Search: daylily

Daylily: Just Cloning Around

The daylily, a standard plant in foraging for a century or more, has become too much of a good thing and now presents a significant seduction to the forager. Here is why: There are too many of them. While that would sound like a good thing, it isn’t because that has created uncertainty about edibility.

Original Daylily flower, Hemerocallis fulva

The daylily originated in Asia and has been used there for food for perhaps thousands of years. It was first mentioned in European writing in the 1500s. When the daylily was imported to North America in the 1600s there was only the unspotted orange kind, Hemerocallis fulva (hee-mer-o-KAL-is FUL-va) and it was edible, top to bottom. H. Fulva was the only daylily in North America for perhaps 200 years or more. By the 1930s breeders starting to create new daylilies. Now there are some 60,000 cultivars of daylilies. They have been bred for color, height, the number of petals, stature et cetera. The result is they are not all edible. In fact it is anyone’s guess as to whether the cultivars are edible or not. So while it is fairly easy to identify the original daylilly, and to identify a daylily cultivar, finding out if the latter is edible is a challenge. That of course, is why one needs to contact a local expert and or the owner of the daylily. While the original daylily is edible — with some qualifications I will get to — all others are to be suspect no matter what your guidebook says. If someone tells you their daylily is edible ask them to prove it. That’s what I call the “Dick Deuerling Method. Let me explain:

I spent a lot of time in the woods with a suspender-wearing, bearded forager named Dick Deuerling. He and a friend, Peggy Lantz, wrote a book called Florida’s Incredible Wild Edibles, which is still available. If someone said a plant Dick didn’t know was edible was edible, or if they

Edible yellow daylily

said a plant he thought wasn’t edible was edible, he’d say this to them: “Invite me over. Let me watch you harvest the plant. Let me watch you prepared the plant for cooking. Let me watch you cook the plant. Let me watch you eat the plant. Then I’ll come back the next day, if you aren’t sick or dead I might try it. “ With any daylily now, other than the original, that is what you have to do. Plants are chemical factories and within a genus there can be edible and toxic plants. The genetic selection that might produce a beautiful flower might also produce an inedible one.  So seek out the original, but for all others demand proof it is edible.

H. fulva is naturalized throughout most of North American except northwest Canada and desert southwest of the United States. Surprisingly, it is not naturalized in California. (I suspect it is, it just hasn’t been reported. I know it grows in the county I live in and one to the north but the state of Florida says it is not here.) The only other daylily that has become naturalized somewhat in North American is Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus (lil-ee-oh-as-foh-DEL-us) which is the yellow version, similar in appearance and wrongly called H. Flava. The Michigan State University Department of Horticulture says H. Iilioasphodelus is edible. Blame them not me if it is not. There is one report that H. Iilioasphodelus gives half the women who eat it a bad taste in the mouth akin to sweaty armpits. No reports that it bothers men the same way. Hemerocallis minor is also reported as edible. I do not personally know that.

The original, H. Fulva,  is a survivor. Actually it’s a clone. It will grow nearly anywhere there is sun and water. It often out lives the buildings it was put around. In many well-fed areas (read countries with obesity issues) it is considered an invasive weed. Since it is sterile it reproduces by underground rhizomes and thus spreads. Cultivated dayflowers stay in clumps and are not considered invasive. And as the name implies, daylilies are open for only a day.

As for edibility….. Young spring shoots and leaves under five inches taste similar to mild onions when fried in butter. They are also a mild pain killer and in large quantities are hallucinogenic.  The leaves quickly become fibrous so they can only be eaten young (but you can make cordage out of the older leaves.)  The flower buds, a rich source of iron, are distinguished from the plant’s non-edible fruits by their internal layering. The blossoms are edible as well, raw or cooked (as are seeds if you find any.) The dried flower contains about 9.3% protein, 25% fat, 60% carbohydrate, 0.9% ash. It is rich in vitamin A.  The closed flower buds and edible pods are good raw in salads or boiled, stir-fried or steamed with other vegetables. The blossoms add sweetness to soups and vegetable dishes and can be stuffed like squash blossoms. Half and fully opened blossoms can be dipped in a light batter and fried tempura style (which by the way was a Portuguese way of cooking introduced to Japan.) Dried daylily petals are an ingredient in many Chinese and Japanese recipes (they usually use H. graminea). Nearly any time of year the nutty, crisp roots can be harvested, but they are best in the fall. They can be eaten raw or cooked. You want to harvest new, white tubers. Older brown ones are inedible.

And now for the warnings to keep the lawyers happy: While daylilies are listed in virtually every foraging book as edible as I said earlier, don’t presume any daylily other than the original is edible. Many are, but don’t assume so. Have it proven.  Some people also have severe allergic reactions to them. In fact, some people can eat them for years with no problem then suddenly develop an allergy.  Also, don’t go overboard with any part of the plant or you’ll be creating a lot of personal fertilizer. They are nature’s laxative. Incidentally, they are toxic to cats, including the plant’s pollen.

The flowers don’t attract butterflies or hummingbirds, however, rabbits and white-tailed deer eat tender spring leaves. Among daylily growers the original is considered old fashion and a plant below their purview.  It is rarely offered by various daylily societies. The genus name, Hemerocallis, comes from two Greek words: ἡμέρα (i mera) which means “day” and καλός (kalos) “beautiful”.   Fulva is Latin for tawny yellow brown.  Liliosphodelus is a camelopard of Latin and Greek to mean “a lily with roots that look like they have been eaten away.”  Minor means small and graminea means “grassy”

Oh, one more thing: H. fulva in 2004 research showed strong antioxidant activity. Imagine that: An invasive weed with strong antioxidant properties…. Sometimes I think botanists haven’t a clue.

Day Lily Jelly

Day lily petals, pick as many as you can early in the morning if you possible.

Water to cover.

Bring the petals and water to a boil,remove from heat. Then cover and let sit for 10 to 15 minutes. Then pour into a jelly bag or double layers of cheesecloth in a stainer. Let drip into a large bowl, until all the liquid is in the bowl; overnight if necessary.

DO NOT SQUEEZE.

Measure:-

5 cups juice

4 cups sugar

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 package pectin

Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile

IDENTIFICATION: A rosette of basal leaves and flowering stalks three to six feet high. The leaves have parallel veins and are hairless. They taper gradually like a sword, tend to bend down from the middle and look droopy. Out of the center of the rosette are one or more flowering stalks, usually taller than the leaves. Stalks are hairless with a few green bracts. The UNSPOTTED flowers facing UPWARD are large, some three or more inches across, each with six orange tepals (three orange petals and three orange sepals similar in appearance making the flower appear to have six petals.)  The inner three are broader than the outer three. The flower throat is yellow with a red band around it, the rest of the flower is some shade of orange. It also has six stamens. Buds are up to three inches long. If seed capsules are produce, they are three celled and have rows of black seeds. The roots, tuberous and yellow, are fleshy rhizomes that grow fibrous.

TIME OF YEAR: Blooms occur in April or May in the South, June and July in northern climates. Blooming lasts about a month. Each flower lasts for just a day.

ENVIRONMENT: Sunny fields, roads, empty lots, old homesteads, escaped from flower gardens.

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Flowers, buds, seed pods, and roots edible raw or cooked. Collect only young white roots. Older brown roots are not edible, poor taste, poor texture.

 

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Often where to look for edibles is half the battle.

Often where to look for edibles is half the battle.

As you know I use I.T.E.M. to help organize the information one needs to safely eat a wild plant: Identification, Time of Year, Environment, Method of Preparation. Environment means more than just where it likes to grow. It can also means things such as what does it grow with, or under, or on.

Growing between seasonal hedge trimming is the wild cucumber. Photo by Green Deane

Growing between seasonal hedge trimming is the wild cucumber. Photo by Green Deane

The top picture is a common sight, a woody hedge in suburbia. Not edible. It is moderately slow growing, needing trimming now and then, sometimes once or twice a season. In between the trimmings faster vines can take hold. They also often fill niches the trimming misses. Notice in the picture above the hedge has some cowlicks. They are commonly Smilax tips (edible) Skunk Vine (edible) or Virginia Creeper (toxic.) In this case they are what you see in the picture to the left, wild cucumbers, Melothria pendula.  These tasty little cukes like to grow on hedges and fences in town. In the wild they can be found either creeping along the ground or climbing on low shrubs and the like. They will produce now through a winter freeze. Casually looking at hedges can often produce several edibles not only on them but under them as well.

Basswood leaves are the tree lettuce of spring.

Basswood leaves are the tree lettuce of spring.

Tongue depressors. You’ll find something that looks like a wooden stick from a Popsicle on the Basswood Tree. It’s not wood but rather one bract of the flower. Blossoms are defined/arranged by their parts, from the outer most parts in, or the inner most parts out. Next out from flower petals are bracts (which can sometimes look just like a petal as they do in the daylilies.) The Basswood has a bract that looks like a tongue depressor or a Popsicle stick. If I remember correctly it is the only native tree in North America to do that so identification when blossoming is easy. (The Tropical Chestnut has odd bracts as well but they look more like several banana peelings than one tongue depressor. I’ll writer more about that next week.) The Basswood is quite edible, most of it at one time or another, from spring fresh leaves to inner bark. They are quite common locally with one in my neighborhood as a lawn tree. We also used to use them to make pipe stems. Basswood, also called the Linden Tree, often can be found near water. You can read more about the Basswood here.

Black Medic Blossom

Black Medic Blossom

There quite a few species which at a quick glance from afar can look alike. Pellitory and Chickweed are two. The lichens Usnea and Ramalina two more. A couple of common plants that can look similar even at a close glance is Black Medic and Hop Clover (Medicago lupulina and Trifolium campestre.)  Every season I have to remind myself which is which. Most often locally it is Black Medic. I am fond of saying there are no “look alikes” if you look closely enough. Black Medic and Hop Clover put that to the test. Hop Clover also looks like other clovers as well. It can be difficult to sort out.

Hop Clover Blossom

Hop Clover Blossom

We have a lot of good plant people on the Green Deane Forum and one of them, Josey, has contributed much to list the differences between the two species. In this regard I will admit to being dense. It took me a long time to get confident with these identifications.  When the plants are in blossom a close look at the blossom is one clue. Hop clover’s petals come out from the center, widen, then bend down at the outer end. Black Medic’s blossoms open and fold up. They are also of a slightly different color: Gold yellow for the Hop Clover, lemon yellow for the Black Medic. The latter is also more furry. When both species have gone to seed quickest way to tell them apart is Black Medic’s seeds are black, Hop Clover’s brown.  

Black Medic seeds.

Black Medic seeds.

To complicate issues there is also T. dubium, aka the Suckling Clover or the Lesser Trefoil. It looks similar to Hop Clover but has less petals and smaller blossoms. Its stems have a reddish tint. None of these species are on the top of the edible list but every little bit counts. Black Medic has also been called a Native American food which begs the definition some. Black Medic is from southern Europe or  Eurasia. It came with the Europeans to North America. The first written reference to it in the New World is in 1807.  There’s no ethnobotanical evidence the Europeans ate the seeds or any that the Native American’s ate the leaves.

Upcoming Foraging Classes: Sunday, March 30th Mead Garden,  1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789, 9 a.m.

Saturday, April 5th, Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge, 2045 Mud Lake Road,  DeLeon Springs, FL 9 a.m.

What Do You See 08 (below) should be easy this week. There are at least two edibles in the picture. 

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This is what you should be seeing from the road right now. 

Below is What Do You See 07 from last week and its answers.

What Do You See 07. Photo by Green Deane

What Do You See 07. Photo by Green Deane

WDYS07: There are many weeds in this picture and much duplication… Mother Nature rolls all the dice she can.  Number One is the Common Sow Thistle, which is a Sonchus. Two is a Sonchus as well. It could be the common one but looks more like it could be the Spiny Sow Thistle. It’s color is darker and a closer look at the leaves would sort which it is as the Spiny has soft spines. Three is the common Dandelion, not a common sight here in Florida. Four is Oxalis stricta, or Sour Grass though it is not a grass. It is our native oxalis. Five is Poor Man’s Pepper Grass though Mycol Stevens thinks it should be called Rich Man’s Pepper Grass. Six is Spanish Needles, or Bidens alba, quite young here. You have to be careful in that some other plants when young can look like young Bidens. Look for older plants or last season’s plants. Seven is Dollar Weed also called Pennyworts. Eight is NOT edible. It’s cudweed, or a Pseudognaphalium. P. purpureum leaves were smoked for tobacco and was used to treat colds, lung pain, mumps, upset stomachs, nervousness and insomnia.

https://www.eattheweeds.com/sonchus-sow-thistle-in-a-pigs-eye-2/
https://www.eattheweeds.com/dandelions-hear-them-roar/
https://www.eattheweeds.com/oxalis-how-to-drown-your-sorrels/
https://www.eattheweeds.com/peppergrass-potent-pipsqueak/
https://www.eattheweeds.com/spanish-needles-pitchfork-weed/
https://www.eattheweeds.com/a-pennywort-for-your-thoughts-2/ 

Brevard Botanical Garden pond overlook. Photo by Bill Zoby

Brevard Botanical Garden pond overlook.
Photo by Bill Zoby

Last week it was Brimingham now it is Brevard. The Brevard County Extension office is having a plant sale on Saturday, April 12. It’s a fundraiser for the Brevard Botanical Garden, 3695 Lake Drive, Cocoa, Florida. The annual spring plant sale features hard-to-find plants for your garden all grown by Brevard Master Gardeners. Garden crafts will also be available. The Brevard Botanical Garden was formed in May 2010 by garden enthusiasts, the University of Florida/IFAS Extension Agents, and environmentally concerned citizens who want to improve the quality of life in Brevard County by opening a research-based botanical garden for demonstrations, collections, and displays.  

That's me sitting amongst poppies near the Acropolis in Athens.

That’s me sitting amongst poppies near the Acropolis in Athens.

Though your foraging may drop off during the winter it’s a great time to study wild edibles with my nine DVD set. Each DVD has 15 videos for 135 in all. They make a great gift. Order today. Some of these videos are of better quality than my free ones on the Internet. They are the same videos but many people like to have their own copy. I  burn and compile the sets myself so if you have any issues I handle them personally. There are no middle foragers. And I’m working on adding a tenth DVD.  To learn more about the DVDs or to order them click here.

To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

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Wild mustard and radish roots have a tough outer jacket which when removed shows a bright, white tasty inner core. Photo by Green Deane

Wild mustard and radish roots have a tough outer jacket which when removed shows a bright, white tasty inner core. Photo by Green Deane

In the foraging community it would be difficult to find anyone who does not know you can eat mustard greens. But what about the roots?

Wild Radish roots before having their jackets removed.

Wild Radish roots before having their jackets removed. Photo by Green Deane

Wild mustards and wild radishes (Sinapis and Raphanus) both have edible blossom, seeds, leaves and roots. They are not only a wild food but a cultivated crop as well. And while one should be able to tell the mustards and radishes apart it is a bit moot in that they are used in the same way for our purposes. Both can provide greens early on then roots just before they blossom and later the seeds. You can also collect the roots after they seed but the roots can be a bit tougher then. My favorite way to cook them is to slice them like carrot rounds and boil them until tender. They tastes very much like turnips. However, they do give off a strong odor when cooking so you might want to have your vent already on or cook them outside.

Diced and boiled or steam mustard roots are mild and tasty. Photo by Green Deane

Diced and boiled or steam mustard roots are mild and tasty. Photo by Green Deane

Taking the tough jacket off is fairly easy. First cut the top off like you could a carrot. Then look at the root from the cut end. You can see how the jacket wraps around the root. With a knife carefully start at the top of the root and working parallel with the root make a cut about a quarter of an inch deep — or as deep as the jacket — and a couple of inches long. Then use your thumbs to separate the edges of the cut. Once cut usually the jacket will peel off easily.  Incidentally, the roots of the cultivated mustards are also edible if you find them large enough. And of course the roots of the domesticated radish are well-known comestibles.

The original and edible orange daylily.

The original and edible orange daylily with petals and sepal, together a “tepal.”

Botany Builder #36: There are petals and there sepals.  Sepals can look like petals. A good example is the Daylily. It looks like it has six petals but it really has three petals then outward and downward three sepals that look like petals. Sepals can look different that petals. But when the petals and sepals look alike it is called a “Tepal.” If you think that looks made-up you’re right. The French did it. It’s their alteration of sepale and petale. It can be said TE-pol, or, TEP-ol. Tepal is used when the petals and sepals are undifferentiated, meaning they really look the same (It’s their position and arrangement that let’s us know they are not all petals.) Botanists tell us petals and sepals developed in response to different means of pollenating. Every little advantage helps in the plant world.

Epazote, goosefoot food of the gods. Photo by Green Deane

Epazote, goosefoot food of the gods. Photo by Green Deane

Epazote is too nasty to freeze. I will readily admit that comment might reflect my bias towards the spice and green that is enjoyed by millions. A member of the Chenopodium clan Epazote is an aromatic spice that is also eaten as a pot herb. Unfortunately for me it smells and tastes like an industrial floor cleaner. Cilantro also assaults my pallet. That said Epazote is used wildly in Hispanic and native central and south American cooking. Admittedly we don’t get much of a winter here, frosts and upper 20s on occasion — except this past week. Through it all Epazote seems to stay green and fresh. It must be the substantial oil content, the same oil that gives it a strong aroma that some find delightful and others disgusting. To read more about Epazote go here.

Green Deane teaching at Earthskills 2013

Green Deane teaching at Earthskills 2013

Sustained cold weather has disrupted the foraging class schedule but hopefully everything will return to seasonal normal. Here are some of my upcoming foraging classes:  Saturday, February 1st, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789, 9 a.m. Sunday, February 2nd, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL, 32935, 9 a.m. Saturday, February 8th, Boulware Springs Park,  3420 SE 15th St.  Gainesville, FL 32641. 9 a.m. Sunday, February 9th, Jervey Gantt Recreation Complex, 2390 SE 36th Ave.  Ocala, FL, 34471, 9 a.m. Saturday, February 15th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, 23000 Bayshore Rd., Port Charlotte, FL, 33980, 9 a.m. Sunday, February 16th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd. West Palm Beach, FL, 33405, 9 a.m.

Florida EarthSkills 2014

Florida EarthSkills 2014

Two weeks from now will be the  Florida Earthskills gathering. This year it will be held at Little Orange Creek Nature Park, which is a little over a mile east of Hawthorne, Florida. I will be giving plant walks there and as this is a new location it should an interesting place to explore. Dates are the 6th through the 9th of February. EarthSkills conferences differ greatly from herbal conferences. While one can find herbalism at an EarthSkills gathering it is what the name implies, earth skills. You can learn a variety of skills and techniques from identifying edible weeds to making a bow to dying your own handmade clothes. It’s a very communal gathering that reminds me of many such free-spirited events back in the 60s. Cool! See you there.

Andy Firk, one of the speakers at the Florida Herbal Conference

Andy Firk, one of the speakers at the Florida Herbal Conference

This is a reminder the Florida Herbal Conference 2014 will be held in Deland in late February. Also for the third year in a row I will be leading weed walks at the conference, a challenge in winter on dry ground. My walks are usually first thing in the morning when the air is cool and the coffee hot. Although it is the Florida Herbal Conference it draws teachers and students from all over North America. Two other  Florida “locals” will be teaching classes besides the scheduled main speakers. They are Andy Firk, who holds a wide variety of workshops throughout the year at his “Bamboo Cove” in Arcadia, Earthskills host Mycol Stevens of Gainesville. Mycol’s name used to be Michael but he came to like mushrooms and other fungi so well he changed the spelling.

EatTheWeedsOnDVD-FullSet-small

Eat The Weeds DVDs are now available.

Though your foraging may drop off during the winter it’s a great time to study wild edibles with my nine DVD set. Each  DVDs has 15 videos for 135 in all. They make a great gift. Order today. Some of these videos are of better quality than my free ones on the Internet. They are the same videos but many people like to have their own copy. I burn and compile the sets myself so if you have any issues I handle them personally. There are no middle foragers. And I’m working on adding a tenth DVD.  To learn more about the DVDs or to order them click here.  I also uploaded a new video to You Tube this week. This one is about Cereus fruit. It is not on the DVDs but you can see it here.

7aa9b3631c1e53d3dd331568646b19b9Green Deane’s old Volvo had a fatal cardio-vascular event this past week. It did not even make it to the emergency room garage dying not intestate but interstate. It was, however, a junk organ donor. A very good friend sold it to me five years ago for $100 — thank you Patrick. This does not leave the Village Green without transportation but looking for a replacement. Difficulties are often opportunities and perhaps it is time to get wheels that more reflect Green Deane. With Volvos one thinks Sweden, skiing, blonds… Perhaps a frumpy jeep will do, or the like…think outdoors, field and stream, plants, weeds… I drove a Willy’s jeep back in the — cough cough — 60s… We might even work out a trade with foraging lessons.  I’m a reasonably good mechanic so no vehicle have to be pristine or pretty. It just needs to get me from Amaranth to Zizania. Should you know of such a vehicle I can be contacted though this newsletter’s email.

tumblr_lnxz8aDRqu1qdd086o1_500Lastly this newsletter is taking guest articles on plants and foraging. Reasonably short is good, but longer articles can be serialized. Topics that are seasonal or lend themselves to illustration are nice. Weed recipes with picture of  the final food are also welcomed. So far we’ve had articles on chickweed and mushrooms. Tell me what you have in mind. Again I can be contacted though this newsletter’s email.

 

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Collection of all of Green Deane’s videos on one USB stick!

Eat The Weeds On USBWhether you lack a stable internet connection or you just want Green Deane on USB, this will be a valuable resource to add to your foraging collection. Every video that Green Deane has created for Eat The Weeds is included in this set!

Over the years, Deane has created 171 short videos, describing natural plants and other foliage around the area to help you identify those that are edible and what to do with it.

