much as one has to work daily to keep a pool from turning green. They eventually died, one of my few failures.

You get the USB, not the key.

My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out and replaced by 171-videos on a 128-GB USB, see left.  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. 

Green Deane Forum

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: Fermenting potatoeswith yogurt, make a water filter, nixtamalization at home, Stale Bread and Cod Liver Oil, Life’s a Grind, 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 #506. 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. 

On a personal note, my rent is doubling. I need a place to move to. Currently renting a two-bedroom small house.   Email Green Deane@gmail.com

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