Search: chickasaw plum

Chickasaw Plum fruit won’t ripen until June or so, but it is easy to identify the shrub now. Photo by Green Deane

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

This is the time of year to easily locate a wild edible and an invasive non-edible ornamental.The edible is Chickasaw Plum, the non edible is Bradford Pear. Both can be found with small white blossoms this time of year and no leaves, thus they standout in the landscape.  The plum creates a tasty fruit that is usually ripe by June. The pear produces a woody acorn size fruit that is too tough to eat.  The plum is usually short, the pear tall, the plum has sweet-smelling blossom and a few small thorns, the pear has foul-smelling blossoms and many large thorns. You can watch my video here. You can read about the Chickasaw plum here.

Deer Mushrooms like wood and cool weather. Photo by Green Deane

Deer Mushrooms are edible but not too well liked. They are not difficult to identify down to the genus. And while edible, they are not sought out because of unremarkable taste and not much body (the caps are mostly gills.) They are better than what you can buy in the supermarket but not as good as many other wild mushrooms. My neighbor had a large Live Oak removed last fall and this spring the roots are sprouting mushrooms, in this case Pluteus cervinus or P. petastus. Necessary  microscopic spores analysis requires a microscope stronger than the two I own. However, P. cervinus prefers whole pieces of hardwood in the woodlands, P. petasatus can grow on wood chips in suburbia. The name comes from the fawn-colored patch on top of the cap. Its free gills are whitish at first and become pinkish. The spore print color is pink/salmon. 

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

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

Watercress/Wintercress grew in a ditch behind an apartment complex I lived in near Sanford, Florida, some 35 years ago. How did the Eurasian native Nasturtium officinale, get there? It came to North America with the Europeans, found a good home, and stayed. Alabama became the epicenter of cultivating it then later Central Florida. Sanford, by the way, is named for Henry Sanford one of Lincoln’s ambassadors. He is called “General Sanford” but the gentleman never served in the military. He got the title for donating a cannon to the Union effort. Sanford was, however, big on big farming and for a few decades made the city of Sanford the big place to go in Central Florida not Orlando.

When President Calvin Coolidge came to Central Florida in 1929 it was to Sanford he went not little-ol’ backwater Orlando. The city of Sanford had everything: River, rails, road and Rollins college. But it lacked leadership giving Orlando a chance to make its mousey mark. Rollins moved to Winter Park. As Coolidge did so did watercress which is why it ended up in the ditch behind the apartment complex in Sanford. The entire area was truck farms and one of their winter crops was watercress. Peppery like nasturtiums it is edible raw or cooked but make sure you get it from wholesome water. Nasturtium by the way literally means “twisted nose.” Where I collect watercress to be eaten raw is about a half mile down stream from the Wekiva River boil (its main spring and headwater.) But there’s a lot of water hemlock around so I have to pick carefully. This time of year the river is mostly water hemlock. To read more about watercress go here. I have a video on watercress here. To read about the deadly Water Hemlock go here.  It i also found in Wickham Park were I have a class this Weekend. (See below) 

Marlberries aren’t too edible. Photo by Green Deane

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

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

Foraging Classes: With moderating weather, attending classes should be easier as we go into spring. 

Saturday, March 16th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL, 9 a.m. to noon, meet at the dog park. 

Sunday, March 17th Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park. 9 am. to noon.

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

You get the USB, not the key.

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

Green Deane Forum

Want to identify a plant? Perhaps you’re looking for a foraging reference? You might have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane and others from around the world — chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. And let me add an apology regarding page access. We have been having computer and word presses issues, restricting site availability.

Finally, a physical copy of the book.

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

This is weekly newsletter #591. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Forked tendril grapes a few months from ripening. Photo by Green Deane

Locally there are two group of grapes, single tendril and forked tendril. The singles are blossoming now, the forked ones are growing fruit. Both tend to ripen about September though the single tendril has greater seasonal leeway. The forked tendril grapes are superior in flavor and fruit almost every year. Single tendril grapes fruit very irregularly and are high in acid

Persimmon leaves are very high in Vitamin C.