Order Now

Would you like to know what topics are covered in the USB set? Keep reading …

Volume 1

Volume 2

Episode 1: Why Learn About Wild Foods?
Episode 2: “ITEMIZING” Edible Wild Plants
Episode 3: Crepis japonica, False Hawksbeard
Episode 4: Sow Thistles
Episode 5: Wild mustard greens
Episode 6: Peppergrass, Lepidium virginicum
Episode 7: Pokeweed, Phytolacca americana
Episode 8: Sassafras & Mulberry
Episode 9: Making Hard Cider
Episode 10: Rumex (Sorrel)
Episode 11: Bull Thistle I
Episode 12: Chickweed, Stellaria
Episode 13: Plantagos, Plantains
Episode 14: Henbit, Lamium amplexicaule
Episode 15: Spiderwort, Tradescantia
Episode 16: Cactus, Opuntia
Episode 17: Amaranth
Episode 18: The Daylily
Episode 19: Smilax
Episode 20: Lichen, Cladonia
Episode 21: Spurge Nettle
Episode 22: Duck Potatoes
Episode 23: Pennyworts
Episode 24: Wekiva River
Episode 25: American Lotus
Episode 26: Yucca filamentosa
Episode 27: Chickasaw Plum
Episode 28: Bananas
Episode 29: Elderberries
Episode 30: Yellow Pond Lily

Volume 3

Volume 4

Episode 31: Jelly Palm
Episode 32: Wild Grapes
Episode 33: Homemade Vinegar
Episode 34: Maypop, Passion Flower
Episode 35: The False Roselle
Episode 36: Spotted Beebalm, Horsemint
Episode 37: 24 Wild Edibles in Wekiva State Park
Episode 38: Water Hyacinth
Episode 39: The Bitter Gourd
Episode 40: American Beautyberry
Episode 41: Caesar Weed
Episode 42: The Persimmon
Episode 43: The Sumac
Episode 44: The Sassafras
Episode 45: Winged Yam
Episode 46: Stachys floridana
Episode 47: Apios americana
Episode 48: Saw Palmetto
Episode 49: Usnea
Episode 50: Acorns
Episode 51: Chinese Elm
Episode 52: Wild Edibles at Turtle Mound
Episode 53: Creeping Cucumber
Episode 54: Hickories
Episode 55: Firethorn, pyracantha
Episode 56: Crowfoot Grass
Episode 57: Crepis II
Episode 58: Ground Cherries, Physalis
Episode 59: Sonchus a.k.a. Wild Lettuce
Episode 60: Violets, Violas

Volume 5

Volume 6

Episode 61: Pellitory, Parietaria
Episode 62: Dandelions
Episode 63: Stinging Nettles, Urtica
Episode 64: Cattails, Typha
Episode 65: Drymaria Cordata
Episode 66: Sonchus II, Sow Thistle
Episode 67: Oxalis, Wood Sorrel
Episode 68: Soldier’s Creek
Episode 69: Watercress
Episode 70: Basswood Tree, Linden, Lime
Episode 71: Solar Cooking
Episode 72: Seablite, Seepweed
Episode 73: Kudzu
Episode 74: Glasswort, Salicornia, Samphire
Episode 75: Spanish Needles, Bidens
Episode 76: Sea Rocket, Cakile
Episode 77: Mead Garden, Part 1 of 4
Episode 78: Mead Garden, Part 2 of 4
Episode 79: Mead Garden, Part 3 of 4
Episode 80: Mead Garden, Part 4 of 4
Episode 81: Sea Purslane
Episode 82: Poke Weed II
Episode 83: Milkweed Vine
Episode 84: Lambsquarters, Pigweed, Fat Hen
Episode 85: Wild Cherries
Episode 86: Papaws, Pawpaws
Episode 87: Blackberries, Dewberries, Rubus
Episode 88: Coquina & Mole Crabs
Episode 89: Pickerelweed
Episode 90: Smartweed, Knotweed

Volume 7

Volume 8

Episode 91: Purslane
Episode 92: The Pine Tree
Episode 93: Tumbleweed, Russian Thistle
Episode 94: The Natal Plum
Episode 95: Beach Orach, Crested Salt Bush
Episode 96: Wild Apples
Episode 97: Strawberry Guava
Episode 98: Wax Myrtle
Episode 99: Commelinas, Dayflowers
Episode 100: Sandspurs
Episode 101: Apios americana II
Episode 102: Begonias
Episode 103: Podocarpus macrophyllus
Episode 104: The Perseas
Episode 105: Skunk Vine
Episode 106: Persimmon Bread
Episode 107: Cabbage Palm
Episode 108: Pyracantha/Firethorn Sauce
Episode 109: Bull Thistle II
Episode 110: Bacopas & Creeping Charlie
Episode 111: Wild Radish
Episode 112: Lake Lily Part I
Episode 113: Lake Lily Part II
Episode 114: Cast Iron and Pig Weed
Episode 115: Smilax II
Episode 116: The (Eastern) Coral Bean
Episode 117: The Mulberry
Episode 118: Loquats
Episode 119: The Paper Mulberry
Episode 120: The American Nightshade, Part I

Volume 9

Volume 10 
Episode 121: The Hollies
Episode 122: Sword Fern
Episode 123: Ivy Gourd, Tindora
Episode 124: Acorn Grubs
Episode 125: The Silverthorn
Episode 126: The Eastern Redbud
Episode 127: The Christmasberry, Wolfberry
Episode 128: Epazote
Episode 129: Blue Porterweed
Episode 130: Horseweed
Episode 131: Bon Appetit
Episode 132: The Camphor Tree
Episode 133: The Simpson Stopper
Episode 134: Neighborhood Foraging                                           Episode 135: Sonchus III
 

Episode 136: Blueberries and Huckleberries
Episode 137: Backyard Forage
Episode 138: Junipers
Episode 139: Loquats II
Episode 140: Wild Onion/Garlic
Episode 141:Coco-plums
Episode 143: Bunya Pine
Episode 144: Cereus, Dragon Fruit
Episode 145: Tropical Almond
Episode 146: Lacto-fermentation
Episode 147:Where to look for wild edibles
Episode 148:Brazilian Pepper
Episode 149: Bacopa, Water Hyssop
Episode 150: Ringless Honey Mushrooms

Lawns Aren’t Green

 

Volume 11                                                                                                        Volume 12

Episode 151:Persimmon Revisited
Episode 152: Lantana
Episode 153:Sea Oxeye
Episode 154:Tropical Almond Rebvisited
Episode 155: Sumac Revisited
Episode 156: Sea Grapes
Episode 157: Tamarind
Episode 158: Banana revisited
Episode 159: Ghost Pipes
Episode 160: Swine Cress
Episode 161: Goldenrod
Episode 162: Dove Plum, Pigeon Plum
Episode 163: Australian Pine
Episode 164: Bauhinias
Episode 165: Blue Porter Weed
Episode 166: Cinnamon Tree
Episode 167: Brookweed
Episode 168: False Hawk’s Beard Revisited
Episode 169: Wild Coffee
Episode 170: Orange Jasmine
Episode 171: Coralwood
Episode 172:
Episode 173:
Episode 174:
Episode 175:
Episode 176:
Episode 177:
Episode 178:
Episode 179:
Episode 180:

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I have written extensively on this site about edible flowers, both cultivated and wild. Here 103  previous separate entries about wild flowers are in one spot. So if it seems you have read parts of this before, you might have. However, this focus is just on wild flowers.

Wild Garlic putting on cloves

The author of “Florida’s Incredible Wild Edibles”  Dick Deuerling, now in his 90s, taught me several decades ago that: If it looks like a garlic and smells like a garlic it is a garlic and you can eat it. If it looks like an onion and smells like an onion you can eat it. They must have both, however, look and aroma. We have a lily here in Florida, for example, that looks like an onion but no aroma, and raw it can be deadly.  Look and aroma, like horse and carriage and love and marriage. Together. Alliums can also be deceptive. Locally the “wild onions” (read really garlics)  grow their cloves on the top of the plant, not underground. And if I remember correctly, an onion always has a singular bulb per plant where as the garlic as sectioned cloves. At any rate there are some 400 species if you include onions, garlic, chives, shallots, and closely related ramps/leeks, the latter having wide leaves. Usually the flowers have a stronger flavor than the leafy parts, and the developing seed head even stronger flavor. Blossoms are usually white but can also be pink. Onion stems are round, as are chives but smaller. Garlic leaves are flat.

Alpine Cress

As the name suggests,  you have to go up to find Alpine Cress. It’s no flatland flower, and also as the name suggests, it is in the greater mustard muster. Alpine Cress, Arabis alpina, grows in the mountainous areas of Europe, north Africa, eastern Asia, and the Isle of Skye (Cuillin Ridge.) It is also found in North America including Kentucky, Virginia, West Virgina, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Maine, most of Canada, and Greenland, hardy little soul that it is. It likes to grow in damp gravel and screes. Not surprisingly it can be found in many places intentionally planted in rock gardens. The young leaves and flowers are a good substitute for cress. They are edible raw or cooked and are often mixed with other greens as a flavoring.

Alyssum

Mat-forming Alyssums recently underwent a genus and species name change. They were Allyssum lobularia and now they are Lobularia maritima. A native of the Mediterranean areas it has traveled far and is found 41 states most of Canada.The genus name lobularia comes from dead Latin and means small globe, referring to the shape of the flower cluster. Maritima refers to its habitat, meaning it likes to grow near the seashore and is somewhat salt tolerant. . Leaves, young stems, and flowers are used for flavoring in salads or any dish where pungency is desired. The flowers candy well.  The blossom are honey-scented.

It’s difficult to imagine a kitchen or herbal medicine cabinet without Angelica around someplace. Angelica has long been valued for its seeds, stems, leaves and shoots. The first two for flavoring — such as in Chartreuse — and second pair as cooked greens, particularly in the Izu Islands of Japan where there are a favored addition to springtime tempura. They have a celery-like flavor. North American Indians, however, smoked the leaves for medicinal purposes. Celery-ish may its green parts be the blossoms, however, have a light anise flavor. Don’t confuse the blossom with Poison Hemlock or you will be seeing angels not angelica.

Apple Blossom, eat only a few

Every seed in every Apple is different than the parent apple trees. Every apple you eat of the same kind is a clone because there was only one original apple tree with that apple. That’s how there came to be some 7,000 different kinds of apples over the years. With mechanization that number has about half. Around the home I grew up in were many wild apples of no distinct variety, just something that sprouted from a tossed away core. Each one unique. What most folks don’t know is that you can eat apple blossoms. Soft scented, floral, only consume a few at a time because they contain a precursor to cyanide which gets release during digestion. A little is tasty. Too many is a tummy ache. A lot is a trip to the hospital.

Basswood Blossom

My first association of the Basswood tree was not with flowers but its soft young stems. My father used to make home wood pipes out of apple wood then use a basswood stem for the pipe stem. If the cattail is the supermarket of the swamp the Basswood tree is the supermarket of the forest. Read about it in another article. However, its blossom are edible and make a well-known tea though you may know of it by its other name, Linden tree and Linden tea. The Linden tree is nearly impossible to misidentify in that it is the only one in North America that has what looks like a large tongue depressor under the blossom. The flowers are delicate and have a honey flavor.

Bee Balm

Bee Balm is another huge selection of flowers closely related to the mint family, in this case Monarda punctata. Intense, aromatic, the flavors can vary not only species to species but between cultivated specimens and their wild siblings. The leaves are often used to make tea, some with calming qualities. Often the entire plant is placed in the house to give a pleasant aroma as it dries. The blossoms tend to reflect the flavor of the parent plant but usually have hints of oregano to thyme to citrus flavors.

Paper Birch Catkins

There are several advantages to living where it never snows, and a few disadvantages. Many plants need cooler weather to reproduce or fruit or just thrive. Birches do not like Florida though they can be planted in the norther bounds of the state. Birches were a common tree of my youth, white birch, golden birch and paper birch. Birches can be tapped like maples. The twigs and catkins have been used as a wintergreen-ish flavoring for as long as we have written records about North America. And of course there were the famous birch bark canoes. What you also might not know is that an epoxy-like tar can be extracted from birchwood. The original super gule. While most birches have edible parts we are interested in this article in the Paper Birch, Betula papyrifera. Very young leaves, shoots and catkins can be eaten in salads or stirfried. The sap makes a drink, a syrup or a sugar, depending upon how long you heat it up. It can also be used to make brich beer and vinegar. A tea can be made from the leaves and the wood used to smoke meat.

Bitter Gourd Blossom

The Bitter Gourd, Momordica charantia, will never with a popularity contest with most people. Though it is a plant that serves us well with many parts edible and medicinal uses it also is bitter and smells like an old, wet, rubber gym shoe. Not exactly a match made in botanical heaven. The leaves can be cooked as a green, and the water used as a tea that controls blood glucose. The bitter fruit is edible cooked and red arils around the seed –the arils not the seed — are edible and nearly all lycopene. And the fragrant blossoms can be used for flavoring.

Black Locust

No accounting of edible wild flowers would be inclusive without mentioning the Black Locust, Robinia pseudoacacia. Just about the entire tree is useful in some way including the flowers. Fragrant, they are made into fritters in America, Europe and Asia. For a tree native to the Southeastern US it gets around. The white flowers are also made into tea. Incidentally, the pink flowers of the Robinia neomexicana are also edible. The Black Locust is sometimes called the False Acacia, which is what its species name means in dead Latin. Planted in France, it is the source of that country’s Acacia Monofloral Honey. It actually produces more honey than the Honey Locust.

Blue Porterweed

I do believe I was the first to publish anywhere in modern times, Internet or otherwise, that Blue Porterweed blossoms are edible. Even the venerated Cornucopia II doesn’t mention it. No doubt their edibility was known long ago because the flower has been used for at least a few hundred years to make tea, beer and as a flavoring. I am sure somewhere along the way someone tried the flowers. Locally we have two versions, a native which grows low, and a tall cultivated one. The flowers on both are edible, and the odd part is they taste like raw mushrooms. As with many delicate flavors the nose is quite involved and it takes a few moments for the flavor to come through. Tasters find it amazing. The flavor does not survive cooking. Incidentally, the leaves are used to make a tea and beer and the stem is used for flavoring.

Blueweed

Closely related to borage and Italian Bugloss, Blueweed, Echium vulgare, is naturalized througout most of North America, missing only from Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, North Dakota, Arizona, Nevada, California, Canada’s Northwest Territory and the Yukon.  A native or Europe, it’s an invasive species in Washington state. What is slightly odd about Blueweed is that the blossoms start out pink and turn blue. However, the stamens remain red making the blossom striking. Echium is grown as an oilseed crop and contains significant amounts of gamma linolenic acid (GLA) and the rarer stearidonic acid. Leaves are cooked and used like spinach. The flowers are candied and added to salads. The plant is covered with spines, so pick carefully.

Caesar Weed

There are many invasive species plants locally, some of them intentionally introduced by the United States Department of Agriculture.  One of them is Caesar Weed, aka Caesarweed and Caesar’s Weed, botanically Urena lobata. It was brought to the state as an industry to make fiber and indeed in Africa they still make burlap out of Caesarweed. They ret it like flax, which is to soak it in (preferably) running water which causes the fibers to separate. Young leaves are edible cooked but they are a famine food as they never loose their sandpaper texture. There is a separate article about them on site. Caesarweed is in the mallow family and produces a small, pink mallow blossom which can be eaten raw. Toss it into salads.

Immature Cattail Blossom

You many not think of a Cattail as having a blossom but it does and before it matures it is edible. In fact, both the male part of the flower and the female part of the flower are edible. Later when the male part produces pollen that’s edible as well. When the female parts turn brown it’s way past edible. The male part is the spike on top, the female part the wider portion below the spike. When both are green they can be boiled. The rest of the plant has edibles as well and is a well-know staple of the forager. The cattail rhizome is full of starch. In fact, no plants produces more edible starch per acre than the cattail.

Sprinkle chickweed blossoms on a salad.

Chickweed, Stellaria, is not a blossom that comes to mind when one things of edible blossoms because one rarely separates the small blossoms from the rest of the chickweed before it becomes food. However, the deeply-lobed tiny five-petaled blossoms can be separated and sprinkled like white snow upon salads. Admittedly this is more for effect but isn’t that part of why we eat pretty flowers anyway? Also note the Native Americans did not let the weed’s small size deter them. They also used the minute seeds to make bread or to thicken soups. And of course, the rest of the chick weed above ground can be used as a potherb. It can be eaten raw if you like the flavor of corn silk.  Some folks just toss everything into a blender and make a green drink out of it

Chicory

I can remember the first time I saw Chicory in blossom, or ever for that matter. I was in Alexandria, Virgina, visiting a dear friend for a couple of weeks and wandering amongst parks, monuments, and museums. The mower had somehow missed it and I noticed it immediately. The blue pretty Chicory is a close relative of the dandelion but not sweet at all, In fact it runs towards bitter and earthy. Think radicchio. You can eat the flowers and the bud, or pickle the buds. The root has been roasted and used to extend and flavor coffee.

Citron Melon

The two plants non-foraging people ask about all the time are Society Garlic (covered elsewhere) and those small watermelon like fruit seen in old citrus groves and abandoned fields. The short answer is they are Citron Melons. They used to be cultivated for to make preserves and I have a separate article on them. However, their blossoms are edible if they are not bitter and you remove the pistils. The blossoms should be cooked though usually one never sees the plant until the late fall and winter when one can see the fruit from the seasonal die back. The blossom might be edible raw, I just haven’t tired them. Seminole Pumpkin blossoms can be used the same way. Again remove the pistils.

My mother told me there wasn’t a time when she couldn’t remember not eating white Clover blossoms, Trifolium repens. That’s interesting because raw clover blossoms aren’t the easiest to digest. In fact, the entire clover family is on the cusp of edible not edible. It’s high in protein and the flavor of the blossoms is alright but eating clover leaves is more on the famine food side of life. As for the blossoms, they are usually made into tea which brings a precaution. This is usually about sweet clover but should be remembered for all clover. They should be used totally fresh or totally dried, not wilted and never moldy. In fact, moldy clover is how they discovered the “blood thinner” coumadin, read after it killed a lot of cows. So when you use clover, particularly sweet clover, make sure it is either totally fresh, or totally dried and has no mold. And yes, you can eat red clover blossoms, too. Sweet but on the hay side.

Coltsfoot

Coltsfoot has become controversial. Young leaves, flower buds, and young flowers can be use in soups or as potherbs. Fresh or dried flowers are used to make an aromatic tea. A delicious wine is made from the blossoms and ashes from the plant are a salt substitute. Used for centuries it has come under scrutiny for chemical that might cause liver damage, at least in infants. There is one documented case of coltsfoot tea causing severe liver problems in one infant. In another case, an infant developed liver disease and died because the mother drank tea containing coltsfoot during her pregnancy. The plant has also been used for centuries to make a cough suppressant. Indeed, its botanical name Tussilago farfara means “cough suppressing activity.” A European native it is naturalized in the northeast quadrant of North America as well as Washington State and British Columbia.

Common Mallow Blossom

How many names does this mallow have? There’s Common Mallow, High Mallow, Tall mallow, Mauve des Bois, Cheeses, and botanically Malva Sylvestris, which means mallow of the woods. Native to western Europe as the plant moved with colonialists it picked up various names. It’s an annual in cool areas and a perennial in warmer areas. It is found in most states save the Old South and Nevada though it does grow in South Carolina. the mucilaginous leaves are eaten like spinach, added to soups to give them texture, or used to make a tea. Flowers are used like a vegetable or as a garnish. Unripe fruits are called cheese because they look like a small wheel of cheese. They are a nibble. Look for blossoms from June to September.

Tansy’s Rayless Blossoms

Another escapee from Eurasia now found over most of North America and the rest of the world is the Common Tansy. First mentioned for medicinal uses by the Ancient Greeks, the “bitter buttons” by the 8th century were in Charlemagne’s herb gardens and used by Benedictine monks in Switzerland. In 16th century England it was a “necessary of the garden.” Tansy, related to the thistle, even been used as an insect repellent.  In fact, meat (and corpses) were wrapped in it for preservation and keep insects at bay. It is not a good repellent against mosquitoes but does a good job with the Colorado Potato Beetle.  Like chamomile it contains thujone so it should be used sparingly. But then again, that’s what spices are for. The blossoms’s flavor is bitter, camphor-like.

Coral Vine Blossoms Must be Cooked

The Coral Vine has dozens of names, not only as a cultivated blossom but an escapee on the most noxious list. Botanically it is Antigonon leptopus. A native of Mexico it has edible roots, leaves and for this series, flowers. To read more about it see a separate entry on this site. The vine can climb to some 40 feet and blossoms nearly year round in warm area.  Butterflies and bees like it (you’ve been warned) because over 40% of its blossoms are open at a time. The blossoms, like the leaves and roots, have to be cooked.

Corn Poppy

They used to be far more common than they are now, paper red poppies around Veterans Day, sold to raise money for disable veterans and the like. Aside from the veteran connection, mention Poppy and opium is usually the next topic mentioned. That’s a different poppy so hold the email please.  Our poppy is Papaver rhoeas, common name is Corn Poppy, sometimes Flanders Poppy.  From Athens Greece to Athens Georgia, you can find Corn Poppies. In fact, they are the flower of profusion about the Agora down from the Acropolis.  Young leaves are cooked and seasoned like spinach, or used for flavoring in everything from soup to salad. Syrup is made from the red petals is used to add flavor and color soups as well as wine. The seeds are used in confections and bread and the oil is an excellent substitute for Olive Oil. Originally from Eurasia they are found in most areas of North America.

Cow Slips Blossoms

My mother’s mother loved Cow Slip greens. Cow slip is from the old English word “cuslyppe” which means cow dung. Apparently the species has the same feeding preferences as some famous mushrooms. So my grandmother would make my mother go out in the cow-containing pastures to pick the cow slip greens. And from the way my mother tells the tale my grandmother didn’t care whose pasture she spied the plants in. They were destined for consumption after my mother fetched them. From temperate Europe and Asia originally, Cow Slip, Primula veris, is in the same genus as the (English) Primrose mentioned earlier. Flowers are used in salads, conserves, or as pickles and a garnish. They have also been used to make cow slip wine and vinegar. Leaves are eaten raw in salads or used to make a tea. It is found in northeastern North America.

Golden Currants

We used to ride our horses on abandoned roads, of which there were plenty. One was still passable if you had a vehicle with a high suspension because the road went over washed out ledge. It was no problem for the horses. At the top of the ledge were high bush blueberries, some eight feet tall. Just beyond the crest were two fallen-in farms, across the road from each other which usually meant the same family. Still growing at one of the homesteads was Currants. Currants, gooseberries and Kiwis are related to each other. Currants were made into jellies and jams as well as wine… very good wine. The natives dried them and use them in making pemmican. Some species, perhaps most, have edible flowers. At the top of the flower list is Ribes aureum, or Golden Currant, found in most of North America except the Old South. Another currant noted for flower edibility is Ribes cereum. Wax Currant, found in the western half of North America. Black Currant (Ribes nigrum) flower buds are used in ice cream and liqueurs. I would suspect the open flowers would be usable as well. And of course, the berries have many uses and have antioxidants. Incidentally, R. aureum is not Ribes odorata.

Daisy

If I remember correctly Jean Kerr titled one of her humorous books, “Please Don’t Eat The Daisies.” The Daisy was Bellis perennis, or the English Daisy but now just called Daisy as it is the common flower of farm and field in North America, and South America. For a widespread plant in multiple uses it is not high on the flavor list, if not bitter. However, its leaves have been used as a cooked green, usually boiled or as a pot herb. Flower petals are eaten in salads,  remember bitter. Flower buds are eaten in sandwiches, soups and stews, or pickled and used like capers. The entire flower open in the day and closes at night. “Daisy” is from Day’s Eye, meaning open only during the day. And, while it looks just a center blossom with a lot of rays around it, each ray is a separate flower, and every tiny yellow section in the middle is a separate flower.

Dame’s Rocket is a Mustard

Dame’s Rocket is a declared invasive species in several places. It’s your civic duty eat the weed. Originally from Eurasia some 400 years ago it’s a mustard that at first glance looks like Phlox. Dame’s Rocket has the typical mustard family four petals, Phlox, five. It’s found essentially everywhere in North America except the Old South. Botanically known as Hesperis matronalis, it is cultivated, escaped and is included in wild bird seed mix. Young leave collected before flowering are eaten like cress. Seed pods can be added stews and soups. Seeds are a source of oil and can be sprouted and eaten. The flowers are used to add spicy flavors to fruit dishes and salads.

Dandelion’s Cheery Rays

Perhaps no wild flower is better known as edible, or played with, than the Dandelion. Who hasn’t sent the flower’s powder puff of seeds off into the wind with a strategic breath of air? The first batch of wine I made as a kid, after two successful crocks of beer with cooking malt and bread yeast, was dandelion wine. The yellow parts of the blossom are sweet, if not honey-flavored. It makes a fine homemade wine and the blossom added to salads (or pancakes) is a cheery compliment. However, trim off all green parts unless you happen to like bitter. And with all wild plants, be careful where you harvest to avoid pollution.

Dayflower, a Commelina

My love affair with Dayflowers is over. They don’t like me anymore. Well, the raw stems don’t. The raw blossom still do. In the Commelina clan there’s quite a few of them and while the blossoms are fine to toss in a salad, candy or use as a garnish — just like their relative the Spiderworts,  I am beginning to think the stems and older leaves are overrated. Raw, they irritate my tummy these days. I have an article on them on site.  The blossoms can vary in size depending on which species and can have three blue petals, two blue petals and one small white petal or two large blue petals and one smaller blue petal. Their flavor is an inoffensive green. The Yellow Commelina, Commelina africana, is also edible cooked.

The original Daylily

A foraging standby in all but the southwest desert and northwest Canada is the Daylily. But first a couple of  precautions. I am talking about only the Hemerocallis genus. Also go sparingly, they can be diuretic or laxative. That said day lilies are on the sweet side, vegetable-ish. Like squash and glad blossom they’re used to hold tasty finger food but like other blossoms cut them away from the white bitter base. I used to enjoy them often but the only local patch is now under a highway exit. See full article on site and video.

Eastern Coral Bean

Like the Eastern Redbud below the Eastern Coral Bean is a seasonal treat. Unmistakable in the springtime it sends up a flower spike populated with red, tubular flowers. The plant has hummingbirds in mind. Flowers ripen for a few weeks then turn into toxic berries, which we do not eat. While the blossoms can be eaten raw they are usually cooked first by boiling. When you do the loose their color and turn light green. Slightly beanish, their traditional use is to mix in with scrambled eggs. Other species such as the Western Coral Bean are in similar ways, and also usually cooked. See full article on site and video. Erythrina american blossoms are used in a similar way.

Eastern Redbud

In the spring time in North America if you see a tree with no leaves and small pink blossoms it is almost certainly the native Eastern Redbud. I say almost certainly because here in Florida there is an imported ornamental that does the same thing at the same time with pink blossoms, except they are huge whereas the Eastern Redbud’s blossoms are small. Native Americans ate redbud flowers raw or cooked as well as the young pods and seeds raw or cooked. The flowers can be pickled. They have a slightly sour taste and are high in Vitamin C . They’re  a pleasant addition to salads and can also be used as a condiment. The unopened buds can be pickled or used as a caper substitute. See full article on site and video. Cercis siliquastrum can be used the same way.

“Elder Blow”

No compendium of edible wild flowers is complete without mentioning Elderberry blossoms. Small, aromatic, they have been used for tea at least for centuries with some recipes 600 years old. They can also be put into pancake batter and the like to sweeten and give a nice texture. Another use for the blossoms is to flavor a light summer time sparkling wine, or as my friend Dick Deuerling would call it “Elder Blow Champagne.” The dark purple to black berries have been used medicinally — particularly for colds and flu — and in the kitchen. I like Elderberry pie and to use the dried berries as a spice such as on ham.

Eucalyptus Blossom

While on the topic of flowers that are not edible but produce a sweet nectar than let’s add the huge family of Eucalyptus. Here in North America Eucalyptus is usually thought of in medicinal terms, some what in the same category as camphor, one of those aromas in your grand- or great grandmother’s house. Where they are native however, Eucalyptus are significant producers of honey, flower nectar, and “manna” sweet dripping directly from the tree or scraped from leaves. Cornucopia II lists no less than 37 Eucalyptus species producing, honey, nectar, manna and in come cases edible bark and seeds. “Eucalyptus” comes from Greek. “Eu” means “well” and “kaleptos” means covered. Well-covered, in reference to the hidden flowers. The base of flowers are sipped on for their nectar. Incidentally in Greek Eucalyptus is pronounced eff-KA-lip-tos. Blame the difference on Dead Latin.

Everning Primrose, Oenothera biennis

Every climate has its good and bad points and one of the bad points locally is that the tall, northern Evening Primrose does not grow here. I think the the most amazing specimen I ever saw was in Vathia, Greece. It was at least six feet tall and totally covered with flowers. Here in Florida we have a very scraggly ground hugging one. I have not tired its flowers. On my list of things to do. However, the common Evening Primrose of northern climes does have edible blossoms. They are sweet and can be used in a variety of ways raw or cooked if you prefer, salad to soups to garnish. They can even be pickled.

Forest Lily

Closely related to some species in Edible Flowers: Part 18 is the Forest Lily, Veltheimina bracteata. A native to Africa it is found in flower gardens in warmer climates around the world.  The species is named for the German patron of botany, August Ferdinand Graf von Veltheim (1741-1801). There are only two species in the genus. The Forest Lily’s inflorescence is a dense raceme of tubular flowers on a long stalk. The color of the flowers vary from pale pink to dusky pink to orange-pink or deep rose pink, occasionally greenish-yellow.  The tips of the flowers are sometimes green or spotted with green. Forest lilies flower during late winter to spring. Each flower-head lasts about a month. They are eaten like spinach.

Fragrant Water Lilly

One of the more difficult things about the Nymphaea odorata is what common name to call it. Fragrant Water Lilly and American White Water Lilly seem to be in the running. We’ll go with Fragrant Water Lilly, and it is! Actually the unopened flower buds can be collected and boiled as a vegetable. Once opened the raw blossom can be used as a garnish or nibble. Whether the plant’s rhizome is useful is something of a debate. Some think our local native Nymphaea mexicana can be used the same way.

Golden Alexanders

While the name is pretty and flower is well most folks don’t know about Golden Alexanders, or Zizia aurea. In the carrot family it is a prime edible found in the eastern two thirds of North America plus one county in southeastern Wyoming. It’s native and prefers moist woodlands but is also well-known for surviving droughts. Golden Alexanders blooms from May to June, which varies a bit from Florida to Canada. The yellow flowers are bunched at the top of the plant. Each flower is tiny, some three millimeters long with five sepals, five petals, and five stamens. In the fall the leaves turn purple. The flower clusters with the main stem removed are added to salads, or they make a delicious cooked vegetable reminiscent of broccoli. In Eurasia a related species, Smyrnium olusatrum, Black Lovage, were cultivated as a vegetable, gradually replaced by celery.

Almond flavored gorse

There is a saying: “When Gorse is out of bloom kissing is out of season.” As Gorse is never out of bloom, that’s the good news. The bad news is that it is cover with thorns… Perhaps the wedding analogy is appropriate. A spray of Gorse was traditionally put in the bridal bouquet as a reminder. Whether that is of kisses or thorns I am not sure.  One of the The thorns might also explain why its seeds are mostly distributed by ants. Gorse flowers are a trail side nibble. They can be added to salads, made into tea, or used to flavor wine. Oddly, the blossoms smell slightly of coconut but taste like almonds. The bright flowers have also been used for dye, Easter eggs to clothes.

Gunnison Mariposa

The blossoms of two Mariposa get over looked because so much of the rest of the plants are edible. First the Gunnison Mariposa, Calochortus gunnisonii. The fresh bulbs are easten raw with salt and taste like a raw potato. Fried or baked they have a crisp nut-like texture. Dried they are pounded into flour for use as porridge or mush. The seeds are ground and eaten. And the flowers and buds are eaten raw in salads or as a trail side nibble. The Gunnison Mariposa is found from Mexico to Canada in states bordering or containing the Rocky Mountains.

Hairy Cowpea, Vigna luteola

Hairy cowpeas like water. Not exactly in water but certainly near it, water’s edge. You’ll find them in the same places you find the Ground nut, Apios americana. When you’re near water, fresh or salt, look for pure yellow pea-like blossoms though it’s not really a pea but a bean, and related to the Mung Bean and the Black Eye Pea, which is also a bean. While the Hairy Cowpea, Vigna Luteola, blooms and fruits all year locally it prefers the fall for seed production. It’s usually at that time collecting them is a calorie-positive activity because you can get a lot of the seeds at one time. Of course, the rest of the year is a good time to collect the blossoms and boil them with other potherb fare. The roots can be chewed to extract their sweetness, the seeds can be shelled and cooked and as mentioned the flowers cooked.

Hawthorn Blossoms

When I was growing up I lived on a dirt road out in the country. Across the road, kitty-corner, where two pastures met, was a Hawthorn tree. It was old and large and had two-inch thorns in grand profusion. It was also laden every year with several families of birds because few predators would brave the thorns. As to which Hawthorn tree it was is anybody’s guess, even for a Hawthorn expert. It is one of those genus in which there may be a 100 species or a thousand. It is supposedly a professional joke in the botanical world to send a known Hawthorn to some one rather new and ask them to identify it to which the often reply is it must be a new species. Long ago someone discovered that very young Hawthorn leaves and blossoms in the spring could be eaten together right off the tree, thus the  “Bread and Cheese tree” was born. Young leaves can be added to salads or nibble on. The blossoms, which have a peculiar taste, can be added to salads, desserts and drinks. Interestingly old leaves and fruit (minus seeds) are a natural beta blocker for high blood pressure. Two teaspoons of either or mixed ground up in a cup of hot water morning and night is the herbalist’s usual prescription.

Canadian Honewort

High Bush Cranberry

High Bush Cranberries are not cranberries but that’s all right because we are interested in the flower, though the fruit is edible, too. Actually Viburnum trilobum, not a Vaccinium, the High Bush Cranberry favors cooler climates, think the north half of North America, Europe and asia. the blossoms of the High Bush Cranberry is rather odd in that it has sterile large flowers around the outside of the blossom and fertile tiny flowers in the middle. While both types of flowers can be used the larger outside ones are more practical and leave the fertile flowers to make berries. The flowers can be mixed with pancake or muffin batter or can be made into fritters.

The Canadian Honewort, Cryptotaenia canadensis, grows all the way down to Florida, and covers the eastern two third of North America. A member of the carrot family, it can be found growing along streams and creeks or in low, wet ground. The entire plant is edible, cooked, root to flowers. Flowering season is May to August and the blossom are small. Also called Wild Chervil, the roots are usually boiled in salted water and served with oil, young leaves and stems are soaked in water to moderate flavor then cooked as a pot herb. Cooked flowers are edible as well.  You can add a small portion to salads for their aromatic quality. Seeds are used for flavoring and the stems candied. Cryptotaenia japonica can be used in a similar way but needs far less cooking, usually just blanching. In warmer areas don’t mistake Tripogandra multiflora for it. The latter has black stems, large flowers, and is not edible.

Hyssopus officinalis

The Hyssop, Hyssopus officinalis, is quite well-known. The leaves and tops of young shoots are used to season soups, salads, pickles, sauces, custards meats, stews and dried for tea.  Its bitter-mint oil is used to flavor beer, liquors, and bitters. It is one of the main flavors in Chartreuse. Native to the Mediterranean, it is cultivated globally. What is not often reported is that the blossoms are edible as well, usually added to salads or made into syrup. There are several cultivars. The word Hyssop comes almost diretly form the Greek word ??????? (EEs-so-pos.) It’s naturalized in the northeast quadrant of North America and North Carolina, Colorado, Montana and Saskatchewan.

Indian Paint Brush

While recreating my foraging instructor page for the new website I considered using the state flower next to each separate state entry. Unfortunately few states have state flowers that are edible. Wyoming is the exception. Its state flower is the Indian Paint Brush though it is found in most western states and has a huge variety of common names including  — no surprise here — the Wyoming Paintbrush. By statute, however, it is officially Indian Paint Brush. It was adopted as the state flower 31 January 1917 beating out columbine and fringed gentian. There was heated debate, however, from the opponents. One said the Indian Paint Brush was not common in the state, had too many varieties only an expert could tell apart, was parasitic by feeding on the roots of others, wasn’t generally, liked and that the fringe gentian had been already chosen by Wyoming school children as the sentimental favorite. He left out the Indian Paint Brush encourages foraging but no doubt would have if he had known it. This particular paint brush, Castillija linariaefolia, is the best tasting in its genus. Maybe that’s why it won. Flowers are eaten raw. However the plant can accumulate selenium making it toxic to cattle.

Johnny-Jump-Ups

I don’t know if I should tell you about Johnny-Jump-Ups or not. Botanically Viola tricolor, they are among the first flowers I can remember my mother picking from the wild and eating on the spot. She did it because her mother did it (and she also never missed harvesting a cowslip either.) Johnny-Jump-Ups like moisture and can tolerate shade so… here goes…. Our house in the country had a septic system and a drain field. That drain field was moist and shaded and Johnny-Jump-Up grew there in profusion. And that is where my mother picked them, one after another, eating them on the spot. She’s now 86. Johnny-Jump-Ups have a mild wintergreen flavor and a variety of uses.  They’re added to salads, desserts, soups, served with cheese and used to decorate confections. Incidentally they are the ancestor of the common Pansy.

King’s Spear

Like many European wild flowers the King’s Spear, aka Asphodel, Asphodeline lutea, is found in flower gardens around the world. These days it is appreciate for its looks more than its flavor. However, the ancient Greek and Romans roasted the roots and ate them like potatoes with oil and salt. Sometimes they mashed them with figs. The flowers are also eaten and have a sweet, delicious flavor. It will grow in any soil and under most conditions except facing north. Very showy, low maintenance, blossoming for about six weeks from May into June. Harvest roots in fall.

Kudzu blossoms smell like grapes

You never have to go looking for Kudzu blossoms. When kudzu is in bloom there is no mistaking its scent. It is smells eactly like the cheap grape bubble gum kids chew. And intenst? You can detected it on the wind from 100 yards away, or more. Kudzu is the bane of the Old South. Introduced by the government which paid farmers to use it for land reclaimation, it can grow a foot a day and covers some 120,000 new acres every year. Goats love to eat it and all of it is edible except the seeds. The blossoms are quite edible recipes abound in their use, jelly to wine. While the smell like grape they do not taste like grape. They are sweet and have a flavor of their own.

Loroco, Fernaldia pandurata

If you like Latin American cuisine one of the well-known edible flowers, buds and blossoms, is the Fernaldia pandurata, or Loroco.  It is part of the traditional dish pupusas. It grows wild in northern Central America and southern Mexico but is also under cultivation and will grow in south Florida. The buds and unopened flowers are cooked with cheese, eggs, rice or chicken. They are also used in crepes, tortillas and tamales. The flowers and buds can also be cooked as greens or folded into egg batter. Originally called Quilite, which means “edible herb” the pungent flowers similar to artichokes in flavor are high in calcium, niacin and fiber, but low in calories. Oddly this vine is closely related to toxic members of the dogbane family but tests on the flowers for cardiac glycosides have been negative. The root, however, is used as a poison.

Magnolia grandiflora

Magnolias are one of the iconic trees of not only the South but exported to many non-hard freeze areas of the world. And people have admired the huge magnolia blossoms for a long time. Few folks know the blossoms of the Magnolia grandiflora are edible, however their flavor is intense and they taste similar to how they smell. They are not eaten raw per se. They are pickled. Oddly the practice started in England and you only use the petals, not the entire blossom. What works best is to pickle the petals in a sweet/sour pickle recipe. Then take out one petal, dice it, and use it sparingly as a flavoring in salads. The flavor is strong so go easy. Also, M. grandiflora’s leaf can be used just as M. virginiana’s can as a bay leaf, that is to flavor soups and the like. However, don’t use the entire leaf because it is way too beg. Cut it into smaller pieces when used like a bay leaf.

Mahoe’s Blossoms Change Color

One of the more fascinating flowers in warm climates is that of the Mahoe, or the Sea Hibiscus. In the morning the blossom is yellow but by late afternoon it is red. The working theory is the shrub changes color to appeal to two different groups of pollenators. If one doesn’t get it in the morning, one might in the afternoon. The change in color also increases the amount of antioxidants. It also helps that almost the entire shrub is edible some way. The blossoms, yellow or red, can be eaten raw or cooked. Their flavor is mild. Incidentally, the Portia Tree, aka Seaside Mahoe, can be used the same way.

Melaleuca Blossom

To compete the trio of sweet flowers that are not edible let’s add the Melaleuca, an invasive nightmare in south Florida. The blossoms and leaves of the M. quinquenervia can be used to make a sweet tea. Usually the tea is made from the leaves and the blossom used to sweeten it. Also called the Paper Bark tree is is used to make temporary huts in the outback as well as containers for cooking food. The Melaleuca  is the number one invasive plant in Florida. It was introduced in the late 1800s but got a huge boost after the turn of the 20th century from one Dr. John Gifford. It consumes huge amounts of precious water, is very prolific, and very difficult to get rid of. On the other hand, like the Eucalyptus it is also a prime producer of honey.

Manzanita blossom, red beries to follow

Western states often seem to get short-changed in the foraging realm because most of the edible foreign weeds landed on the east coast. They’ve been slowly working their way west for centuries, which from a botanical point of view is a small amount of time. The West, however, has its own wild edibles including the Manzanita of the Arctostaphylos genus. Both Manzanitas and Bearberries are in the same genus. Of the Manzanitas several have flowers worthy of nibbling on including Arctostaphylos glauca, Arctostaphylos manzanita, Arctostaphylos nevadaensis, Arctostaphylos parryana, Arctostaphylos patula, Arctostaphylos pungens, and Arctostaphylos tomentosa. Besides the blossoms, the berries are edible as well.

Marsh Mallow

Yes, at one time marshmallow, the white, sweet sticky stuff you buy in a jar and mix with peanut butter to make a Fluffernutter, once was made from the Marsh Mallow. The commercial product, however, is much different than the original. A native of Europe it has been naturalized in eastern North America for centuries. It was brought here mainly as a medicinal plant, and has many uses still.  Nearly the entire plant has something to offer. We are in this article concerned about the flowers. They can be eaten raw or cooked. When cooked they are on the viscous side. Grayish, velvety leaves helps you identify this mallow from its scores of kin.

Mayflower

A rite of spring in the frozen north, or at least the part I lived in as a kid, was to go looking for Mayflowers. Hardy little souls, they would blossom on the side of small Maine mountains and cope with bone-cold nights and reluctant-to-melt patches of snow and ice. They are the first to blossom after the frost leaves. My mother had her favorite haunts for the flowers and we would go clambering amongst boulders and hardwoods for them. Their intoxicating aroma and the fact they are the only green thing growing that time of year makes them easy to find.  Epigaea repens, also called Trailing Arbutus, actually have the same aroma as citrus blossoms. Slow growing and in the Heath family they are salad fare but light and delicate. However, in many places they are rare, so pick accordingly. They are also illegal to pick in some places. Check your local laws, or, have no witnesses and eat the evidence.

Maypop

Maypops are edible, and they look great on the plate. As for flavor… well, the entire plant smells like an old gym shoe, the flowers less so. Let’s call it an acquired taste. They are really too insubstantial to cook. In fact, most of the plant above ground is useful. The leaves can be cooked as a green, and the water they were cooked in as a sedative. The green fruit can be sliced and cooked like a green tomato, and the ripe fruit pul[ and seeds can be eaten out of hand or made into a refeeshing, tart drink.

Meadowsweet

What shall we call it? Meadowsweet or Queen of the Meadow? I grew up calling it Meadowsweet so I’ll stick with that. From the old world it is naturalized in the northeast quadrant of North America, New Jersey north as far as you can go and west to Illinois and then as far north as you can go. And for a botanical hiccup, it is also naturalized in one western state, Colorado. We had multiple horses when I was growing up and subsequently hayed in the summer. I remember many times mowing Meadowsweet and smelling its sweet aroma. Scientifically Filipendula ulmaria, it always grew in the damper areas of the fields. The entire plant is used herbally and in the kitchen to flavor this or that. The blossoms are equally sweet and make a pleasant additions to soups and salads or make a tea, one of the few medicinals teas that’s easy to get down.

Mexican Hyssop

The Agastache genus provides a lot of flowers and leaves for salads and teas. At least nine if not ten species have consumer friendly parts. Despite that one of my readers, a teacher, took some blossoms in for a tasting in her mostly Hispanic class and ran brickwall into the administration who viewed anything not from the grocery store as toxic. Pictured here is Agastache mexicana, Mexican Hyssop, which is in the greater mint family. It’s highly areomatic leaves and flowers are used in salads, for flavoring and tea. Other useable Agastache include: Agastache cana, Agastache foeniculum, Agastache neomexicana, Agastache rugusa, Agastache urticifolia, and Agastache anethiodora.

Milkweed Blossom

When I was a kid  back in the Dark Ages I was always covered with Milkweed sap, or Asclepias syriaca juice, and it was sticky! The plants grew everywhere and at the time were taller than me. I was always picking blossoms, snapping shoots, tearing apart green pods and later throwing the fluff everywhere. The spongy, cellular structure of the pod was fascinating, and the final seeds so silky. I can still remember seeing butterflies on the Milkweed blossoms. They knew something I did not. There is sweet nectar in the blossoms… kind of. Milkweed blossoms are an acquired taste and to really get the nectar out they have to be long boiled. However, you can eat the blossoms raw.

Milkweed Vine, Morrenia odorata

By looking at the names of this vine and the attitude of the state of Florida one would never suspect most of it is edible including the flowers. It’s called the Milkweed Vine, the Latex Vine, the Strangler Vine, the latter because it tends to climb on trees and cover them. Botanically it is Morrenia odorata and I have a separate article about it on site. Literally from the ground up this plant is edible and the fruit has more Vitamin C than citrus (which fights to get rid of it.) The flowers are very sweet and floral and can be eaten raw. This vine is only found in warm areas. Don’t try confuse it with the cool climate Honeyvine, Cynanchum laeve, which is not edible.

Mimosa Silk Tree, Albizia julibrissin

The Mimosa Silk Tree, Albizia julibrissin, is native to southern and eastern Asia. From there it was carried to Europe by the mid-1700s. Soon after it was introduced to North Carolina by the French botanist Andre Michaux. From there it spread north to New England, down around the Old South west to California and up the west coast, all except the northern plain states.  There is a separate article on site. Young leaves are edible cooked or dried to make a tea. The blossoms are edible like a vegetable or crystalized.

Wild Mint, Micromeria brownei

Mint is such a common edible I almost didn’t include it. Also, which one do you use, and do I put it in the cultivated edible lineup or the wild edibles? There’s over 200 genera and some 7,000 species in the mint family. The largest is Salvia with some 900 members. It would be a lot easier if we were talking about Florida Pennyroyal which is a monotypic genus, a family with one member, not thousands. I am going to opt for a local mint as you  probably alread know about your local mint. I learned as this mint Micromeria brownei. Now it is Clinopodium brownei.  Ahhh… bontany always trying to improve itself. The mint went from Small Flower Parts Brown to Slope Footed Brown. I’m sure you can see the immediate and dramatic nomenclature improvement…. I was also told all those decades ago it had no common name. When the internet was born the aquarium trade starting calling it Creeping Charlie. Later I saw St. John’s Mint… hmmm not too bad as th St. John’s River runs north through the peninsula of Florida.  Only recently Florida Water Mint has creeped up, not a name that imspires me as it can be found in much of the Old South… Maybe Old South Mint is in the offering. This little plant can be found anywhere I teach in the warm south near fresh water. In fact it also grows in Interstate medians leaving a mint aroma in the air for days after car accidents careered off the pavement. A one inch part of any of it, blossoms or stem in a cup of hot water makes a miny tea. The entire plant can be used as mint. Warning: It is a strong, no wimpy mint it. Start sparingly until you get your gauge of use.

Musk Hyacinth

Often plants that are wild in Europe are cultivated in North America, making them difficult to classify. The Musk Hyacinth is such a plant. Botanically Muscari neglectum, the Musk Hyacinth has urn-shaped blue blossoms. They are used as flavoring in Europe. The bulbs are also boiled an eaten. Blossoms of the Muscari botryoides (Muscari botryoides ) are picked and that species in naturalized in the eastern United States plus Texas and New Mexico. A close relative, Leopoldia comosa, the Tassel Hyacinth, is used extensive particularly in Italian and Greek cooking. The bulbs are boiled then pickled or preserved in oil. They are thought to stimulate the appetite and are also diuretic. Interestingly wild ones are preferred over cultivated ones.

Wild Mustard Blossoms

Mustards are a huge family.  They all have yellow to white blossoms, sometimes pink, usually a simple cross which is there the family names Cruciferae comes from. They range from the mustard that produces the seed that makes the condiment to the radish in our salad to the plant that produces what eventually is cleaned and deodorized into Canola oil. In northern climates they are a spring and summer plant, here in Florida they are wintertime fare, showing up after Thanksgiving and usually totally gone by St. Patrick’s day. Wild radish and wild mustard look similar but have small differences. One is that mustards grow tall, radishes like to serpentine. Radish blossoms cluster and have noticable veins, mustard blossoms are singular and the veins are not obvious. The seeds pods are different as well. Mustard’s pod is smooth, the radish jointed and why the mustard is called the charlock and the radish the jointed charlock. Their blossoms are both peppery and mustardy. They work best in cold salads or hot soups, the latter they can be tossed in just before serving. And of course mustard and radish leaves can be cooked up as greens.

White Neem Blossoms

White Neem Blossoms

Neem is known for a wide variety of medical uses. There’s hardly any part of the tree that is not employed in some medical use or another. It is also consider a trash tree and a pest in many areas including the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. And what few folks know is that the bitter flowers are edible. They are usually eaten with other food as a premeal appetite or a palate stimulant. Botanically the tree is Azadirachta indica, suggesting it’s native to India. In fact, just last week I was given a Neem sapling. It is now happily in the ground. Incidentally, the young leaves are cooked and eaten, the most common way in water buffalo meat salad. Neem honey is prized and the sap is fermented into a local alcoholic drink. If you don’t have your own Neem Tree the leaves and flowers can be bought in Indian markets.