Persimmons are also green right now. We’ll have to wait until October or so to find some ripe ones. There is a forager folk tale that they ripen only after a frost. As frosts are uncommon in Florida frosts are not necessary for persimmons to ripen, the ripening and any frosts at the same time is just a coincidence. The best persimmons locally are the ones you have to fight the ants for. Native persimmon are astringent until the seeds are old enough to germinate. Then the fruit turns sweet hoping some animal will eat it and spread the seeds around.

Blackbarries are ripening.

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

Cickasaw plums will soon ripen in full. Photo by Green Deane

Foraging classes: This could be a “Prunus” foraging week. Rummaging around Gainesville this time of year we usually see wild garlic and Chickasaw Plums (not together) The plums are usually still green and sour and should be ripe in a month to six weeks.  Black Cherries are also ripening now but are often more difficult to find because the birds also like them. Cherries and plums are in the same genus, Prunus, so it’s not surprising they are ripening at about the same time.  Also setting fruit are the Flatwood Plums but they are different story and are included in my related article. I have a video on the Chickasaw plum here, Black Cherry here. To read about the Black Cherry go here, the Chickasaw Plum, here.  

May 13, Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St.,  Gainesville, FL 32641.  9 a.m. Meet at the picnic tables next to the pump house.

May 14, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL., 9 a.m. meet at the bathrooms.

May 20th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte., 9 a.m., meet at the parking lot at Bayshore and Ganyard Street.

May 21st, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 9 a.m., meet just north of the science center. 

May 27th , Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 9 a.m. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park (turn right after entrance.)

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

You get the USB, not the key.

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

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

Sargassum: Edible but sequesters arsenic.

And my book is on pre-order at Amazon.com. It will be printed in October. How many plants will be in it is up for debate at the moment. The covers says 295 but I’ve had them remove a couple that I think were too iffy, recently sargassum seaweed. While it is edible, recent research shows it modern times it collects high amounts of arsenic. 

This is my weekly newsletter #557. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page. My website, EatTheWeeds.com, which is data secure, has over 1500 plants on it in some 428 articles. I wrote every one myself, no cut and paste. 

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Toxic Mexican Poppy photo by Green Deane

White mexican poppy.

No, it is not edible. This time of year you will see yellow Mexican poppy Argemone mexicana in dry areas. Beside railroad tracks is a common location. If the blossom is white it is argemone albiflora, see photo at right. The plants are poisonous — particularly the seeds — but have been used medicinally.  The toxic seed oil has been used to adulterate commercial “vegetable” oil, particularly mustard seed oil (to make it more peppery.) And added to tea and beer for the same effect. The oil however has been used for soap making and fuel.  In folk medicine the Mexian Poppy has been used to treat asthma, the root mixed with rum for stomach pains, the stem sap for toothaches and petals given to kids with various urination problems. The seed oil also has been used to treat  leprosy,  skin  diseases,  indolent  ulcers,  injuries, flatulence, constipation, colic, malaria and rheumatalgia. Extracts reduce morphine toxicity.  Research suggests they might be good for treating liver disease. Alcohol extracts are anti-bacterial particularly against Staphylococcus  aureus  and  Bacillus  subtilis, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Argemone is from ancient Greek and means “cataract of the eye” as the ancients believed it would get rid of cataracts. Where the plants are prolific they are a common allergen.

CHickasaw plum blossoms photo by Green Deane

This time of year it is easy to spot the Chickasaw plum, the Eastern Red bud and the Pink Tabebula. They all have many blossoms and few leaves.  The chickasaw plum (prunus angustifolia) will have edible fruit near the end of spring, the Eastern Red Bud (cercis canadensis) has small pink blossoms you can eat now and later pea pods, the Pink Tabebulia  (Tabebulia heterophylla.) is mostly just pretty though a tonic/tea used to be made from the cambium. In folk medicine it was used as an anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and for treating cancer

Ice Plant is native to South Africa.