I have read there are no toxic Opuntias. With some 300 of them I don’t personally know. I do eat cactus pads on a regular basis. I fry and grill them. But, as with most cactus, one has to contend with glochids and spines. The spines one can see. It’s the tiny hair-like glochids that can make one semi-miserable, tolerable in a finger, maddening in your tongue. Duct tape removes them moderately well. Wear gloves harvesting. The best approach is to use a long sharp fillet knife as the flowers are surprisingly thick. Also tap them first to dislodge bees. Among all the Opuntia the Prickly Pear Cactus flower is the most often eaten, not raw but cooked, usually boiled. Their flavor leans towards tart. The blossoms also make a good wine.

Oregon Hollygrape

The Oregon Hollygrape is neither a grape or a holly. So much for common names being helpful. It’s the North American equivalent to the Barberry. Beyond cultivation its distribution is a bit strange. One the west coast it runs form California to British Columbia including Idaho, Wyoming, and Albert. On the east side of the continent it goes from Kentucky due north including Canada but not the east coast. Then for some reason it is also in Georgia and New Jersey. The leaves do look like a holly and its name, for a change, suggests that, Mahonia aquifolium. It usually has clusters of yellow flowers around April, depending exactly where you are in North America. The acidic berries are  used to make pies,jam, jelly, confections and beverages including wine. The flowers are eaten as is or used to make a lemonade-like drink.  Four relative are used in similar ways but none of the others have flowers that are reported as edible. One however, the Mahonia nervosa, has young leaves that can be simmered in water then eaten.

Boil Papaya Blossom, Too

This won’t make much sense to those who live where there is a winter but the first time I climbed Turtle Mound — not a great feat as it is only 80 feet high — I was surprised to see Papaya’s growing on top. Turtle Mound is a midden, an ancient trash heap made mostly of millions of oyster shells dumped there by ancient natives. It’s been more than three decades since my first visit and the papayas are still there, self-seeding as papayas do. A native of Mexico they are naturalized in warm areas of the world. Papaya blossoms, like very young leaves, are edible cooked, which is usually by boiling.  Actually cooking the yellow flowers is a lot easier than pollinating them because there are female blossoms, male blossom, and male/female blossoms, kinda you, me and us. You have to move pollenating material around correctly or you don’t get fruit (also edible.)

Perennial Phlox

There are two Phlox, so to speak. One that gets one to two feet high and shows up seasonally  in fields, particularly here in Florida. That’s not the one you want. You want the perennial phlox that grows to three of four feet tall, Phlox paniculata. I’m sure you’ve seen it. Like the Meadowsweet above it is an old world plant found in many home gardens and yards. It has escaped into the wild and can be found in the eastern half of North America plus Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Utah and Washington state. The slightly spicy blossoms range from red to pink to white. They go well with fruit salads.

Pignut Blossoms

Do you know where the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon are? Do you know what they are? Among other things they’re the only place in North America where Bunium bulbocastanum is naturalized. The islands are situated at the entrance of Fortune Bay off the southern coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The odd part is they are not part of Canada but still part of France, a tiny toehold still in the New World. Residents are French citizens and vote in French election though the home county is more than 4,000 miles away. It was from these islands that a large amount of Canadian whisky was smuggled in the the United States during prohibition. Easy to grow B. bulbocastanum is called Pignut and Earth Chestnut. It has lacy white flowers similar to Queen Ann’s Lace and attractive foliage. Pignut sets large clusters of small tubers that taste like sweet chestnuts. They are eaten raw or boiled as a vegetable. Leaves can be used like parsley. The seeds and flowers are used for flavoring. British forager Ray Mears included the Pignut in one of his early television series but not in his subsequent books because they taste so good are becoming scarce in England.

Pineapple Weed

Most people don’t think of an edible  wild flower growing in the middle of your driveway.  Ours was hard-packed sand and gravel and every summer it sprouted and determined crop of Pineapple Weed, Matricaria matricarioides. I noticed our horses, which doubled as our lawn mower,  didn’t eat them. That led to my investigation. They are pineapply or applish and related to Chamomile. You might want to avoid them if you have a ragweed allergy.

Pink Wood Sorrel

Wood sorrel, an oxalis, was probably the first wild food that I ate while my parents weren’t looking. A childhood chum of mine, Peter Jewet, and I used to spend summers wandering around the woods and it was he who showed me wood sorrel, though he called it “sour grass.” We didn’t notice that it didn’t look like grass at all. Locally there is one native wood sorrel with a small yellow blossom — edible — and several sorrels from the Caribbean Islands and beyond. They all have large pink blossoms, hence Pink Wood Sorrel, and make nice, tart additions to salads. They are like rhubarb lite. See my full article on side and video.

Chickasaw Plum Blossoms

Read this next entry carefully: You can eat some Plum blossoms, a few, a half dozen, but not a lot. Why? Because they have a chemical which when it goes through your tummy tum tum produces cyanide. A little cyanide we can tolerated, a lot will make you ill. Too much and you are deceased though admittedly it would take a lot of plum flowers to do that. Plum flowers are a trail side nibble, a sprinkle in salads or on a dessert. Sparingly is the key. They are sweet, taste like nectar. Which plums? As far as I know any plum that produces plums, that is, in the genus Prunus. It should hold true for cherry blossoms as well as they are in the genus Prunus as well but I really don’t know.

Puget Balsam Root

The Puget Balsam Root aka Deltoid Balsam Root is strickly a west coast of North America plant. In the sunflower family Balsamorhiza deltoidea was a food and medicinal plant for Native Americans. Young tender roots are eaten cooked, like carrots, or candied. The natives also roasted and ground the root using it like coffee. The young leaves were boiled as a potherb and the plant’s oily seeds eaten like sunflower seeds. The flowerstalk can be cooked and eaten like a vegetable.

Purslane’s Small Blossom

It was something of a debate, to make this entry or not. After all, Purlane is one of the most esteemed wild and cultivated edibles in the world (except oddly the United States.) It is used as a salad ingredient, a vegetable, a soup thickener, a flour, and a pickle. And yes, the flowers are edible but they are only open for a day. And when I say purslane I mean Portulaca oleracea, the kind with yellow blossoms only. Yes, I know there are commercial cultivars of multiple colored blossoms and they might look wonderful in a salad. But, I don’t know if they are edible. The Moss Rose/Rose Moss, another wild Purslane, Portulaca pilosa, is in my estimate not edible. So I stick with the original, common purslane with the yellow blossom. They are edible raw and cooked. Incidentally, the tiny pink blossoms of the sea purslane, Sesuvium portulacastrum,  is also edible raw or cooked.

Queen Ann’s Lace

Among the wild flowers I played with as a kid was Queen Ann’s Lace, the wild carrot. It’s bird’s nest blossom with a red dot in the middle was easy to identify. It’s also hairy and smells of carrots. Perhaps surprisingly, it’s not native to North America but an import from Europe.  Centuries ago the modern carrot was cultivated from the Queen Ann’s Lace, and by the way, the green tops of the cultivated carrot are edible as a flavoring or a green, if they are raised in a wholesome environment. The blossoms of Queen Ann’s Lace is carrot flavored and strong. Use sparingly until you are used to it. Also make sure you are not picking poison hemlock blossoms. The wild carrot smells of carrot, the stem is hairy, and look for a red dot in the middle of the blossom. Poison hemlock has none of these.

Rocky Mountain Columbine

Sometimes within a genus there will be toxic species and edible species. The Aquilegia are that way. Most of them are toxic with alkaloids, four are not, one in east Asia, three in western North America. Thus making sure you have the exact species is quite important. Close is not good enough. Edible in North America is Aquilegia caerulea, the Rocky Mountain Columbine. The nectar-heavy flowers are eaten as a snack or tossed into salads. They also make a good jelly. The Hanaksiala Indians got nectar  from the blossoms of the A. formosa (Western Columbine) while the Miwoks boiled and ate the early spring greens of the A. formosa var. formosa (Crimson Columbine.) In eastern Asia the species is A. buergeriana, also called Yama-odamaki. It’s sweet flowers are sucked for their nectar and also used in salads. The leaves are also edible. One other columbine might have edible uses. A. canadensis root was reportedly eaten by Native Americans.

Salsify, Tragopogon porrifolius

Salsify, Tragopogon porrifolius

It’s other names include Goatsbeard, Oyster Plant, Vegetable Oyster, Jerusalem star, Purple Oyster Plant, and Meadow salsify. Commoningly called just Salsify, botanically it is Tragopogon porrifolius. As you might have surmised to some the root tastes faintly of oysters, to others parsnip, and probably to some like oystery parsnips. Native to the Mediterranean area it has been introduced to Great Britian, northern Europe, South Africa, Australia, Canada and the United States. It is found in almost all the states including Hawaii but excluding the Old South except Georgia which has it. Roots are eaten raw in salads, or they are boiled, baked, and sauteed. They are added to soups or can be grated and made into cakes. Flower buds and flowers are eaten raw in salads or cooked then cooled and added to salads. The flowers are also pickled. Young flower stalks are cooked and dressed like asparagus. Sprouted seeds are put in sandwiches or in salads. The sap can be used as gum. Bradford Angier, a well-known Canada-based forager, says the yellow salsify is also edible.

Samphire Blossoms

I have a soft spot for edible plants that grow that can grow in salty places. They are usually fleshy, salty greens edible raw or cooked. A traditional seaside green is Samphire, Crithmum maritimum. At one time it was sold under the name of Crest Marine.  It has fleshy, aromatic leaves that are spicy, peppery.  The stems, leaves and pods can be pickled and the leaves are used fresh in salads. They can also be boiled as greens. In Italy and Greece the leaves are cut into small pieces, mixed with olive oil and lemon juice making a salad dressing. The raw blossom are used in salads. Very high in Vitamin C. The name, Samphire, is a French corruption of St. Pieere, (St. Peter) patron saint of fishermen.

 

Sego Lily

The second mariposa is called the Sego Lily, Calochortus nuttallii, and is not related to the palms or cycads which are spelled Sago. The bulbs of the Sego Lily are excellent raw, fried or boiled. Preferred ways of cooking include steaming them in pits or roasting them over a smoky fire, each method creating special flavors. The seeds are ground into meal and the whole plant can be used as a pot herb. The flowers and flower buds are eaten raw as a trail nibble or in salads. The Sego has a larger range than its kin above, farther east and west.

Smartweed

This next blossom is either love or hate in my foraging classes, the Smartweed, or Polygonum. I ask for a student volunteer to try a small amount. I usually also ask for someone who likes hot peppers then have them chew a very small portion of a leaf. It has a slow-to-get-started burn but then it grows like a red pepper heat rather than black pepper. The blossom are even hotter and fire up quicker. But, they have a bitter after taste and a perfume quality. Several of the Polygonum species heat up. The heat varies species to species. In some the leaves ca also be used as a green but they are a vasoconstrictor, read they can raise blood pressure in some.

Sesbania grandifolia

Sesbania grandifolia has managed to work its way into warmer areas of the world. If you have a frost you might be able to pot it but you won’t find it out in the field. Originating in either India or southeast Asia, it grows best in hot, humid areas.The shrubs long narrow pods are eaten as a vegeetable dish, similar in use as string beans.  The seeds are fermented into a tempeh turi. Young leaves and shoots are eaten in salads or as a pot herb or in soups and stews. Sesbania grandifolia flowers are eaten raw in salads, boiled, fried or use in curries, stews and soups. They taste like mushrooms and are rich in iron and sugar, read sweet.

Spanish Needles, Beggar’s Ticks

Bidens alba, also known as Spanish Needles and Begger’s Ticks, has a piny flavor, resinous. There are several daisy-like Bidens around the world, white or yellow, few petals or many. Flowering year round in warmer climates, the blossom’s plant was recommended some 50 years ago to become a commercial crop. Because it grows in so many places for free that never happened. While Spanish Needles blossoms are salad fare, they hold their flavor while cooking and can be added to a variety of dishes.

Spiderwort

Every time I see a Spiderwort I think of Pocahontas, the Indian maiden who save the life of Captain John Smith (see my separate article about them and spiderworts.) There are many reason to praise the mild spiderwort. Its blossom can be candied or tossed plain into salads to add color. There are also ruby and white spiderworts. The blossom are open for only a day but that’s okay because the spiderwort has many blossoms waiting to open. With no particular flavor though with a hint of sweetness the flowers are available throughout their growing season. Pictured are blue, white and red spiderworts but usually they are blue.

Star of Bethleham

The Star of Bethleham started out in central and southern Europe, North Africa, southeast Asia and presumably Levant. When it came to North America is not known but it escaped. Now it is found in most of North American except the Rocky Mountain states and due north into Canada. Botanically Ornithogalum umbellatum the cooked bulbs are sometime eaten. Raw bulbs have been implicated in animal poisonings.We, however, are more interested in higher up. The flowers are traditionally eaten baked in bread. The unopened inflorescence of a relative, Ornithogalum pyrenaicum, are cooked and served like asparagus. It’s a seasonal food in southwest England around Bath and Bristol.

Wild Strawberry Blossom

There’s a real good reason why almost no one knows this next wild flower is edible. And that’s because nearly everyone eats the fruit! Strawberries are prime food. BotanicallyFragaria virginiana, the blossomes are edible raw though most folks wait for the fruit. Of course, you can be different and toss the flowers on salads just to surprise folks. The leaves are edible as well but are on the astringent side. As with many cultivated crops harvest carefully because as a commercial crop they are often doused wth this or that chemical to keep them living and looking well until they get to market. The cultivated blossoms are pink, the wild white.

Spring Beauty

The Spring Beauty, also Springbeauty, Clayt0nia virginica, is a longtime standard for foragers. They are abundant in some areas, rare in others. Thus forage with some local consideration. True to its name the attractive wild flower is a sign of spring and easy to recognize from other spring blossoms. The white to pink petals have pink stripes, sometimes pale, sometimes bright, but pink stripes nonetheless. Each blossom also only has two sepals (leaves right under the blossom.) Lower leaves are strap-like varying in size and width. The plant grows small roots that remind people of tiny potatoes, hence the nickname “Fairy Spuds.” The flowers as well as the parts above ground are edible raw or cooked. There are several edible Spring Beauties, see separate article on site.

Sweet Goldenrod

As you might assume the Boston Tea Party of 1773 reduce the colonists store of tea, and think how far that tea had come, from the other side of the world by sailing ship. It wasn’t as if a new shipload was arriving anytime soon as a replacement. The colonists, already an irritated independent lot, came up with their own “Liberty Tea” and even shipped it to China. Called into action was the Sweet Goldenrod, and not just any Goldenrod but the Solidago odora. While it is reported you can make a tea out of any Goldenrod the top of the botanical heal is the S. odora because it tastes like anise. The flowers and the leaves can be used to make tea.

Sweet Woodruff

Several Galiums grow here in Florida, one of which can be used for dye, Galium tinctorium,  and one of which is edible, Galium aparine. Easy to sort out the two. If you can find whorls of five leaves it is the G. tinctorum. If you can find wohorls of seven leaves, its the G. aparine, among other characteristic. Their blossoms are really to tiny to attend to. The favored Galium, however, does not grow here but I have run into it elsewhere, Galium odoratum. Imported from Eurasia and now naturalized it grows roughly in the northeast quadrant of North America and is commonly called Sweet Woodruff, or Wild Baby’s Breath. It’s been used a lot in Europe as a flavoring particulary in German May wine. Its flavor is sweet and vanilla-like which brings us to a warning. One of the chemicals that gives it a sweet smell is coumarin. Taken in large quantities it reduce the blood’s ablity to clot. Flavoring and a few blossom here or there is not a worry unless you are in frail health and already taking blood thiners.

Tiger Lily

Many lilies are called the Tiger Lily but botanists argue there is only one, Lilium landifolium, a native of Asia and Japan but naturalized in the northeast quarter of North America, among other places. Almost all of the Tiger Lily is edible, bulb to flower. In fact it is a cultivated crop in Asia and Japan turnips or parsnips in flavor. Flower buds are eaten raw or cooked, as are the flowers. The pollen is edible as well. Yes, I know there are dire warnings on the Internet that it is poisonous for humans but evidence of that is absent. It IS toxic to cats. One way to identify this lily from the natives is small black bulbils on the stem. While it is naturalized it usually does not go far from urban areas. When I used to traipse around the countryside in New England I always found these and daylilies near old or abandoned farms. In fact, out in the country they were usually right across the road from the farm house. See full article on site.

Tipo Tambo

For a plant that has been cultivated for thousands of years Tipo Tambo, Guinea Arrowroot, Calathea allouia, is little known and raised only by subsistence farmers. What they know that few others don’t is that the plant’s crisp tubers taste like sweet corn and rival any gourmet hor d’oeuvres in flavor and texture. The leaves are used like tamales wrapping food to impart flavor. And of interest to us young flower clusters are cooked and eaten. The roots are a traditional Christmas food in the Dominican Republic. The species has been distributed around the world and is found in warm climates. The roots keep their crisp texture even after long cooking. They are usually boiled 15 to 20 minutes. As well as being eaten on its own, they are often an ingredient of salads, mayonnaise and fish dishes.

Tulip Tree Blossom Nectar

The blossom of the Tulip Tree, Liriodendron tulipifera, is not edible as far as I know nor would I try it. Other parts of the tree have a heart-stimulating alkaloid that is best avoided. But the flower nectar is drinkable. For just a short time while the tree is blossoming there is a small amount of very sweet nectar in each blossom. It is heavy and honey-flavored. You can drink it directly from the blossom. While early reports say the native made honey from the blossom what they were really doing was collecting nectar. The tree was also called the Sap Poplar, perhaps because its sap is consumable. I don’t know and have not found any reference to said but it wouldn’t surprise me. As a source of nectar the tree also attracts hummingbirds, squirrels and is a host plant for tiger and spicebush swallowtail butterflies.

Wapato, or Wapati

Among the wild flowers I have tasted the white petals of the Wapato are a first rate delicacy. The plant itself is known for its egg-sized tubers that arrange themselves around the base like numbers on a clock. Its blossoms are very distinctive. The only problem getting to Wapato, or Wapati, is as they like to grow in water but you can often find them close to the bank. Take only the petals of the blossom. They are sweet and fragile, tasting a bit like marshmallow. No cooking here. If you use them in a salad put them on top or they will get lost.

Water Hyacinth

The most “noxious” weed in the world has edible flowers, and leaves and bottoms. It is also illegal to possess. Follow my motto: “No witnesses, eat the evidence.” I doubt anyone would be prosecuted for eating a weed nearly every regulatory agency wants to get ride of, the Water Hyacinth. Depending upon your perspective it is either a usable biomass that can replace itself in three weeks or its a horrible weed to be done away with. The state of Florida estimates that if it did not spend millions annually and stopped fighting it the aquatic denizen would within three years clog all freshwater bodies and rivers in the state to the point of not usable. Do your civic part by picking the blossoms and cooking them like a vegetable. Their flavor is mild.  Note one easy identifying characteristic is that the blossom’s top petal has a yellow spot.

White Sagebrush

The White Sagebrush is found throughout most of North America except Florida, Georgia, West Virgina, Alaska, the Yukon Territory, and extreme eastern Canada. Called Artemisia ludoviciana, it has also become a favored garden plant though most people have no idea of its uses. Thirteen species in the Artemisia genus were used by the Native American groups for a variety of medicinal, veterinary, and ceremonial purposes. The Apache, Chirichua and Mescalero used the plant to flavor meat. The Blackfoot chewed the leaves like candy. The flowerheads can be used as seasoning or to make a tea. It has many cultivars

Wild Rose, not Irish

Wild Roses were a common flower behind the house I grew up in though I often wondered why they flat and pink compared to the ones sold in flower shops. I learned why decades later when I got accepted to law school. The job I had stopped before classes began so to tide me over I delivered flowers. One could tell several stories regarding that including how most women are very suspicious when they get roses from him other than Valentine’s Day. I even had some deliveries refused! Beyond that, however, the tall red roses I delivered, so different than the ones of my youth, had no scent. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. No rose aroma at all. Just before I would deliver them I’d take them out of the van and spray them with an artificial rose aroma. The roses were raised for their look and in the process the scent was bred out (and you did not spay them in the van or you smelled roses for weeks.)  Less purebred roses are known for their rose hips and edible petals. The flavor depends on the type, color and conditions of raising. They can range from tart to sweet, spicy. Darker ones have stronger flavor. Remove any white portion of a petal. That will be bitter. All true roses (genus Rosa) are edible.

Wild Violets

Wild Violets are a difficult topic to tackle because there are so many, and, because they are also a common flower and a commercial product. For example, higher up in this article are Johnn-Jump-Ups, which are violets and in Edible Flowers Part Six I mentioned pansies which are descendants of Johnny-Jump-Ups. It’s a botanical case of yours, mine and ours. There are some 500 species of violets, probably all of them edible (note African Violets are NOT violets nor edible. Also the roots of Violets [Viola] are not edible. The American Indians used them for insecticides.) Edible violets are in the genus Viola. But there are some things one can say about them. First the Roman’s loved violet wine and made so much of it they nearly had civil wars over it. And by tradition violets are the flower of choice for composer Chopin’s grave in Paris. Short violets tend to be sweeter, more flavorful and aromatic than taller species, with exceptions. And yellow violets in more than moderate quantities can be laxative.  Long-time forager Dick Deuerling tells a story about violets and boy scouts. He was leading the scouts on an all day hike when in mid-afternoon they came upon a huge patch of violets. The boys ate their fill and because of the sugar content went right to sleep! Dick said he had a hard time getting them up to finish the hike.

White Trout Lily

Our next two blossoms are in the same genus, Erythronium. The White Trout Lily is E. albidum and the Yellow Adder’s Tongue is E. americanum. First the White Trout Lily: Flower stalks, flowers, buds and the white bell-shaped flowers can be eaten raw or cooked. The young leaves are edible raw as well. They are crisp, tender, and tasty. However, the plant only has two leaves so if you are going to harvest them harvest only one per plant. The bulbs are also edible after boiling. They are considered delicious. However, in larger amount they can be emetic so consume within reason.

Yellow Adder’s Tongue

The Yellow Adder’s Tongue is slightly different. Like its relative its flower stalk, flower buds, and flowers are edible raw or cooked. The leaves can be eaten raw, such as in salads. Again, the plant only has two leaves so harvest responsibly. E. americanum bulbs can be eaten raw or cooked. They are crisp and chewy. However again, consume sparingly as they can be emetic. A third Erythronium, a European, E. dens-canis, the Dog’s Tooth Violet, also has edible cooked roots. It is also the source of starch use to make pasta like noodles or cakes. Leaves are eaten boiled. Don’t let the common name of the E. dens-canis — Dog’s Tooth Violet — confuse you regarding violets, that is in the genus Violas.  Violas do not have edible roots.

This plant is used so much it’s surprising the flower has managed to put itself nearly everywhere, field and farm. Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) is found throughout North American and many parts of the world. Young leaves are eaten in salads, or cooked as a vegetable, or added to soups and stews. The leaves and flowers are brewed into a tea. Sometimes in beer making it is substituted for hops. An oil from the flowers is used in flavoring a variety of commercial drinks and alcoholic beverages. It’s primary use for our purposes is blossoms to make tea.

Yellow Dayflower

I know I mentioned Dayflowers earlier but I thought a recent discovery deserved its own entry, the Yellow Commelina, or Commelina africana. I was teaching a class in tamp when a student said “what is this?” A low-growing salmon to yellow blossom was looking up at me. I recognized what I thought to be the genus immediately, Commelina but I have never seen or heard of a yellow one. A bit of research identified it. The question is how did it get to Florida? It is listed as one of Africa’s resources and edible cooked including the root. Can be confused with Aneilema aequinoctinale.

Yellow pond lilly

While the Yellow Pond Lily has been on the move. It’s been Nuphar Luteum, Nuphar lutea, Nuphar lutea var. advena and Nuphar advena. The latter will probably stick for a while. Genetically it never was Nuphar luteum/lutea. Indeed, the Yellow Pond Lilies in North America might go from one wrong species to eight new right ones, once the botanists have argued it all out. One hint that the yellow pond lilies in North America were different than the yellow pond lilies of Europe ws the total lack of their use in Europe and their common use “across the pond.”  While the local root is too bitter to eat it’s seeds are only mildly bitter and can be soaked to get rid of that quality.  See my article on the Yellow Pond Lily. The large-petaled yellow blossom of the Nuphar advena can be used to make a tea.

Yucca

I have read in many a foraging book that Yucca blossoms are edible raw, and many are. The ones that grow in my area, Yucca filamentosa,  are not, which is unfortunate. They have a wonderful crunchy texture, and a sweet taste. You really want to eat them. But the Y. filamentosa also has saponins, call it plant soap. After eating one you soon get a bitter astringency in the back of your mouth and throat, like you got when as a kid you utter a dirty word and mom had you taste a bar of soap. It brings back those days. So yes, yucca blossoms are edible raw, but try yours first, just a little. Then wait half a minute to a minute. If all is well, enjoy. My local blossom while not pleasant raw does cook up nicely. I boil them for a few minutes and then use them in several dishes.

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I have written extensively on this site about edible flowers, both cultivated and wild. Here 98  previous separate entries about cultivated flowers are in one spot. So if it seems you have read parts of this before, you might have. However, this focus is just on cultivated flowers.

It’s difficult to imagine a kitchen or herbal medicine cabinet without Angelica around someplace. Angelica has long been valued for its seeds, stems, leaves and shoots. The first two for flavoring — such as in Chartreuse — and second pair as cooked greens, particularly in the Izu Islands of Japan where there are a favored addition to springtime tempura. They have a celery-like flavor. North American Indians, however, smoked the leaves for medicinal purposes. Celery-ish may its green parts be the blossoms however have a light anise flavor.

Artichoke blossom

If I don’t include artichokes among the edible flowers several will gleefully write and tell me I missed one. No doubt I have missed many. That said we really don’t eat the blossoms of the artichoke. They are actually bitter but if you want to have at it. We eat the floral bracts, read fat leaves below what will become the flower. We eat them raw, boiled, steamed, baked, fried, stuffed, and marinated. When marinated they are called artichokes hearts. In Europe they are dried and used in soups. The inner portion of the flower stalk is also edible, much like true thistles. The flowers themselves are used for a substitute for rennet, meaning they will curdle milk. I said they were bitter. Young artichoke leaves are fed to snails to improve their flavor. Yum. Artichokes have been around for a long time. Zeus (said Zeff in Greek) turned a scorned lover into an artichoke. It doesn’t pay to irritate a god. And young Norma Mortenson got her start in 1948 when she became the first “Artichoke Queen.” You know her as Marilyn Monroe

Arugula blossoms are peppery

Among the more peppery blossoms of the garden is Arugula, also called rocket and roquette. It’s a popular aromatic salad green grown for its leaves but also its seeds. Somehow the blossom gets overlooked… well, not in my kitchen. Arugula is one of those garden vegetables that is also very easy to grow in a patio pot and lasts for many months with repeated cuttings. Though a forager I have grown arugula in my gardens for many years. When the plant finally wants to go to seed you can prolong it by harvesting the flowers. Then enjoy the seeds. Greeks call Arugula Roka.

Bachelor Buttons, spicy and cloves

When you’re a kid you’re told everything is poisonous, and for me that included Bachelor Buttons. Also called the cornflower, they have been tossed into salads and used for a garnish for a long time. They got the name cornflower because the hardly species grew in English grain fields, and corn once meant any grain. Long before wedding rings were common bachelors indeed did wear a cornflower in a jacket button hole to let the ladies know they were single. How did she let them know the same thing? Curiously, she showed cleavage. Married women covered up, single women advertised.  Another version is that if the flower retained it color while worn his love was true, but if it faded it was not… sounds a bit rigged to me… Then again, I might not have been a lifelong bachelor if I had picked a few of these. Bachelor’s Buttons were the favorite flower of President John Kennedy. His son John John wore one at his wedding to honor his father.  The flower also reaches back into history in that it was used in the funeral wreath made for Pharaoh Tutankhamun, about 3,300 years ago. Their flavor is spicy, sweet, reminds one of cloves.

Baloon Flower and Bee

Let’s start at the bottom and work up. Our next plant is known for its root. In the greater Campanula clan, the root of the Balloon Flower, Platycodon grandiflorus, is very popular in Korea where it is cut into strips, seasoned with chilis, vinegar, sesame oil and soy  sauce and eaten as a salad (which also tells you you can can get the root still alive in Korean markets, plant it, and get blossoms.) It is also used in soups, stews, dishes with vinegar, and is one of the ingredients in Toso, or sweet Japanese sake. Boiled young leaves are eaten in salads. Its blossoms are sweet in taste, have a bit of texture, and are used in salads, stuffed, candied or dipped in butter. The Balloon Flower is so called because before the petals open are fused at first making the blossom look like a balloon.

Few people in temperate North America ever think of eating a Banana blossom, but a lot of folks in warm areas do, and it does not prevent your banana tree from producing fruit. The entire flower/fruit arrangement of the Banana is odd with the blossom being a purplish torpedo. Look closely at the stalk end of the blossom and you can see what will eventually become a hand of Bananas. The blossom can be eaten raw (bitterish) or cooked, less or no bitterness. Usually it is peeled to get the more tender parts then shredded or sliced thin and soaked to reduce the bitterness. The flavor is not of the Banana but rather more of a vegetable.

Baobob Blossom

With so many readers around the world I have to include an exotic or two though this next flower does grow in Florida and other warm areas. The Baobob Tree, Adansonia digitata, is extremely odd looking and versatile. Like the Kapok tree it is pollinated by bats. The fruit is eaten, the leaves boiled as a potherb or dried and ground and used like file, to flavor and thicken sauces, stews and soups. The seeds are used as a coffee substitute or as a baking powder substitute. Germinating shoots and tender shoots are eaten. And the flowers are edible raw.

I will admit to being lazy and throwing Basil blossoms into my pesto, and soups and stews. That workhorse of the kitchen and Italian cuisine has edible flowers s why not use them. It was a practical matter besides culinary. At some point your Basil plants begins go to blossom. It’s making enough energy to reproduce and send forth seeds. If you let it, the bush senses its purpose is over — no doubt a chemical signal — and retires. But if you keep snipping off the blossoms it keeps on living to reproduce another day. By using the Basil blossoms you get more Basil leaves. The blossoms are usually white but can be pink to lavender. They taste like basil lite, a nice salad sprinkle.

Bauhinias since first discovered have been a pain to sort out, and now there are some 600 species in a variety of colors. The blossom of the Bauhinia variegata  and Bauhinia purpurea are eaten raw, pickled or cooked as a vegetable. Some Bauhinia blossoms are used for their nectar. Check out your local species with a an expert as they are quite varied in use. My friend Sunny Savage, resident of Hawaii and now sailing about the world, uses Bauhinia blossom raw in salads. Often called the Camel Foot Tree because of the shape of the leaf, Bauhinias are also known as the Orchid Tree and the Hong Kong Orchid Tree.

Bee Balm, a Monarda,  is another huge selection of flowers closely related to the mint family. Intense, aromatic, the flavors can vary not only species to species but between cultivated specimens and their wild siblings. The leaves are often used to make tea, some with calming qualities. Often the entire plant is placed in the house to give a pleasant aroma as it dries. The blossoms tend to reflect the flavor of the parent plant but usually have hints of oregano to thyme to citrus flavors.

My video and separate article on Begonias got me mentioned in the national New Zealand magazine about them. It’s a small electronic world. Begonia blossoms are edible raw or cooked, as are the leaves of most of the Begonias, particularly the Wax Begonias. The flavor, like the tulips, varies with the color. It can range from swampy to sweet. The biggest problem you are going to run into with begonias is since they are usually cultivated they are also sprayed with pesticides if not other materials. You either have to raise them specifically to eat or be a lazy gardener. Either will do. Fortunately for me, and not for the state of Florida, Begonias have become naturalized so I can find them in the wild. Indeed, it was some 20 years ago when I was canoeing on Rock Spring Run — read in a swamp — when I saw a Begonia and wondered what it was doing in the modern urban equivalent of the middle of nowhere. The leaves reduced to a paste and mixed with sour cream, a little sugar, and then baked make a delicious tartlet. And of course, the blossoms are an attractive and tasty addition to salads.

Black Salsify

Edible plants collect a lot of names.  This one has been dubbed Black Salsify, Spanish salsify, black oyster plant, serpent root, viper’s herb, viper’s grass, and simply Scorzonera which is also its botanical name, Scorzonera hispanica. A native of the Mediterranean areas it’s cultivate around the world and happens to be naturalized in California. It was cultivated in Europe by the 1600s and is a significant crop there still. The root contains it contains protein, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, iron as well as vitamins A, B1, E and C. It also has inulin which is suitable for diabetics. The long black roots are boiled, steamed, baked, batter-fried, put into soups and stews or roasted as a coffee substitute. Shoots are added to tossed salads. Flower buds raw or cooked are eaten on salads. Blossom petals are also sprinkled on salads or used in omelettes.

I do believe I was the first to publish anywhere in modern times, Internet or otherwise, that Blue Porterweed blossoms are edible. Even the Cornucopia II venerated doesn’t mention it. No doubt their edibility was known long ago because the flower has been used for at least a few hundred years to make tea, beer and as a flavoring. I am sure somewhere along the way someone tried the flowers. Locally we have two versions, a native which grows low, and a tall cultivated one. The flowers on both are edible, and the odd part is they taste like raw mushrooms. As with many delicate flavors the nose is quite involved and it takes a few moments for the flavor to come through. Tasters find it amazing. The flavor does not survive cooking. Incidentally, the leaves are used to make a tea and beer and the stem is used for flavoring.

Where I live there are only two plants that smell like cucumber. One is a wild cucumber. The other smells like cucumber but does not taste like cucumber. But you can also cultivate a flower that has the faint taste of cucumber, Borage. While it is naturalized in southern Europe most of us have to put it in our herb garden. Borage has a long history of medicinal and culinary use. Currently it is a source of gamma linolenic acid, GLA. The sweet blossoms and leaves have the taste of cucumber. The flowers are often used in salads or as a garnish and do well in many drinks. One technique is to put the blossoms in an ice cube tray and freeze them into ice cubes to be used in drinks.

Calamint

Think mint. Now think oregano. Put them together, mint and oregano and you have the Lesser Calamint. Important to Italian cooking, it is an old world plant found in flower gardens and a smattering of states from the Old South northeast to New York.  Hardy perennial to two feet. It is said to be indispensable in bean and mushroom dishes. The regular Calamint (Calamintha grandifolia) also has edible blossoms as well though its flavor is a cross between mint and marjoram, read not quite as strong. They have been cooking with it in Roman since the Romans, particularly meat dishes. Toss the pink to lavender blossoms in salads or use to flavor dishes.

Calendula has been called the poor man’s saffron. There are 12 to 20 species in the family, depending on who is counting. They are native from Micronesia to the Mediterranean area to Iran. Often lumped in and confused with marigolds — which can be used for coloring — the name Calendula comes from the Latin kalendae, meaning the first day of the month, and where we get the English word calender. It is believe they are called that because in warm regions they are always in bloom and always on the first day of every month.  The Calendua’s flavor is similar to saffron, bitter to tangy.

Clustered Bellflower

Campanulas are not a small clan. There’s some 500 of them in the genus. Some are eaten for their roots, leaves or flowers. The rampion, or Campanula rapunculus was widely grown in Europe for its radish-like roots and leaves. In fact, “rapunculus” is dead Latin for “little turnip” and was the Brothers Grimm’s inspiration for the fable name Repunzel. The Clustered Bellflower, Campanula glomerata, has bluish flowers that are eaten raw. They are sweet in flavor as are their leaves. Usually used in salads. Campanula punctata flowers and leaves are cooked like a potherb. Campanula rapunculoides, Rover Bellflower, roots and leaves are eaten (remember, in dead Latin -oides means looks like or resembles. So the C. rapunculoides looks like the C. rapunculus.) In parts of Greece the Campanula versicolor, Variously Colored Bellflower, are eaten and cooked like a vegetable. The leaves are used in salads and taste similar to peas. The flowers are also very good.

Carambola, Star Fruit

I happen to have the next tree growing in my back yard. It flowers twice a year but the second setting is minor. Called Carambola or Star Fruit, its botanical name is Averrhoa carambola.  Known for its edible fruit, which go from green and tart to golden yellow and very sweet. But, it also has edible flowers and leaves that are used like sorrel. The acid flowers are used in salads or used to make conserves. The fruit is eaten fresh, dried, sliced into fruits and salads, or used in sherbets, ices, creams mousses and other desserts. The tart fruit are cooked fish and fowl or made into a relish. Another member of the genus, Averrhoa bilimbi is the cucumber tree. It’s fruit and flowers have various edible uses.

There are few flowers more common than Carnations. They have been cultivated since ancient times and were quite popular in Rome during the empire days. Its botanical name, Dianthus, means flower of the Gods. Originally just in shades of pink or peach now a rainbow of carnations are available, each still keeping it clove-like scent. Like many blossoms Carnations were used to convey sentiments in times when overt expression of love were frowned upon. Thus many a bouquet was carefully constructed to send just the right message with just the right color.

Cantip

Most cats love it, a few don’t. The difference is genetic. The active chemical is Nepetalactone. It’s a mild hallucinogenic that produces euphoria in many cats. In humans it makes you sleepy, like chamomile though in large amounts it is emetic. Catnip (Nepeta cataria) is an herb of the mint family and at one time was spice found in the kitchen. Although a native to Europe, it has been exported to the rest of the world and in some places is considered a weed. It is naturalized in every state except Florida and all the first tier Providences of Canada. Even though it is considered a weed most folks still think of it as a cultivated plant because most buy it for their cats. Indeed, growing catnip can be a problem because feral cats and domestics on the roam won’t leave it alone. When protected catnip grows to about a yard high, branches much, and is topped by small white flowers with purple spots, a common trait of the mint family. The leaves can be candied or brewed into a mint-like aromatic tea. In Europe the leaves and young shoots are put into salads or seasoning for sauces, soups and stews. While the flowers can be sprinkled on salads they are usually used to make tea, often along with leaves. Catnip is also high in Vitamin C.

Three a.m. has to be the absolute worst time of any day. And when I’m awake then I make myself a cup of Chamomile tea. The small flowers taste like the tea, on the sweet side and apple-ish. In a publication North Carolina State University warns that the flowers contain “thuaone” but that is a misprint which has since been proliferated over the Internet. I don’t cut and paste. I do my own research and write every word myself. That’s why there are so many typos.  Chamomile has very low amounts of thujone, which is credited in significant amounts to getting people high. It’s one of the compounds in Absinthe. I’ve had Absinthe in Greece and the liquorish liquor did nothing for me. All Chamomile tea does for me, and most, is make me sleepy. If  you are allergic to ragweed, however, you might want to avoid Chamomile. The two plants are related and Chamomile can bother some people with a ragweed allergy.

One of my favorite dishes used Chervil as a flavoring. In a casserole you put alternating layers of thinly sliced potatoes and sliced onions, a layer of one then a layer of the other. You would dab each separate layer with real butter and then a pinch of tarragon and a sprinkling of Chervil. Then a bit of salt and pepper on each layer to taste. You fill the casserole that way. On top you spice it up one more time, add more butter, and a sprinkle of paprika. Into the oven it would go until tender. It also made great hash. The Chervil was a subtle flavor, and loses much to heat. That is why when you use the flowers for flavoring in a dish or a salad you add them last, in a dish just enough to heat, in a salad just before serving. Their anise flavor is subtle but the nose knows all.

I can remember the first time I saw Chicory in blossom. I was in Alexandria, Virgina, visiting a dear friend for a couple of weeks and wandering amongst parks, monuments, and museums. The mower had somehow missed it and I noticed it immediately. The blue pretty Chicory is a close relative of the dandelion but not sweet at all, In fact it runs towards bitter and earthy. Think radicchio. You can eat the flowers and the bud, or pickle the buds. The root has been roasted and used to extend and flavor coffee.

Our next edible needs little introduction, the Chrysanthemum, also called Mums, one of my grandmother’s favorites. First cultivated in China perhaps 3,500 year ago, they have been on the menu for many millennia. Mums got to Japan in the 8th century and are the flower of the emperor’s family. Yellow and white “mums” Chrysanthemum morifolium, are the ones usually used in the kitchen. The blossoms are boiled to make a sweet drink. In salads the raw flowers are pungent, if not bitter. Use sparingly. They are also used to flavor wine (remember lilac wine?)  The leaves are steamed or boiled and used as greens. I’ve grown them in my vegetable garden for that very purpose. The greens also dehydrate well.

You either like Cilantro, or you don’t. If you do like Cilantro then the flowers are Cilantro lite. The plant has a dual identity. The green part much used in Vietnamese cooking is called Cilantro. Its seeds however are called coriander. Cilantro sparks intense debates. To some people it tastes like soap. The famous chef of French cooking, Julia Childs, said she would take Cilantro out of a dish and throw it on the floor. Others enjoy the flavor. The different perceptions apparently is one of association. The more one is exposed to Cilantro the more it moves from soap to food. It grows on you. While its seeds, coriander, are quite aromatic they don’t seem to engender flavor disagreements like the leafy parts of the plant.

Citrus, use sparingly

For the home crowd one has to mention Citrus blossoms. Orange blossoms, lemons, grapefruit, calamondins, kumquat… The whole citrus club. They are, no surprise, citrusy and in fact the flavors are used often in Mediterranean cooking. When I first moved to Florida back in the Dark Ages I can still remember the first time I detected the wonderful aroma of a citrus grove in blossom. I thought it was Mayflowers, a blossom from my past.

Clary Sage

Clary sage has been in the medicinal bag of tricks for at least 2,400 years. Theophrastus in the 4th century BCE wrote about it. Dioscroides did in the first century CE as did Pliny.  A native to the Old World it is naturalized in a smattering of states with no apparent reason. Like many edible flower it is found mostly under cultivation. It’s called “clary” because the sticky seeds were used to help get small foreign objects out of the eye, to help on see clearly.  Young and tender leaves are dipped in cream and fried, often eaten with an orange sugar sauce. They can also be dipped in an egg batter and cooked into fritters. The pleasant-flavored flowers are sprinkled on salads.

Dame’s Rocket is a mustard

Dame’s Rocket is a declared invasive species in several places. It’s your civic duty eat the weed. Originally from Eurasia some 400 years ago it’s a mustard that at first glance looks like Phlox. Dame’s Rocket has the typical mustard family four petals, Phlox, five. It’s found essentially everywhere in North America except the Old South. Botanically known as Hesperis matronalis, it is cultivated, escaped and is included in wildbird seed mix. Young leave collected before flowering are eaten like cress. Seed pods can be added stews and soups. Seeds are a source of oil and can be sprouted and eaten. The flowers are used to add spicy flavors to fruit dishes and salads.

A foraging standby in all but the southwest desert and northwest Canada is the Daylily. But first a couple of  precautions. I am talking about only the Hemerocallis genus. Also go sparingly, they can be diuretic or laxative. That said day lilies are on the sweet side, vegetable-ish. Like squash and glad blossom they’re used to hold tasty finger food but like other blossoms cut them away from the white bitter base. I used to enjoy them often but the only local patch is now under a highway exit. See full article about them here on sit.

Dendrobium phalaenopsis

If you go to a Thai restaurant often a Dendrobium phalaenopsis is put on your plate. No that not a creature, its an orchid unfortunately without a common name in English. Said Den-DROH-be-um fal-en-NOP-siss their flavor is light, if any, but they are pretty with a crisp texture. This also brings up the debate if all orchids are edible. Personally I think that is impossible for one person to say as there are more than 20,000 of them, maybe 26,000, in some 800 genera. I’m not sure one person can know them all. Many do have edible roots. Edible flower information is sketchy. One would like to think orchids used as garnishes would be edible just to avoid liability. However garnish writers seem to skip over issues of orchid edibility. Kinda like writing about flying and leaving out the airplane. Dendrobium phalaenopsis come in a variety of colors and are native to southeast Asia. They are not difficult to grow. Use in salads and as a garnish.

As is often said, travel is a broadening experience. When you go to a different land it’s exciting to see plants you don’t know specifically but you know what family they are in. The first time I went to Greece I saw wild Dill growing everywhere, besides wild figs. Then years later on a business trip to extreme south southern California there was dill again. Wouldn’t you know I happen to live in a state where it’s not found in the wild. Oddly Dill blossoms are stronger flavored than the leaves. Tangy, use the flowers as you would the herb and seeds.

Durian Blossoms

This next tree is infamous for its fruit. You either wildly love its aroma or passionately hate it. Carrying it on trains in Thailand is illegal. It is banned from commercial flights. At least one jet passenger was stopped and a man reeking of it kicked off. Last year a tycoon sent a private to pick up 88 fruit when it came into season. He wanted 100 but they weren’t availabe then. It is the infamous Durian, a spine-covered fruit that smells like a sewer and tastes like microwaved socks, and some people love it. Their passioin is not shared. The flower petals are edible.  Did I mention the huge fruit also has killed people falling from the tree and hiting them on the head.

Many a hibiscus flower can go into salads and the like but I don’t know how many I’ll cover because most of them are virtually flavorless but they are pretty and add texture. I happen to like the False Roselle, Hibiscus acetosella, because beside the edible pink flower the leaves are edible as well, raw or cooked.  I use the young leaves for salads and stir fry. They keep their color. A close relative, Hibiscus sabdariffa is the real roselle and is also known as the “Florida Cranberry” or the “Cranberry Hibiscus.” A tart juice can be made from its fat calyxes. Its blossoms are edible as well.

Another plant I saw growing wild in Greece but is mostly cultivated in the United States is Fennel. In fact, at one mountain pass not far from Sparta the only weed growing in the crack of the curb along the road was fennel, and most of it close to a yard tall. I’ve always included Fennel in my garden because it’s so versatile. Fennel’s blossom is an explosion of yellow and the flavor is of mild Fennel. It’s the hint of anise appreciated in cold soups and many desserts. Incidentally, Fennel is the only species in its genus, Foeniculum vulgare.

Forget-Me-Nots

The story I heard from my mother, not the best source of romantic literature, was that he was in Alaska and braved rushing waters to get some wild flowers she requested. He got the flowers but was swept away by the current and as he was about to meet his watery fate he yelled “Forget Me Not.” Hmmmm… Guy dies, woman doesn’t get flowers, has to walk home alone where she meets Paul Bunyan… Let’s start with the fact Forget-Me-Nots aren’t native to Alaska but they are in England and… In exile in 1398 Henry IV adopted the flower as his symbol and retained when he returned from the hinterlands a year later. Perhaps that is why historically Forget-Me-Nots represent faithfulness and enduring love. They are found sporadically in the wild in the northern half of North America and cultivated elsewhere. As most folks see them only in gardens we’ll call them cultivated though surprisingly they are invasive in Wisconsin. Botanically Forget-Me-Nots are Myosotis sylvatica, which means Mouse Ear of the Woods. Properly they are Wood Forget-Me-Nots. Five petals, flat face, a yellow eye, usually blue but can be pink to white.  The blossoms are added to salads as a garnish and make excellent candied blossoms.

It’s easy to spot the Forsythia in the spring time. Just look for a naked shrub covered with yellow blossoms. You can find them in most urban areas and they escaped cultivation is several locations. The blossoms are spicy, minty, and slightly bitter. They add a cherry garnish to salads, particularly after a long winter. Very young leaves… very young leaves… are edible raw. Better boiled. The enduring argument regarding the Forsythia is who is it named for. See a separate article on site.

Fragrant Water Lily

One of the more difficult things about the Nymphaea odorata is what common name to call it. Fragrant Water Lilly and American White Water Lilly seem to be in the running. We’ll go with Fragrant Water Lilly, and it is! Actually the unopened flower buds can be collected and boiled as a vegetable. Once opened the raw blossom can be used as a garnish or nibble. Whether the plant’s rhizome is useful is something of a debate. Some think our local yellow native Nymphaea mexicana can be used the same way.

Freesia blossoms point one way

As a forager one of the first things you learn is that there isn’t much to offer in the Iris family, or, if it is an Iris beware. Freesia is an exception.  A native of South Africa and Australia, it’s an Iris to about 18 inches tall and grows from a bulb. The stem branches once giving it a classic Y shape. One odd thing about the Freesia is that they grow in a helicoid, that is the flowers attach to the stem in a spiral fashion but they all point the same way.  Fragrance varies with the variety. And the usual debate is whether it’s a wild plant as it is in its native range or a cultivated plant as most of these readers will find it. I opted for cultivated. So far I have put only one flower in both wild and cultivated and that’s Dame’s Rocket. Freesias colors include white, purple, yellow, orange and red. In the language of flowers they represent “innocence.” The highly scented blossoms are used in salads raw or as a garnish. They are reported to be excellent infused with a sugar syrup, and are used in sorbets for flavoring.

Fritilary’s Bell Blossoms

Originally from China but now grown around the world the Fritillary makes an interesting addition to a flower garden. Soft bell-shaped blossoms with a pale green netting on the outside of the petals and a pale red netting on the inside makes this Lily family member easy to identify.  The particular species we’re interested in is Fritillaria verticillata. Their name comes from dead Latin for dice box, fritillus, a reference to the check patttern the veining makes. And while we like fritilaries rodents and deer do not. Young plants, peals and flower buds are eaten after parboiling. They are used in soups or as a herb or cooked with soy sauce. The bulbs are eaten fried or candied. Another members of the genus with edible bulbs is Fritillaria camtschatcensis. The buds might remind you of the Daylily and indeed while in different genera they are botanically standing next to each other. One more point: Do not experiement with fritilaries. The two listed here are known edibles. Others may contain toxic amounts of various alkaloids.

Fuchsia

Discovered by Europeans in the Caribbean in 1703 — the natives already knew it was there — Fuchsia has been an ornamental for centuries. It’s a native of the warmer Americas and parts of New Zealand there’s 110 recognized species now, even some that can grow in cooler climates. Most of them are shrubs though one is known to reach tree height. Fuchsia blossoms are edible as are the peppery grape-tasting berries which grow on long stems. The flower is a favorite garnish because of its many strong colors which can range from white to dark red, purple-blue, and orange. Their flavor is slightly acidic.

You can have a lot of motivation to plant Garden Sorrel. It’s a Rumex and many of the wild sorrels are too bitter to eat, as are their blossoms and seeds. While there are exceptions — I know of only one locally that is pleasant — you can have a steady supply of sorrel leaves and blossoms if you include this old world flavor in your kitchen garden. Rumex acetosa is used in nearly every ethnic cuisine in Europe, from being mixed into mash potatoes to flavoring reindeer milk. The blossoms are tart like the rest of the plan, lemony. Use as you would a lemon.

Is there a flower garden in America without a Gardenia in it? They are so common they are called the Common Gardenia, Gardenia jasminoides. In dead Latin — all Latin is dead whereas Greek is still alive — –oides (OY-deezs) means “look like” or “similar to.” In this case jasminoides means like the Jasmine and indeed Gardenia blossoms are also used to make jasmine tea. It seems a little like bait and switch but since the pallet doesn’t know the difference your Jasmine tea may be flavored with Jasmine or Gardenia. As for the Gardenia flowers they are eaten raw, pickled or preserved in honey. The fruits are also edible and used as yellow coloring for other fruits.

Because of an early botanical scew up — the first of many — the Geranium group can be confusing. Initally all Geraniums were in one group. But by the late 1700s it was decided they were in two different genus but both were called commonly Geraniums. Got it? Folks have been trying to keep it straight ever since. Generally speaking they fall into two groups, bitter Geraniums usually not consumed, though some can be, and scented Geraniums, whose flowers we can use. The latter genus is Pelargonium. The name comes from the Greek word ????????, pelargós, which means stork because part of the flower looks like a stork’s beak. Scented Geraniums have different scents, among them almond, apple, coconut, lemon, nutmeg, old spice, peppermint, rose, and strawberry. The flowers tend to agree with the plant’s name. They are used in salads, desserts, and drinks.

Ginger Blossoms

Right outside my kitchen window grows Ginger, the kind we get genger root from and use in cooking, Zingiber officinale. I planted it several years ago and when I need Ginger for cooking, I did up a piece.  The word ginger comes from French gingembre which was borrowed from Medieval Latin ginginer which was bastardized from the Greek: zingiberis (??????????). Going back further it comes from the Indian subcontinent word inji ver. We just call it good, and a home remedy for motion sickness. Ginger blossoms are gingery and fragrant. They can be eaten raw.

When you live where the ground freezes annually — called winter — you have to wrap some plants and take others inside. That was an annual assignment when I was growing up and on top of the list was digging up Gladiola bulbs every fall. And every year my mother had a huge gladiola garden with boxes of bulbs overwintering in the basement. Had I known gladiola blossoms were edible it might have made the childhood chore more bearable. Glads (Gladiolus) blossoms are bland, lettuce like, and you must remove the anthers… take the middle out.  Basically eat the petals. They can also be cooked. Like squash glad blossoms are often used to hold tasty tid bits.

Hollyhocks look great on a plate, and their taste is bland for those who want strong colors rather than flavors. They have also been used to color wine in the distant past when such things were not regulated. The leaves are also edible raw and it’s still a cultivated vegetable in Egypt (the root has starch.)  Besides plating and salads you can also make a refreshing tea from the Hollyhock, botanically Alcea rosea and related to the Marsh Mallow. There now many colors to choose from.

The greater Honeysuckle family is an odd one. It straddles the edible/non-edible line, with some members long used as food and other members at least mildly toxic. For example, elderberries are in the Honeysuckle family, then tend to be edible in North America and not in the Old World. A famous or should I say infamous invasive member of that family is the Honeysuckle, Lonicera japonica, or Japanese Honeysuckle. It’s definitely the one we have here in the south spreading everywhere. Kids have known for generations that you can suck the sweet nectar out of the blossoms. Most of them don’t know, however, that the blossom is edible as well. It has a sweet, honey flavor. You can flavor wine with them as well. Tea is good, too.

Horseradish Blossoms

My cousin in southern Quebec… actually first cousin once removed, Beulah Knudson nee Smith, grew the largest Horseradish I ever saw. The winters are harsh thereabouts and that horseradish, Armoracia rusticana,  was making the most of their very short growing season. Here in flatland Florida it is too hot to grow horseradish except perhaps in the most extreme northern counties. Most everyone knows that horseradish is a hot root. In fact, the root is rather clever. The two chemicals that make horseradish hot have to be mixed to be hot but the plant keeps them in separate cells so they don’t bother the plant. Only when the cells are crushed together is a hot chemical created. It’s called “horse” radish because “horse” is also used to describe anything big or rough. Young leaves can be added to salads, pickled or cooked as a potherb. Sprouts can be added to salads, or the roots can be cooked as eaten that way. The flowers are edible, quite mild compared to the root. Sprinkle them on salads, throw them in when pickling or cooking string beans and the like.

Hyacinth Bean Blossom

I could almost make an identical entry for the Hyacinth Bean from that of the Scarlet Runner Bean below because they have so much in common and are so  unlike other beans. They’re annuals, ornamentals, have edible roots, leaves, pods, beans and flowers. The difference is the Hyacinth Bean seeds themselves have a different toxin that the Scarlet Runner bean and in a greater amount so they have to cooked far longer. The bean-flavored flowers, however, are edible raw or cooked.

I hate to admit it but the only place I can find this next edible flower is in cemeteries because it doesn’t grow in the wild here, Impatiens wallerana. The cultivated Impatiens are from Africa and their blossom is edible, sweet. There is no report of edibility on our native North American Impatiens blossoms raw, called Jewelweed. Indeed, Jewelweed is edible after two boilings but there are no references to any parts edible raw. Just the opposite, all kinds of warning not to eat our native Jewelweed raw. So this is one case of where the cultivated blossom is on the raw food menu but the wild one is not. Jewelweed seeds are edible, small, flavor similar to walnuts.

Italian Bugloss

One cannot make up a name like Italian Bugloss. Also known as Wild Bugloss, Alkanet and Anchusa. Botanically it’s Anchusa azurea a member of the Forget-Me-Not family. Originally from Europe it’s cultivated around the world, is intensely blue, and is used among other things as a dye. Italian Bugloss has become naturalized without logic in a number of places in North America including New Hampshire, Massachusettes, Conneticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio. Michigan, Iowa, Texas, Colorado, Utah, California, Whyoming, Idahoe, Oregaon, Washington, and British Columbia The bright blue blossoms  are an excellent salad addition and are quite attrative when mixed with rose petals. On Crete it’s called ?????????? ang-GO-gloss-ose. Locals eat the tender stems boiled. Also eaten are the bossoms of Anchusa capensis and Anchusa officinalis. “Bugloss” means ox tongue because of the roughness of the leaves. ?????????? can mean literally “impiety tongue” read rough tongue.

You knew Jasmine was edible. Of course you did. That’s how we get Jasmine flavored tea. But make sure you are getting the right Jasmine, Jasminum officinale not plants in another genus or family falsely called Jasmine. The real Jasmine has tubular white flowers, waxy, and shiny oval leaves. Jasmine is from Asia but because it has been used for so long no one really knows where it got its cultivated start. There are mentions of it in 9th century texts in China and by the 1700s it has spread so well some folks thought it was native to Switzerland. The famous aroma comes from an oil in the petals and it is those petals you use to flavor your tea. If you life in the South do not mistake “Carolina Jasmine” for real Jasmine. It is the offensive and odorous Gelsemium Sempervirens, a significant allergy plant and quite toxic.

I don’t know if I should tell you about Johnny-Jump-Ups or not. Botanically Viola tricolor, they are among the first flowers I can remember my mother picking from the wild and eating on the spot. She did it because her mother did it (and she also never missed harvesting a cowslip either.) Johnny-Jump-Ups like moisture and can tolerate shade so… here goes…. Our house in the country had a septic system and a drain field. That drain field was moist and shaded and Johnny-Jump-Up grew there in profusion. And that is where my mother picked them, one after another, eating them on the spot. She’s now 86. Johnny-Jump-Ups have a mild wintergreen flavor and a variety of uses.  They’re added to salads, desserts, soups, served with cheese and used to decorate confections. Incidentally they are the ancestor of the common pansy.

Kapok, Pollentated by Bats

When one studies edible plants you quickly learn that one group can consider a plant only edible, another only medicinal, a third famine food only and a fourth don’t consider it good for anything. The kapok tree, Ceiba pentandra, falls into medicine and food, depending upon the eyes of the beholder. Like the Baobob Tree it is pollinated by bats. Tender leaves, buds and fruit are eaten like okra. Seeds are roasted and ground, eaten in soups, used as flavoring, or employed to make the fermented drink kantong. They can be used to make tempeh or squeezed for cooking oil. Wood ashes are a salt substitute. Flowers are blanched and often eaten with chili sauce, the dried stamens are added to curries and soups for coloring. A nice specimen of the tree can be seen in Dreher Park just north of the entrance to the zoo in West Palm Beach.

Lavender is an old stand-by found in many home gardens including mine. Its flavor is flowery, sweet and citrusy. Lavender has been used to flavor bread, cookies, jelly, beef, wine, sauces, stews, and custards. The blossoms are an attractive addition to champagne. The blossoms are also used around the house to impart a nice aroma from bedding to baths. They is also slightly diuretic.

Lemon Verbena

There is hardly an established garden that doesn’t have a Lemon Verbena in it. A native of South America it was “discovered” in 1785 in Buenos Aires. By 1797 it was the rage of England and has been exported around the world since around 1785. It’s in a well-known association with a lot of plants used for seasoning and antioxidants.  The Aloysia triphylla was named to compliment the  wife of Infant Carlos de Borbon, Prince of Asturias  and son of King Carlos III of Spain. The Infant was a supporter of the arts and botany.  Young leaves are eaten as spinach. they are also used to flavor fruit cups, jellies, cold drinks, salads, omletes, salad dressings, and vegetable dishes. The leaves or , tiny, citrus-scented, are brewed into a refreshing tea. Tea from just the flowers is sweeter.

As a kid I never associated Lilacs with food. When the fragrant Lilacs blossomed in late May you knew in a couple of weeks school was soon going to be out for the summer and glorious days were ahead. I don’t think I ever experienced more freedom then those summers. I was a latch key kid so summer vacation meant months of roaming through the countryside for days on end. In the greater Olive family the most common blossom color for lilac was … lilac. My 86-year-old mother in Maine still tends to her Lilacs. And just in case you are interested there is a 10-day Lilac Festival in Rochester N.Y. every May. Not bad for a plant with European ancestry. At the festival they have over 500 different lilacs on some 1,200 bushes. You can even sample lilac wine. Where do I sign up? Lilac blossoms are pungent and on the lemony side.

Lovage

Botanists can’t agree exactly where it came from, though the Old World is close enough for our purposes. Lovage’s beginnings may be humble but it has risen to high esteem for its many usages. Native to perhaps the Mediterranean or southwest Asia Lovage is cultivate throughout Europe and North America. Highly aromatic it is similar looking to flat-leaf parsley only much larger. The flavor is similar to parsley and celery combined with a notes of anise and curry. Botanically Levisticum officinale leaf stalks  and stem are blanched and eaten like celery, or peeled and eaten. They can also be candied. Young leaves are chopped and added to salad, soups, stews, seafood, and omelets. The seeds are used for flavoring, often in breads and confections. An aromatic tea can be made from dried leaves or grated roots. And the flowers are edible.

Magnolias are one of the iconic trees of not only the South but exported to many non-hard freeze areas of the world. And people have admired the huge Magnolia blossoms for a long time. Few folks know the blossoms of the Magnolia grandiflora are edible, however their flavor is intense and they taste similar to how they smell. They are not eaten raw per se. They are pickled. Oddly the practice started in England and you only use the petals, not the entire blossom. What works best is to pickle the petals in a sweet/sour pickle recipe. Then take out one petal, dice it, and use it sparingly as a flavoring in salads. The flavor is strong so go easy. Also, M. grandiflora‘s leaf can be used just as Magnolia virginiana‘s can as a bay leaf, that is to flavor soups and the like. However, don’t use the entire leaf because it is way too beg. Cut it into smaller pieces when used like a bay leaf.

Mango Panicle

Did you know Mangos and poison ivy were kissing cousins botanically? And a sensitivity to one can be a sensitivity to the other? In fact there several species related, all in the Anacardiaceae family: Mangos, poison ivy, poison sumac, Brazilian pepper, cashews, and pistachios. You can see the spread, three edibles, one on the cusp of edible/toxic, and two toxics. Some folks might be allergic to all, some to only a couple. Many people get a rash on their mouth after eating mango, called urushiol-induced contact dermatitis. The fruit is originally from India, cultivated for some 4,000 to 6,000 years. It is reported to be the most produced tropical fruit…. yah know…. I question that statistic. I would have thought bananas would have claimed that title. Incidentally, bananas are dying off. Your grandkids may never get to eat a banana. Anyway… when first exported around the world mangos were pickled because of the distances and time involved. In fact “mangoed” became a verb meaning pickled. Mango blossoms grow on long panicles and have a scent similar to Lily of the Valley. Not only are they edible but young leaves as well… as long as you don’t have an allergy. Young leaves and flowers boiled. You can make a natural mosquito repellent by burning dried mango flowers, or use them to make a tea high in tannin. Oh, never burn mango wood. It’s like buring poison ivy. The urushiol gets in the air then your lung then you’re in the emergency room.

There’s a lot of Internet misinformation about Marigolds. All of them are edible from a non-toxic point of view. The more important question is which one have an agreeable flavor? Of them all Tagetes lucida, Tagetes patula, and Tagetes tenuifolia get the culinary nod. Their flavor is citrusy. Usually only the petals are used. No green parts.  I also use them for yellow coloring in various dishes. They’re another flower called the “poor man’s saffron” the other being the Calendula.

DSC_1955Perhaps I have been remiss not mention Mustards more. But they are a huge family and have been touched upon, such as with arugula. They all have yellow to white blossoms, sometimes pink, usually a simple cross which is there the family names Cruciferae comes from. They range from the Mustard that produces the seed that makes the condiment to the radish in our salad to the plant that produces what eventually is cleaned and deodorized into Canola oil. In northern climates they are a spring and summer plant, here in Florida they are wintertime fare, showing up after Thanksgiving and usually totally gone by St. Patrick’s day. Wild radish and wild mustard look similar but have small differences. One is that Mustards grow tall, radishes like to serpentine. Radish blossoms cluster and have noticable veins, mustard blossoms are singular and the veins are not obvious. The seeds pods are different as well. Mustard’s pod is smooth, the radish jointed and why the mustard is called the charlock and the radish the jointed charlock. Their blossoms are both peppery and mustardy. They work best in cold salads or hot soups, the latter they can be tossed in just before serving. And of course Mustard and radish leaves can be cooked up as greens.

Nasturtiums are peppery

Nasturtiums are a favorite nibble of my mother. We always had a row or two of them growing every year. The blossoms are peppery. In fact, the entire plant above ground is edible, even the seeds which can be pickled and used like capers. Nasturtium in Latin mean literally to twist the nose, because of their pungency,. They have have been praised for their flavor for at least 2,000 years. Multi-colored, low growing or trailing, Nasturtiums are often used in kid projects because the seeds are large, they’re fast to germinate and grow, safe, and edible.

While we’re raiding the garden let’s not forget about Okra blossoms. Like many edible flowers already mentioned it is in the hibiscus clan. I have grown Okra in my garden and there are dozens of  cultivars to choose from that produce some variety of blossom colors.  Like most hibiscus blossoms they are shy on taste but add color and texture to salads as well as an attractive garnish. Of course you could also let them go on to produce Okra which is a kitchen vegetable of many uses. In fact, growing Okra is for the blossoms is perhaps the quickest and easiest way to get lovely large blossoms to your table quickly. And there are “dwarf” version for patio pot use. One word of warning, some Okra plants have spines.

There are some 400 species in the Allium association if you include Onions, garlic, chives, sallots, and closely related ramps/leeks, the latter having wide leaves. Usually the flowers have a stronger flavor than the leafy parts, and the developing seed head even stronger flavor. Blossoms are usually white but can also be pink. Onion stems are round, as are chives but smaller. Garlic leaves are flat. Ramps and leeks have large leaves.

Tap to dislodge bees first

I have read there are no toxic Opuntias. With some 300 of them I don’t personally know. I do eat cactus pads on a regular basis. I fry and grill them. But, as with most cactus, one has to contend with glochids and spines. The spines one can see. It’s the tiny hair-like glochids that can make one semi-miserable, tolerable in a finger, maddening in your tongue. Duct tape removes them moderately well. Wear gloves harvesting. The best approach is to use a long shap fillet knife as the flowers are surprisingly thick. Also tap them first to dislodge bees. Among all the Opuntia the Prickly Pear Cactus flower is the most often eaten, not raw but cooked, usually boiled. Their flavor leans towards tart. The blossoms also make a good wine.

Where would Greeks be without Oregano, or the rest of us? And is it a wild plant or cultivated? In most of the New World it is a cultivated plant. In the land of my ancestors it grows wild, particulary on the lopes of Mt. Taygetos (said tah-EE-gah-tos) south of Sparta in The Mani (and from where we get the word maniacs in English because of how the Maniotes fought.) Taygetos means “joy of mountain.”  Oregano is similar. It’s from two Greek words, oros, which means moutain, and ganousthal meaning delight in. “Delight in the mountain is” translated into good eats and where the oregano prefers to grow. There should be some truth to that because oregano also grows in Sanmaria Gorage on mountainous Crete, where I love to hike. We are told Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, created oregano as a symbol of happiness. Ancient Greeks would crown newlyweds with garlands of oregano to bless of happiness on their marriage.  Oregano’s blossoms are a milder version of the plant’s leaves Incidentaly, majoram is in the same genus as oregano. Oregano is Origanum vulgare, and marjoram is Origanum majorana. Think of majoram as oregano lite and used the same way. In many place in the Mediterraean area Oregano is called Wild Majoram.

The problem with Pansies is the same problem with Begonias: Getting them from a wholesome source. Pansies are actually violets and descended from the much-loved Viola tricolor aka Johnny-Jump-Ups. There is always the question if one should lump all violets in together or do some sorting. I chose to sort a little. Pansies are extremely common bedding plants but they are commercially raised so that can mean some chemicals you don’t want to consume. It is best to raise your own so you know exactly what you’re eating. Like most short violets pansies tend to have a nice scent and are sweet to the taste. There are only two cautions. Violet roots are definitely not edible. The American natives used them for insecticide. And, yellow violets tend to be laxative in less than moderate quantities.

Female papaya blossom

This won’t make much sense to those who live where there is a winter but the first time I climbed Turtle Mound — not a great feat as it is only 80 feet high — I was surprised to see Papaya’s growing on top. Turtle Mound is a midden, an ancient trash heap made mostly of millions of oyster shells dumped there by ancient natives. It’s been more than three decades since my first visit and the papayas are still there, self-seeding as papayas do. A native of Mexico they are naturalized in warm areas of the world. Papaya blossoms, like very young leaves, are edible cooked, which is usually by boiling.  Actually cooking the yellow flowers is a lot easier than pollinating them because there are female blossoms, male blossom, and male/female blossoms, kinda you, me and us. You have to move pollenating material around correctly or you don’t get fruit (also edible.)

Parsley Flowers

Like so many of our spices Parsley is a native of the Mediterranean. While for this article we are interested in the flowers there are actually two major divisions within the parsley realm, leaves and roots. Among the leaves there is curly or flat leaf. Interestinlgy the flat leaf is closer to the wild parlsey than the curly. Flat leaf is easier to grow, more tolerant of agricultural abuses, and has a stronger flavor. Curly leaf is more decorative and milder in flavor. It is the one used mostly for a garnish. There is also a root parsley, not common outside of central and eastern Europe where it is used in soups and stews. It has a nutty celery/parsley taste and is often fried like potato chips. From Argentine salsa to a tea Vitamin C rich parsley has multifold uses in the kitchen. Even the stems can be dried and added to dishes. The blossoms are salad fare or can be added to anything the leaves are used for. Parsley, incidentally, means “forked turnip” though parsely and turnips are not related.

There is a progression, I think. When  you are a kid you hate to eat your Peas. You get past that then run into your first peapod, usually at a Chinese restaurant. You get past that when you eat your first pea blossom. Note, eating pea blossoms will reduce your production of peas but a pea blossom here or there is pleasant. They are crunchy, slightly sweet, and taste like peas. That does vary some with what varity you have planted. Also the pea shoots and tendrils are edible as well. All usually consumed raw though you could cook them. A word of caution. I am referring to edible peas, the genus Pisum, not ornamental peas. Those can be toxic.

When my father passed on six years ago he left a small Peony garden that still has 18 bloomers, one red and a wide variety of pink shades. They’re quite hardy and don’t like to be moved. Peonies have been been cultivated in home gardens since about the time Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Of course there are no good ones where I live because they like temperate climates and need winter chilling. Originally from China they were and still are used for medicine. Petals can be added to salads or will happily float in drinks. Another option is to parboil them, add a little sugar, and use them as a sweet treat.

Petunia x hybrida

One wouldn’t think so but there is an edible Petunia species. Petunias are in the solonace family which has some famous edibles and poisons. This is not just any petunia but Petunia x hybrida probably developed in the early to mid-1800’s.   The P. hybrida was created out of several Petunia species and comes in two types, grandiflora (large flowered) and multiflora (many flowered.) Grandiflora have trailing stems and tend to spread with blossoms up to five inches.  Multiflora petunias are bushier and have smaller flowers from two to three inches in diameter.  Many colors and patterns are available. The mild-tasting flowers are used  in salads or as a garnish.

There are two Phlox, so to speak. One that gets one to two feet high and shows up seasonally  in fields, particularly here in Florida. That’s not the one you want. You want the perennial phlox that grows to three of four feet tall, Phlox paniculata. I’m sure you’ve seen it. Like the Meadowsweet above it is an old world plant found in many home gardens and yards. It has escaped into the wild and can be found in the eastern half of North America plus Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Utah and Washington state. The slightly spicy blossoms range from red to pink to white. They go well with fruit salads.

Pineapple Guava’s are becoming a popular ornamental with an unusual flower and fruit.  In fact, there is one where I teach regularly. The blossoms are striking and reminds one of several cactus blossoms, in its own way. The fruit, equally unusual, ripens in September or October here. It stays green but does get soft enough to eat. There is a bit of pineapple in the fruit’s flavor if one uses the imagination. I have a Strawberry Guava in my yard and its even more difficult to taste “strawberry” It’s fruit. The flower of the Pineapple Guava,  Strawberry Guava, sweet. Like the fruit it says tropical reminding one of papaya.

Our next edible flower comes with a warning. Don’t eat its similar looking realitive. How can you tell them apart? The one you want smells of pineapple, which is why it is called the Pineapple Sage, Salvia elegans. Sometimes it is also called the Tangerine sage. The point is crush a leaf and you will smell pineapple or tangerine. The one you don’t want is Salvia coccinea, also called the Scarlet Sage, the Texas Sage and the Hummingbird Sage. Crush its leaf and it smells grassy or slightly sage-like.  Flowers of the Pineapple Sage, which taste like a hint of pineapple, are quite edible. However, even a quarter-inch square portion of a Salvia coccinea blossom will give you a big stomach ache and make you more than mildly ill. It’s not go-to-the-emergency-room ill but close to it.  I know this from personal experience beause once, for lack of a better word,  I titrated the S. coccinea for potental edible use. It quickly let me know it is defintely is not an edible, raw at least. After my experience I had no interest in seeing if S. coccinea had any uses cooked.

Carnations (Dianthus caryophyllus) were covered above but let’s revisit the genus Dianthus minature version such as Pinks and Sweet William, respectfully Dianthus plumarius and Dianthus barbatus.)  Dianthus means God Flower… Hmmm… would diandros be godfather? Anyway… These little carnations don’t like heat or alkline soil which made them perfect for the cold acidic landscape of Maine’s summer. They don’t even like to be mulched. Curiously the name “Pink” does not refer to the color but a 14th century verb “to pink” meaning to preforate or create a punched patten. Apparenlty I grew up in the Dark Ages because it was a verb I heard around the home.  Why Sweet William is called that is anyone’s guess but the term for the flower first showed up in 1596. (There were no King Williams at the time but William Shakespeare was mid-careerit’s a guess.) To use the blossoms cut away the bitter white base. The petals are sweet with a clove or nutmeg like scent.  Often used in salads, aspic and soups.

How many Hosta’s there are is a matter of taxonomic debate. Maybe 45. While the flowers of all of them are reported to be edible, according to the Montreal Botanical Garden, at least the young leaves of one, Hosta  lancifolia, the Narrow Leaf Plantain Lily, are eaten cooked or preserved in salt. It’s a common home and landscaping plant that can tolerate shade and has naturalized in several states from Massachusetts to all states touching a straight line west to Indiana. I’m sure you have seen its distinctive leaves.  It’s a good thing you are interested in the flowers because just about every woodland creature loves to eat the leaves, from deer down to insects. In temperate climes look for blossoms at the end of summer or early fall.

The Primrose suffered the fate of several plants. Petty, edible and showed up very early in the spring after folks had spent a long winter with no fresh food. This wasn’t an issue when there were more primroses than humans. The primrose as been so harvested in the wild that it is not illegal in many of its native places in Europe to pick it. However, it is also a common garden flower and a commerial product so getting some primrose legally really isn’t an issue. In the genus Primula vulgaris the blossom reminds me of a small magnolia blossom. Several colors are avaiable now. Also know as Cow Slip the blossoms are bland in flavor but sweet. The can be added to salad, the bud picked, or cooked as a vegetable. They have even been used to make wine.

Long ago and far away I got accepted to law school. The job I had stopped before classes began so to tide me over I delivered flowers. One could tell several stories regarding that including how most women are very suspicious when they get Roses from him other than Valentine’s Day. I even had some deliveries refused! Beyond that, however, the roses I delivered had no scent. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. No rose aroma at all. Just before I would deliver them I’d take them out of the van and spray them with an artificial rose aroma. The roses were raised for their look and in the process the scent was bred out (and you did not spay them in the van or you smelled roses for weeks.)  Less purebred roses are known for their rosehips and edible petals. The flavor depends on the type, color and conditions of raising. They can range from tart to sweet, spicy. Darker ones have stronger flavor. Remove any white portion of a petal. That will be bitter. All true roses (genus Rosa) are edible.

Rose of Sharon

South Korea is crazy about the Rose of Sharon, Hibiscus syriacus. It’s their national flower. It is on everything, and it’s native to Korean and much of Asia. So why is it called syriacus, which means “from Syria.” They got it wrong a few centuries ago. They thought it was from Syria. Oddly mistakes like that cannot be changed. That it is wrong in not enough. There has to be a botanical reason to change a plant’s name once given, not a geographical one. Called mugunghwa in Korean — which translates into “flower of eternity” or something close to that, been a garden staple in that country since there were gardens — hence the eternity spin. The leaves are made into tea and the flowers eaten, usually raw. It made it to Europe by the 1500s and was in most English gardens by the 1700s. The American colonies followed suit. It’s also my mother’s favorite flower. Had to mention that or I wouldn’t hear the end of it.

I can remember the first time I saw Rosemary growing in the wild in North America. I was on a business trip to California. Of course it grows wild in its native Greece. There it is called ???????????? (then-dro-LEE-vah-row.) Students in ancient Greece wore it around their necks in garlands or braided it into their hair thinking it improved their memory.  In English Rosemary means “remembrance.” I have two bushes of it growing in my yard. The light blue blossoms are sweet, spicy, pungent and taste of rosemary.

Safflower

Because saffron is so expensive, $100 to $150 an ounce, several flowers have been used as substitutes and adulterants, among them Safflower. But, safflower has uses in its own right. Botanically Carthamus tinctorius, safflower blossoms are the source of a yellow or red dye used in butter, confections and liqueurs… and you thought that Sambuca was naturally colored… The seeds are fried  and eaten in chutney. The oil is used in salads and cooking. Young leaves can be eaten as a potherb or seasoned in soy sauce. The flower’s petals are edible, slightly bitter, often cooked with rice.

Three “saffron” stigmas

As of this writing the best price I can find on the Internet for saffron is $92.95 an ounce, free shipping, marked down from $144. Why is it expensive? Because “saffron” is the three red stigmas of the flower and must be picked by hand. Limited amount, labor intensive. It is the most costly spice by weight. Then again, one uses very little of it. Saffron is acually a crocus, Crocus sativus. It does not grow in the wild and is totally cultivated by man. Technically it is a monomorphic clone and believed to be a mutant form of Crocus cartwrightianus. The Greeks were the first to cultivate it, probably on Crete. Historians tell us it has been bought and sold for over four thousand years. Ninety percent of the world’s saffron comes from Iran. The styles are used to flavor and color sauces, creams, breads, preserves, curries, rice, soups, caked, puddings, eggs even butter and cheese. It can be a tea substitute and the roots roasted. It’s not a spice you keep on hand. Usually purchased for a dish specific. It takes about 13,125 dried stigmas to weigh an ounce. Oh, I forgot to mention: In large amounts saffron is deadlly. That’s an expensive way to go.

Scarlet Runner Bean is not your run-of-the-mill bean. It has bright red flowers, multi-colored seeds and puts on a root to be a perennial though most folks view it as an annual. Depends where you live, I suppose.  The root is edible, the young pods are before they get fibrous, and the beans in or out of their pods are edible either cooked fresh or after shelling and drying. Read the beans have to be cooked no matter how you prepare them but young pods don’t. The blossoms are under an inch across, grow in clusters, and are available all season. The flavorful flowers are favored by hummingbirds and butterflies and make excellent garnishes for soups and salads. There are at least 18 varieties of the Scarlet Runner Bean.  Usually the vine is used to cover fences, guy-wires and trellises.

Snapdragons

While most articles on edible flowers include Snapdragons I considered leaving them out. Let me put it this way: If the flavor of the Snapdragons existed in some other plant it would not be eaten. They are edible, they won’t kill you, but when it comes to flavor they are on the poor to bad side. Their taste can run from bland to bitter, depending upon the soil and how they were raised. They get included on edible flower lists — particularly the commercial edible flower list — because they are pretty, a lot of folks recognize or grow them, and few people eat garnishes anyway. If you ever draft a list of edible flowers and you aren’t alphabetizing, put Snapdragons last, better still, as a Post Script, a little asterisk at the bottom. The genus they are in is called Antirrhinum.  It’s Greek and means “opposite the  nose” or “unlike the nose.”  I don’t know why that family is called that but I am sure it is not a compliment. They are called “snapdragons” because of the blosom’s resemblance to a fictional face of a dragon that opens and closes when squeezed.

It’s clearly not wild. It’s clearly a planted ornamental. But I get asked about it all the time. Is Society Garlic edible? The short answer is yes. The blossoms smell and taste far more like a vegetable than a blossom. Their flavor is sweeter than garlic, more like of an onion but still peppery. They’re actually a native of South Africa and only a distant relation to regular garlic. White settlers to South Africa considered it a more polite spice to eat at social functions than real garlic. It’s probably safe to say that there is more Society Garlic growing locally than real garlic. Garlic does not like the hot weather whereas Society Garlic thrives in it. If they are well-established they are drought resistant. The leaves are also edible, and are the bulbs on many species. Use the flowers in salads or soups, anyplace you want a bit of garlic, pepper and onion. I have a separate article on them on site.

Squash blossoms actually cover a wide range of flowers. Zucchini, pumpkins, calabashes. All are squashes for our purposes and all have edible blossoms. Both male and female blossoms are edible but removing female blossoms can reduce squash production in your garden. You can tell the female Squash blossom by looking just behind the blossom. There you will see a miniature Squash or the like. Stuffing Squash blossoms with soft cheese is a time honored means of preparation. What people don’t know is that the leaves and sprouts of most garden variety squashes are edible cooked as are their seeds. Removed the seeds, wash off the debris, and roast in a slow oven for a half hour or so. You can eat them shell and all or shell them.

Stock is bred in many colors

Some like it hot, and some do not, and Stock does not. It’s a fragrant, two-foot tall, attractive flower that likes full sun, good, well-drained soil, and temperatures under 75F. They can even tolerate a light frost. There are some 140 species of Stock. The one we are interested in is Matthiola incana, common stock as it were though it comes in many colors. It’s native along the Mediterranean from Greece to Spain and was a mainstay of European gardens in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Elizabethans called them “gillyflower” and the Victorian allowed them in their cottage gardens. Even Thomas Jefferson got some for Monticello in 1771 and in fact one can still buy seed from Jefferson’s stock. Stock flowers are usually added to salads eaten raw or a garnish with sweet disserts. They can be candied. Their flavor is perfume-ish. The flower’s pods are edible, too. A common cultivated flower in North American it is naturalized in North Carolina, Illinois, Texas, California and British Columbia usually in a few isolated areas but rather well-distributed in coastal southern california and San Francisco. It is also called Tenweeks Stock.

Strawberry Blossom

There’s a real good reason why almost no one knows this next flower is edible. And that’s because nearly everyone eats the fruit! Strawberries are prime food. Botanically Fragaria ananassa, Strawberry blossoms are edible raw though most folks wait for the fruit. Of course, you can be different and toss the flowers on salads just to surprise folks. The leaves are edible as well but are on the astringent side. As with many cultivated crops harvest carefully because as a commercial crop they are often doused wth this or that chemical to keep them living and looking well until they get to market. The cultivated blossoms are pink, the wild white.

Sunflower petals are edible

Nearly everyone knows you can eat Sunflower seeds. There are actually two general kinds of seeds. There are black seeds with a white stripe. Those are the ones you usually buy in the store. Then there are Sunflower seeds that are smaller and totally black. Those are used for oil (and those that don’t make the oil grade end up in bird seed.) But there’s more to eat on a Sunflower that seeds, no matter which kind. The unopened buds are edible cooked. They taste like artichokes, to whom they are closely related. And once the huge blossom is open the petals can be eaten, though they are bittersweet. The petals are often mixed with pasta.

Szechaun Buttons

Szechaun Buttons, Paracress. No, they’re not from China but Brazil. This is an edible flower you will likely want to grow yourself rather than order. Right now a 30 blossom order is selling for $39.95 not including shipping. Why would you order them? Because they are the current party favor but they have other uses as well. Spilanthes acmella, aka, Acmella ocleracea, grow in Brazil. They are peppery like capsaicin, hence their name because of a heat similar to Szechuan peppers… well almost. The active chemical is spilanthol. That used to numb gums for toothaches. It causes a reaction with the trigeminal nerve pathway controling the control motor and sensory functions of your mouth. The result is a tingling, popping sensation in the mouth. Kind of a cross between Pop Rocks and a 9-volt battery. Besides that, they are cooked and used in salads, sauces, soups, sorbets and as cocktail garnishes. You can add shredded uncookled greens to your salad, sparingly, or sprinkle some uncooked petals on your salad. The taste is herbal and slightly bitter. One high end restaurant uses them in a cheese plate.  At another the tiny petals and some lemon thyme are infuse a small pot of honey that accompanies roasted kabocha squash, sweet peppers and toasted walnuts. A third offers patrons a Concord grape soda float with lemon verbena sorbet into which shreds of Sechuan buttons are dispersed through a soda siphon. Did I mention they use Szechaun Bottons to flavor chewing tobacco in India?.

Another escapee from Eurasia now found over most of North America and the rest of the world is the Common Tansy. First mentioned for medicinal uses by the Ancient Greeks, the “bitter buttons” by the 8th century were in Charlemagne’s herb gardens and used by Benedictine monks in Switzerland. In 16th century England it was a “necessary of the garden.” Tansy, related to the thistle, even been used as an insect repellent.  In fact, meat (and corpses) were wrapped in it for preservation and keep insects at bay. It is not a good repellent against mosquitoes but does a good job with the Colorado Potato Beetle.  Like chamomile it contains thujone so it should be used very sparingly. But then again, that’s what spices are for. The blossoms’s flavor is bitter, camphor-like.

Tea Blossom

Our next plant is known by billions. Wars were fought over it, an empire build and fortunes made, Camellia sinensis, better known as Tea. Yep, the tea in your cup. When I first bought land I planted a C. sinensis knowing it was iffy. It was. Didn’t make it. Too warm, too humid. And it is an understatement to say tea change the course of history. Read about Robert Fortune in my article on Forsythia. He was sent by the British government to China, undercover, to steal tea seeds and the like to start a tea industry in India, a thef and resulting Indian tea industry that China has only recently surpassed. Besides a beverage, tea makes a marinade for fish and meat, mixed with anise blossoms it is used to make “tea eggs.” Kombucha is basically tea cider, leaves are used to smoke meat, its fruits are eaten, leaves are chewed to remove the odor of garlic and onions, and the blossoms are cooked. One favorite way is to make tempura out of them, deep frying them.

Tea Olive

If you go to an Asian market and buy “Cassia Blossom Jam” it is not from the Cassia clan at all but rather Osmanthus frangrans, the Tea Olive, also called the Fragrant Olive and Sweet Olive. Its name(s) gives you a good idea what it is used for.  It a glossy evergreen with little white blossoms that bloom almost all year long, making it a favorite landscape plant where it is warm all year. The blossoms smell deliciously fragrant or ripe peaches or apricots. It tends to bloom in autumn, winter and spring. Fruit follows about six months later. The unripe fruit are preserved in brine like olives. The flowers are used to make tea fragrant as well as wine, liqueurs, and confections. The blossoms are either preserved in a salty bring or made into a sugary paste. The Osmanthus americana, the American Olive, is used a similar way.

Thyme

I went to Crete in the spring once to longest gorge in Europe if you count extreme southern Greece as geographically part of Europe proper. There was, however, a late season snow storm and the gorge was closed. So I hiked down Embrose Gorge, much smaller but not without its charms. I remember three things well from the hike. The first was the wonderful scent of wild thyme growing throughout the gorge. Next was literally being run over by a large heard of sheep and goats. And lastly later that evening discovering the local taverna-made rose smelled just like the sheep. Without thyme the chef and the herbalist would be hard pressed to find a suitable substitute. In the kitchen thyme has so many use including the blossoms. Thymus vulgaris, leaves and blossoms are used to flavor stuffing, fish, meat, fowl, cheese vinegar, gravies, sauces, bouquest garni, herbs de Provence, brine for olives, eggs, bread, tea and honey. Shoots are a garnish.  The blossoms are milder than the leaves.

Tuberose has been put to a lot of uses. The Hawians used it to make leis. In Victorian times it was the funeral flower of choice. Then it spent a long time helping perfumes smell the way they do. Now it can be found as a food in five star hotels, well… at least those in the Orient. Botanically it is Polianthes tuberosa and might be a native of Mexico.The flowers open from the bottom of the flower spike up and can last a couple of weeks if you remove the blossoms and eat them. The Aztec so liked the flower their used its oil to flavor their chocolate. They are eaten cooked and are traditonally added to vegetable soups. They are also used to flavor some soy sauces

Tulips’ flavor vary with color

Tulips are one of those wonderful flowers you hear that is toxic. The answer is yes and no. The petals are quite edible raw or cooked though they loose their color on cooking. They can have many flavors: Bland, beans, peas, and cucumbers. Pink, peach and white blossoms are the sweetest, red and yellow the most flavorful. While you can use them to garnish salads their more common use is to hold appetizers or dip. If you use the entire blossom cut off the pistil and stamens from the center of the blossom. The bottom ends of the petals can also be bitter so cut them off as well when used individually. So what is toxic? The yellow inner core of the tulip bulb. It has to be cut out before the rest of the bulb can be cooked and eaten. Also know some people are quite allergic to tulips

Wisteria is a nibble of spring, here for a few weeks and then gone. The blossoms of various species are edible cooked — some raw — but they are usually blanched in boiling water, strained, and mixed into salads or the deep fried. The rest of the plant is toxic per se. In fact, as little as two raw seeds can kill a child. That is not uncommon for a member of the pea family which ranges from edible to toxic. See my full article on wisteria on this site for edible variations. One of the most common of the 8 to 10 species of wisteria is Wisteria sinsensis, or the Chinese Wisteria. It’s a vigorous, fast grower that doesn’t need fertilizer and fixes nitrogen. In fact, abuse improves blossoming as does pruning. It can live at least 115 years (as of April 2011) and is consider an invasive species is some areas.  It has naturalized from  Maine to Florida and as far west as Arkansas. Not bad since its arrival in 1816. Another one commonly eaten wisteria is Wisteria floribunda from Japan, also escaped in the US.

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Edible Flowers Tempt the Palate

Mango, Catnip, Pignut, Lovage, Salsify, Hairy Cowpea, Fritillary, Mint, Cow Slip, Birch

Mango blossoms

Did you know mangoes and poison ivy  are botanical kissing cousins? And a sensitivity to one can be a sensitivity to the other? In fact there several related species, all in the Anacardiaceae family: Mangoes, poison ivy, poison sumac, Brazilian pepper, cashews, and pistachios. You can see the spread, three edibles, one on the cusp of edible/toxic, and two toxics. Some folks might be allergic to all, some to only a couple. Many people get a rash on their mouth after eating mango, called Urushiol-Induced Contact Dermatitis. The fruit is originally from India, cultivated for some 4,000 to 6,000 years. It is reported to be the most produced tropical fruit…. yah know…. I question that statistic. I would have thought bananas would have claimed that title. Incidentally, bananas are dying off. Your grandkids may never get to eat a banana. Anyway… when first exported around the world mangoes were pickled because of the distances and time involved. In fact “mangoed” became a verb meaning pickled. Mango blossoms grow on long panicles and have a scent similar to Lily of the Valley. Not only are they edible but young leaves as well… as long as you don’t have an allergy. Young leaves and flowers boiled. You can make a natural mosquito repellent by burning dried mango flowers, or use them to make a tea high in tannin. Oh, never burn mango wood. It’s like burning poison ivy. The urushiol gets in the air then your lungs then you’re in the emergency room with poison all over your outside and insides.

Catnip

Catnip: Most cats love it, a few don’t. The difference is genetic. The active chemical is Nepetalactone. It’s a mild hallucinogenic that produces euphoria in many cats. In humans it makes you sleepy, like chamomile though in large amounts it is emetic. Catnip (Nepeta cataria) is an herb of the mint family and at one time was a spice found in the kitchen. Although a native to Europe, it has been exported to the rest of the world and in some places is considered a weed. It is naturalized in every state except Florida and all the first tier providences of Canada. Even though it is considered a weed most folks still think of it as a cultivated plant because most buy it for their cats. Indeed, growing catnip can be a problem because feral cats and domestics on the roam won’t leave it alone. When protected catnip grows to about a yard high, branches much, and is topped by small white flowers with purple spots, a common trait of the mint family. The leaves can be candied or brewed into a mint-like aromatic tea. In Europe the leaves and young shoots are put into salads or seasoning for sauces, soups and stews. While the flowers can be sprinkled on salads they are usually used to make tea, often along with leaves. Catnip is also high in Vitamin C.

Pignut blossoms for flavoring

Do you know where the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon are? Do you know what they are? Among other things they’re the only place in North America where Bunium bulbocastanum is naturalized. The islands are situated at the entrance of Fortune Bay off the southern coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The odd part is they are not part of Canada but still part of France, a tiny toehold still in the New World. Residents are French citizens and vote in French election though the home county is more than 4,000 miles away. It was from these islands that a large amount of Canadian whisky was smuggled in the the United States during prohibition. Easy to grow B. bulbocastanum is called Pignut and Earth Chestnut. It has lacy white flowers similar to Queen Ann’s Lace and attractive foliage. Pignut sets large clusters of small tubers that taste like sweet chestnuts. They are eaten raw or boiled as a vegetable. Leaves can be used like parsley. The seeds and flowers are used for flavoring. British forager Ray Mears included the Pignut in one of his early television series but not in his subsequent books because they taste so good they’re becoming scarce in England.

Lovage

Botanists can’t agree exactly where Lovage came from, though the Old World is close enough for our purposes. Lovage’s beginnings may be humble but it has risen to high esteem for its many usages. Native to perhaps the Mediterranean or southwest Asia, Lovage is cultivate throughout Europe and North America. Highly aromatic it is similar looking to flat-leaf parsley only much larger. The flavor is similar to parsley and celery combined with a notes of anise and curry. Botanically Levisticum officinale leaf stalks and stem are blanched and eaten like celery, or peeled and eaten. They can also be candied. Young leaves are chopped and added to salad, soups, stews, seafood, and omelets. The seeds are used for flavoring, often in breads and confections. An aromatic tea can be made from dried leaves or grated roots. And the flowers are edible.

Salsify, Tragopogon porrifolius

This plant’s other names include Goatsbeard, Oyster Plant, Vegetable Oyster, Jerusalem star, Purple Oyster Plant, and Meadow salsify. Commoningly called just Salsify, botanically it is Tragopogon porrifolius. As you might have surmised to some the root tastes faintly of oysters, to others parsnip, and probably to some like oystery parsnips. Native to the Mediterranean area it has been introduced to Great Britain, northern Europe, South Africa, Australia, Canada and the United States. It is found in almost all the states including Hawaii but excluding the Old South except Georgia which has it. Roots are eaten raw in salads, or they are boiled, baked, and sauteed. They are added to soups or can be grated and made into cakes. Flower buds and flowers are eaten raw in salads or cooked then cooled and added to salads. The flowers are also pickled. Young flower stalks are cooked and dressed like asparagus. Sprouted seeds are put in sandwiches or in salads. The sap can be used as gum. Bradford Angier, a well-known Canada-based forager, says the yellow salsify is also edible.

Hairy Cowpea, Vigna luteola

Hairy cowpeas like water. Not exactly in water but certainly near it, water’s edge. You’ll find them in the same places you find the Ground Nut, Apios americana. When you’re near water, fresh or salt, look for pure yellow pea-like blossoms though it’s not really a pea but a bean, and related to the Mung Bean and the Black Eye Pea, which is also a bean. While the Hairy Cowpea blooms and fruits all year locally it prefers the fall for seed production. It’s usually at that time collecting them is a calorie-positive activity because you can get a lot of the seeds at one time. Of course, the rest of the year is a good time to collect the blossoms and boil them with other potherb fare. The roots can be chewed to extract their sweetness, the seeds can be shelled and cooked and as mentioned the flowers cooked.

Fritillaria's Bell-shaped blossoms

Originally from China but now grown around the world the Fritillary makes an interesting addition to a flower garden. Soft bell-shaped blossoms with a pale green netting on the outside of the petals and a pale red netting on the inside makes this Lily family member easy to identify.  The particular species we’re interested in is Fritillaria verticillata. Their name comes from Dead Latin for dice box, fritillus, a reference to the check patttern the veining makes. And while we like fritilaries rodents and deer do not. Young plants, peals and flower buds are eaten after parboiling. They are used in soups or as a herb or cooked with soy sauce. The bulbs are eaten fried or candied. Another members of the genus with edible bulbs is Fritillaria camtschatcensis. The buds might remind you of the Daylily and indeed while in different genera they are botanically standing next to each other. One more point: Do not experiment with fritilaries. The two listed here are known edibles. Others may contain toxic amounts of various alkaloids.

Wild mint, this one is Micromeria brownei

Mint is such a common edible I almost didn’t include it. Also, which one do you use and do I put it in the cultivated edible lineup or the wild edibles? There’s over 200 genera and some 7,000 species in the mint family. The largest is Salvia with some 900 members. It would be a lot easier if we were talking about Florida Pennyroyal which is a monotypic genus, a family with one member, not thousands. I am going to opt for a local mint as you  probably already know about your local mint. I learned this mint as Micromeria brownei. Now it is Clinopodium brownei.  Ahhh… botany always trying to improve itself. The mint went from Small Flower Parts Brown to Slope Footed Brown. I’m sure you can see the immediate and dramatic nomenclature improvement…. I was also told all those decades ago it had no common name. When the Internet was born the aquarium trade starting calling it Creeping Charlie (which many different species are called.)  Later I saw St. John’s Mint… hmmm not too bad as the St. John’s River runs north through the peninsula of Florida.  Only recently has it been called “Florida Water Mint” not a name that inspires me as it can be found in much of the Old South… Maybe Old South Mint is in the offering. This little plant can be found anywhere I teach in the warm south near fresh water. In fact it also grows in Interstate medians leaving a mint aroma in the air for days after cars careered off the pavement during accidents. A one-inch part of any of it, blossoms or stem in a cup of hot water makes a minty tea. The entire plant can be used as mint. Warning: It is a strong, no wimpy mint it. Start sparingly until you get your gauge of use.

Cow Slip

One of my grandmothers loved Cow Slip greens. Cow Slip is from the old English word “cuslyppe” which means cow dung. Apparently the species has the same feeding preferences as some famous mushrooms. So my grandmother would make my mother go out in the cow-containing pastures to pick the Cow Slip greens. And from the way my mother tells the tale my grandmother didn’t care whose pasture she spied the plants in. They were destined for consumption after my mother fetched them. From temperate Europe and Asia originally, Cow Slip, Primula veris, is in the same genus as the (English) Primrose mentioned earlier. Flowers are used in salads, conserves, or as pickles and a garnish. They have also been used to make cow slip wine and vinegar. Leaves are eaten raw in salads or used to make a tea. It is found in northeastern North America.

Paper Birch Catkins

There are several advantages to living where it never snows, and a few disadvantages. Many plants need cooler weather to reproduce or fruit or just thrive. Birches do not like Florida though they can be planted in the northern bounds of the state. Birches were a common tree of my youth, white birch, golden birch and paper birch. Birches can be tapped like maples. The twigs and catskins have been used as a wintergreen-ish flavoring for as long as we have written records about North America. And of course there were the famous birch bark canoes. What you also might not know is that an epoxy-like tar can be extracted from birchwood. The original super glue. While most birches have edible parts the birch we are interested in this overview in the Paper Birch, Betula papyrifera. Very young leaves, shoots and catkins can be eaten in salads or stir fried. The sap makes a drink, a syrup or a sugar, depending upon how long you heat it up. It can also be used to make birch beer and vinegar. A tea can be made from the leaves and the wood is used to smoke meat.

See Edible Flowers: Part Sixteen

 

 

 

 

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Flowers can be pretty, potent, and flavorful

Mayflower, Chrysanthemum, Cornflower, Rose, Daylily, Elderberry, Chicory, Johnny-Jump-Ups, Linden, Banana

The aromatic and small Mayflower

A rite of spring in the frozen north, or at least the part I lived in as a kid, was to go looking for Mayflowers. Hardy little souls, they would blossom on the side of small Maine mountains and cope with bone-cold nights and reluctant-to-melt patches of snow and ice. They are the first to blossom after the frost leaves. My mother had her favorite haunts for the flowers and we would go clambering amongst boulders and hardwoods for them. Their intoxicating aroma, and the fact they are the only green thing growing that time of year, makes them easy to find. Epigaea repens, also called Trailing Arbutus, actually have the same aroma as citrus blossoms, or at least to my nose they do. Slow growing and in the Heath family they are salad fare but light and delicate. However, in many places they are rare, so pick accordingly. They’re also illegal to pick in some places. Check your local laws, or, have no witnesses and eat the evidence. See full article on site.

Bitter and pungent "mums"

Our next edible needs little introduction: The Chrysanthemum, also called Mums, one of my grandmother’s favorite. First cultivated in China perhaps 3,500 year ago, they have been on the menu for many millennia. Mums got to Japan in the 8th century and are the flower of the emperor’s family. Yellow and white “mums” botanically Chrysanthemum morifolium, are the ones usually found in the kitchen. The blossoms are boiled to make a sweet drink. In salads the raw flowers are pungent, if not bitter. Use sparingly. They are also used to flavor wine (remember lilac wine?)  The leaves are steamed or boiled and used as greens. I’ve grown them in my vegetable garden for that very purpose. The greens also dehydrate well. To Victorians  a red chrysanthemum means “I love” a white one, truth, and a yellow one “slighted love.”

Cornflower, spicy with hints of cloves

When you’re a kid you’re told everything is poisonous, and for me that included Bachelor Buttons. Also called the Cornflower, they have been tossed into salads and used for a garnish for a long time. They got the name cornflower because the hardly species grew in English grain fields when all grain was called “corn.” Long before wedding rings were common bachelors indeed did wear Bachelor Buttons in their jacket button holes to let the ladies know they were single. How did she let them know the same thing? Curiously, she showed cleavage. Married women covered up, single women advertised.  Another version is that if the flower retained it color while worn his love was true, but if it faded it was not… sounds a bit rigged to me… Then again, I might not have been a lifelong bachelor if I had picked a few of these flowers. Bachelor Buttons were the favorite flower of President John Kennedy. His son John John wore one at his wedding to honor his father. The flower also reaches way back into history. It was used in the funeral wreath made for Pharaoh Tutankhamun, about 3,300 years ago. Their flavor is spicy, sweet, reminds one of cloves. In the language of flower a Bachelor Button means “single blessedness.”

Roses have many flavors

Long ago and far away I got accepted to law school… Another story for another time. The job I had stopped before classes began so to tide me over I delivered flowers. One could tell several stories regarding that including how most women are very suspicious when they get roses from him on other than Valentine’s Day. I even had some deliveries refused! Beyond that, however, the roses I delivered had no scent. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. No rose aroma at all. Just before I would deliver them I’d take them out of the van and spray them with an artificial rose aroma. The roses were raised for their look and in the process the scent was bred out (and you did not spay them in the van or you smelled roses for weeks.)  Less purebred roses are known for their rose hips and edible petals. The flavor depends on the type, color and conditions of raising. They can range from tart to sweet, spicy. Darker ones have stronger flavors. Remove any white portion of a petal. That will be bitter. All true roses (genus Rosa) are edible.

Use Daylilies in moderation

A foraging standby in all but the southwest desert and northwest Canada is the daylily. But first a couple of  precautions. I am writing about only the Hemerocallis genus. Also go sparingly, they can be diuretic or laxative. That said day lilies are on the sweet side, vegetable-ish. Like squash and gladiola blossom they’re used to hold tasty finger food but like other blossoms cut them away from the white bitter base. I used to enjoy them often but the only local patch is now under a highway exit. See full article on site.

Elderberry's blossom is flat topped

No compendium of edible wild flowers is complete without mentioning Elderberry blossoms. Small, aromatic, they have been used for tea for centuries with some recipes 600 years old. They can also be put into pancake batter and the like to sweeten and give a nice texture. Another use for the blossoms is to flavor a light summer time sparkling wine, or as my friend Dick Deuerling would call it “Elder Blow Champagne.” The dark purple to black berries have been used medicinally — particularly for colds and flu — and in the kitchen. I like Elderberry pie and to use the dried berries as a spice such as on ham. Approach red elderberries with caution. See full article on site and video.

Chicory blossoms and buds are on the menu

I can remember the first time I saw Chicory in blossom. I was in Alexandria, Virgina, visiting a dear friend for a couple of weeks and wandering amongst parks, monuments, and museums. The mower had somehow missed it and I noticed it immediately. The blue pretty Chicory is a close relative of the dandelion but not sweet at all. In fact it runs towards bitter and earthy. Think radicchio. You can eat the flowers and the bud, or pickle the buds. The root has been roasted and used to extend and flavor coffee. See full article on site.

Wintergreen flavored Johnny-Jump-Ups

I don’t know if I should tell you about Johnny-Jump-Ups or not. Botanically Viola tricolor, they are among the first flowers I can remember my mother picking from the wild and eating on the spot. She did it because her mother did it (and she also never missed harvesting a cowslip either.) Johnny-Jump-Ups like moisture and can tolerate shade so… here goes… Our house was in the country had a septic system with drain field. That drain field was moist and shaded and Johnny-Jump-Ups grew there in profusion. And that is where my mother picked them, one after another, eating them on the spot. She’s now 86. Maybe they primed her immune system. Johnny-Jump-Ups have a mild wintergreen flavor and a variety of uses.  They’re added to salads, desserts, soups, served with cheese and used to decorate confections. Incidentally they are the ancestor of the common Pansy. To see an on site article about violets click here.

Note the tongue depressors

My first association of the Basswood tree was not with flowers but its soft young stems. My father used to make homemade pipes out of apple wood then use a basswood stem for the pipe stem. (Read about it in “Dad’s Applewood Pipes.”) If the cattail is the supermarket of the swamp the Basswood tree is the supermarket of the forest. However, its blossom are edible and make a well-known tea though you may know of it by its other name, Linden tree and Linden tea. The Linden tree is nearly impossible to misidentify in that it is the only one in North America that has what looks like a large tongue depressor under the blossom. The flowers are delicate and have a honey flavor. Mix them with basswood seeds and the combination tastes like chocolate. See full article on site and video.

Banana blossoms are usually cooked

Few people in temperate North America ever think of eating a banana blossom, but a lot of folks in warm areas do, and it does not prevent your banana tree from producing fruit. The entire flower/fruit arrangement of the banana is odd with the blossom being a purplish torpedo. Look closely at the stalk end of the blossom and you can see what will eventually become a hand of bananas. The blossom can be eaten raw (bitter-ish) or cooked, less or no bitterness. Usually it is peeled to get the more tender parts then shredded or sliced thin and soaked to reduce the bitterness. The flavor is not of the banana but rather more of a vegetable. See full article on site and video.

Be sure to read Edible Flowers: Part Four

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Locally, blackberries are coming into season. Photo by Green Deane

Locally, blackberries are coming into season. Photo by Green Deane

Now is the time to go looking for blackberries. They are just coming into season with a few tart black ones and many pink to red berries aripening. Even when very sweet wild blackberries have a bitter note or aftertaste. That comes from the center, which stays with the blackberry when picked. That also gives it more shelf-life. Raspberry, in the same genus, leave the core behind when picked which is why they are sweeter and go bad quicker. If you have enough large blackberry shoots they can be peeled, boiled and eaten. The roots can produce a bit of sugar. Beside the fruit the most common use is the leaves for tea. It’s tasty and medicinal. Having foraged for them from Maine to Florida I think the farther north one goes the better the berry gets. To read more about the blackberry click here, and here.

Partially submerged Lemon Bacopa, Lake Seminary boat ramp, Maitland Fl., photo by Green Deane

Partially submerged Lemon Bacopa, Lake Seminary boat ramp, Maitland Fl., photo by Green Deane

Blackberries and Lemon Bacopa grow in two very different environments. Blackberries like it dry, Lemon Bacopa likes it wet. Yet you can find them close to each other if a hill slopes down to a lake. Thus after nibbling on the blackberries above I found some Lemon Bacopa at the base of the hill at shore’s edge. No where near as well known or as common as it’s genusmate Bacopa monnieri, it is actually the far better tasting of the two. It’s call Lemon Bacopa but tastes more like lime. Whether it has the same medicinal qualities as Bacopa monnieri is debatable. Some think so but the plants really are worlds apart in taste so personally I doubt it. One is exceptionally bitter, the other very citrusy. Lemon Bacopa makes a nice tea. To read about it go here.

Surinam fruit ranging from green to almost ripe. Photo by Green Deane.

Surinam fruit ranging from green to almost ripe. Photo by Green Deane.

The Surinam Cherry in my yard finally decided to fruit, about a month behind schedule. Nearly two months ago there was fruit in Port Charlotte and a month ago in West Palm Beach. The weather has been different this year. In the 10 years or so that shrub’s been bearing this is the latest that I recall. However, it is also probably producing the largest crop ever. The species is naturalized in warm areas of the world. In the picture to the left you can see the span of ripeness. The berries go from green to yellow to orange then red. The top one is not quite ripe. It needs to be a deep red with blue tones, like the color of old-fashioned fire trucks, a blue red not an orange red. The best ones are the ones you have to fight the ants for. There are no in betweens with the fruit: You will either find the ripe fruit edible or not. You will also only eat an unripe fruit once. They do not taste good. Do not eat the seeds. Not only do they taste bad but enough of them will make you sick. To read more about the Surinam Cherry click here.

Basswood  'tongue depressor" bracts are distinctive. Photo by Green Deane.

Basswood “tongue depressor” bracts are distinctive. Photo by Green Deane.

Tongue Depressors in the woods. Yes, tongue depressors. You’ll find something that looks that wood Popsicle on the Basswood Tree. It’s not wood but rather one bract of the flower. Blossoms are defined/arranged by their parts, from the outer most parts in, or the inner most out. Next out from flower petals are bracts (which can sometimes look like a petal as they do in the daylilies.) The Basswood has a bract that looks like a tongue depressor. If I remember correctly it is the only tree in North America to do that so identification when blossoming is quite easy. The tree is quite edible, actually most of it at one time or another from spring fresh leaves to inner bark. You can read more about the Basswood here.

Recently Added Article: Garlic Mustard. Also don’t forgt to check out my class schedule here. I’ve added three new locations.

This is only a test. Had this been a real spraying you would have been instructed to hold your breath and run a mile away.

Don’t worry. The label says it’s perfectly safe.

Lastly, a city park I teach in often sprayed herbicides on its lake shore on Earth Day.  How enlightened of them. When asked why the answer was to “make it look more aesthetically pleasing.” More aesthetically pleasing? To whom? To the birds who lost their nesting ground? To the animals that lost their shelter? How about the fish that have no where to hide or raise little ones? Maybe it is more aesthetically pleasing to suburbanites who like putting green lawns but that is a perverted view of reality. Looking more “aesthetically pleasing” is why here in Florida you see residential lakes that have decapitated grass to the shore line and then water but literally no other plants. Just naked lawn and dead lakes. It makes home owner associations proud: The only good nature is sterile and  coiffured. Wild Mother Nature? Banish the thought. In times of budget cuts and sensitivity to environmental issues one would think governmental agencies would stop wasting tax dollars on toxins that kill plants… if not animals and us.

 

 

 

 

 

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Polygonum Proliferation

The Smartweed is in blossom, and that’s a good thing because that almost helps with its identification. I say almost  because there are a lot of variations within the species. This however does help botanists argue endlessly about the various species as well as changing names. There are three locally and all are peppery hence “smart” weed. It used to be called “arsesmart.” At least one of the peppery species grows nearly everywhere in North America except Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, too high or dry I presume as Smartweed likes to be damp.

Polygonum blossoms can be white to pink

While we wouldn’t want to harvest Smartweed from a flooded roadside ditch that is one place it likes to grow and one place where we can study it conveniently. It likes wet spots; sides of rivers and ponds, in swamps, over-watered lawns, ruts in woodsroads and roadside ditches. The genus, Polygonum, means many knees and the plant does bend slightly at each joint. The lance shaped leaves can sometimes take on a red hue. But the most important element of identification is a peppery burn that takes a few seconds to register on the palate. Oddly the genus is in the Buckwheat family which includes such species at the Sea Grape tree and the Dove Plum tree.

The leaves can be used as a seasoning though some people do have contact dermatitis with it. The blossoms are also peppery but bitter as well.  My video on Smartweed is here. To read more about the Smartweed go here.

?“Yuck.”

That word lands in my mailbox regularly, sprinkled through like spice on an entree. It reminds me of what a great language English is.

English is not some frou-frou glot of genteel nuances or unique sounds. And while it might have started out as German Lite it has borrowed so much from other languages that it’s the largest and most predominate tongue on Earth. But beyond that English is fit. It’s muscular, punchy, to the point. English has brawn. It works out, demands attention, and gets things done. Yelling EXTINGUISH THE CONFLAGRATION will not stir anyone to action. PUT OUT THE FIRE will. Latin just can’t hold a candelabra to English.

So yes, “yuck,” a taut, vigorous English word populates my emails. Why? The answer is the Acorn Grub video, the Bon Appetit video, articles on the edibility of dogs and cats, Guinea pigs, horses, alligator, armadillos, slugs and snails,  earthworms, scorpions, spiders and some four dozen other insects such as the June Bug right. I know of a naturalist who starts each class on wild edibles by eating a live black beetle he finds in front of everyone. To him all black beetles are edible. “Yuck” you say. Perhaps. So powerful is that one word that several folks have sent just one word emails to me… Sometimes two words and they rhyme.  Yuck is succinct.  It tells me the writer’s mental state and their opinion, which is fine. In matters of taste there is no debate. Only matters of truth are worthy of debate.  And just as some find these critters “yucky” so to do many find eating weeds “yucky.” That reminds me of a commercial on the radio.

After some typical radio machinations a woman announces that she puts (let’s say) Weeds-Be-Dead on her garden so her husband won’t have to weed it for six months. Now she says she can enjoy her garden rather than always watching him weed… understandable… But you and I know that many of those yucky weeds he’s removing are quite edible and should be in the kitchen. Weeding can be harvesting; the food is fresh, nutritious, unsprayed, unmodified genetically by man and close to free. But then there is the issue of attitude.

Do you recognize the actor on the right? You should.

There’s a quaint British detective series which involves an obese chef who is also a senior police detective. (Only the Brits can get away with funding and producing such a show theme.) In one program the main character’s job is to help protect and feed a rather nasty young woman who is to testify against her deadly husband. At the same time the detective-chef is having a difficult time getting quality herbs for his restaurant. The “safe” house where she is staying just happens to have fantastic herbs just growing out back which he discovers. There’s a wonderful exchange between the avuncular detective-chef and one of the young armed officers protecting the woman. It’s an attitude most of us have heard before. To see the 42-second clip click here.

I am sure some folks who are  now eating dandelions once viewed them as “yucky” and had the attitude of the young “copper” above. Eating weeds (and other things, too) is more than knowledge and experience. It’s also a matter of attitude.

? Botany Builder #17. Petals, sepals, tepal and bracts.  Flower blossoms are usually defined from the outside in. There is some logic to this in that center parts used to be outer parts long ago, according to botanists. The only real confusing thing is that petals and sepals can look nearly identical. For example, daylily blossoms look like they have six petals. Actually they have three petals and three sepals (the sepals are slightly lower than the petals but colored the same.) Bracts are leafy protrusions below the sepals. Probably the most famous bracts are red bracts on Poinsettias at Christmas time (the blossoms are very tiny) Locally the Spotted Beebalm has pretty pink bracts in the fall. The word “Tepal” is used when botanist can’t tell where the petals stop and the sepals begin, meaning the distinction between the two is so indistinct they call the entire arrangement a tepal (among other loose uses of the term.) At any rate the parts line up from the outside in as bracts, sepals and petals, and when in botanical doubt, tepals. By the way, I would add that daylilies are fatal to cats. Even such a thing as licking daylily pollen off their fur can kill them.

? Classes: Cassadaga has a nice little park and was added to my list of sites by request. Unfortunately, it always has the smallest classes though there is much to see there. Two plants should be mentioned. The first is kudzu, which many people have heard about but never seen. The state says it doesn’t grow there but it is epidemic there. To read about kudzu click here, to see a video on kudzu click here. The other is the Winged Yam, what I think of as the prime wild caloric staple here in Florida. At the Cassadaga class Saturday we found a large wing yam root. The vine is still died back from winter but some informed guessing helped us locate a root. Locally there are about the size of a football somewhere around 10 pounds. To see a video about the yam click here, to read the related article click here.

Wekiva Springs a century ago

Easter Sunday was spent in the close-to-town wilderness of Wekiva State Park, more a native edibles class than a cosmopolitian weed class. The Wekiva forage used to be an easy four mile walk, two miles to Rock Spring Run through scrub and then two miles back through the swamp on an old logging road. The swamp portion has been closed. Still, it combines two very different environments, high and dry and low and wet. Makes for an interesting distribution of species. There’s also a few mother alligators about. While looking for plants I saw five deer and two wild turkeys which along with gigantic free-flowing springs is why the natives (and locals today) like the area. One of the more unique species we saw was Florida Pennyroyal. It is unrelated to the common pennyroyal though the aromatic oil is the same. The plant, which is nearly impossible to transplant, is found only in Florida and western parts of the East Indies. It is also monotypic, that is, the only species in its genus (that’s what botanists do when they can’t figure out what group to put a plant in. They create a new group of one.)

Saturday, April 14th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789. 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 15th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335, 9 a.m

? Budget Cut Benefits. Two effects of the economic times are influencing foraging. First is an increase in the number of people who are putting food on the table by foraging. Think of it as a training calm before an economic storm. The other benefit is an increase in edible weeds.

Because of tight budgets various agencies don’t have the money to pay for weed control as they did. Wild edibles that were often kept at bay by regular mowing or spraying are now flourishing. At many areas I haunt for edibles there are far more weeds than usual. It is an interesting example of how less is more.

There was a time when no resources were spent controlling nature. In return nature provided ample food for man to survive. Then came agriculture, then cities and eventually a human population that cannot survive without big agriculture. A century ago when most folks not only stopped foraging but started moving off the farm, they planted non-edible plants about their homes and cities. They even allocated money to keep nature in check, as if nature was a green enemy. We went from being part of nature to opposing it. Nature went from being a provider to being a pain. We turned on something that had sustained humanity for thousands of years. And more saliently, it was and perhaps is a pointless expenditure: Nature has far more resources than man and doesn’t need a bank account to get something done, such as growing more weeds.

The areas I roam for wild edibles are just accessible now as they were last year and the year before. But less plants are being destroyed. Nature is responding and coming back with wild edibles: Ground cherries, peppergrass, blackberries, milkweed, yams, maypop, grain grasses.  When we stop spending money battling nature, nature provides more food, for free, and there’s less pollution.  That strikes me as a win win win and a lesson not to be forgotten if and when the economy recovers.

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