Natives in northwest United States had a saying: When the tide is out the table is set. I use a variation in my foraging  classes: Food is where the water is. Foraging is treasure hunting for adults. An unusual edible you can see from Port Charlotte to Tarpon Springs is  Carpobrotus edulis, the ice plant You can find it on the land side of Fred Howard Park, Tarpon Springs and at the Nature Park in Punta Gorda. Ice Plant resembles purslane on steroids. Definitely not native, it’s a succulent-looking ground cover often put into coastal landscape. Leaves are less than two-inches long, opposite, evergreen, lance shaped.  The plant gets to about a foot high and is drought tolerant. The pink blossom with a yellow center is cactus-like. Leaves are used in salads. Fruits are eaten raw, dried, cooked or pickled or used in chutneys and preserves. Also edible are C. aequilaterus and C. deliciosus.

Beginning brining Osmanthus megacarpus

There are can be many reasons why an edible wild plant is not eaten. Often they were replaced by a better cultivated crop, or they were eaten in other parts of the world but not locally. Sometimes one group ate it but their rivals did not, or one group only ate the seeds and another group only the roots. And sometimes the information was not shared leaving the plant in modern foraging limbo. Foresteria are in the olive family. As far as I know locals only used the fruit of one, F legustrina,  and then to make ink. The fruit is bitter, but so, too, is the common olive without brining. Two Foresteria, F. neo-mexicana and F. pubescens var. pubescens, were eaten raw. A native member of the olive group is Osmanthus megacarpus a.k.a. cartrema floidanum. Which I have eaten after brining and I know a person who eats them before brining. 

After brining a month in four changes of brine.

Brining means soaking the fruit covered in salted water (in this case submerged in a 10% solution) for a month and changing it every week essentially the same processed as fermenting. Salt is often used to reduce tannins and is part of the process of turning Java Plums into wine. One critical element when fermenting or brining is the material you are treating has to be submerged. If any part is out of the liquid it will grow mold. I used a glass plug/plate to keep this fruit in the solution. After a month of brining the fruit had lost its bitterness and had an acceptable taste. The seed is most of the fruit leaving little pulp to eat. It was a lot of attention and time for a small amount of payoff. Then again we don’t eat a lot of plants for their caloric punch. As the forager Ray Mears has often said every little bit fills the soup pot or the tummy. These did taste like cured olives. In a previous newsletter I wrongly called the Osmanthus a Forresteria (whose berries tend to be small, oblong, and often blue/black.

Silverthorn berries ripen around St. Valentine’s Day. Photo by Green Deane

Valentine’s Day was this week which reminds us of Silverthorn. Silverthorn usually fruits around Valentine’s Day. We’ve been seeing ripening berries for several weeks and found a lot of sweet ones this past weekend. Locally it is a very common hedge plant that is rather easy to identify. It has green waxy leaves that are silver on the back with rusty freckles. The fruit is about the size of a jelly bean and light red with silver and gold sprinkling. You can read about it here, and a video here. Also flowering this week and will be fruiting soon is Eastern Gamagrass. A clumping ornamental (and native) it has a frilly flower spike that turns into grains that can be used like wheat if you can get them out of their husk. You can read about it here. 

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

Foraging Classes: Sticking to the southeast end of the state this weekend, with a class in Ft. Pierce and then West Palm Beach, the latter is more tended to than the former.

Saturday February 18th, La strange Preserve, Ft. Pierce, 9 a.m. meet at the parking lot. 

Sunday February 19th, Dreher Park, West Palm Beach, 9 a.m. meet north of the science center parking lot.

Saturday February 25th, John Chestnut County Park: 2200 East Lake Road, Palm Harbor, FL 34685. Meet at the trail head of the Peggy Park Nature Walk, pavilion 1 parking lot. 9 a.m 

Sunday February 26th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park 9 a.m 

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

You get the USB, not the key.

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

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

This is my weekly newsletter #545. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page. My website, EatTheWeeds.com, which is data secure, has over 1500 plants on it in some 428 articles. I wrote every one myself, no cut and paste. 

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Chickasaw Plums are starting to ripen. Photo by Green Deane

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

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

Neolentinus lepideus which until recently was Lentinus lepideus.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No plant produces more starch per acre than cattails.

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

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

Edible berries and the leaves repel insects.

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

You get the USB, not the key.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

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

This is my weekly newsletter #511. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page. My website, EatTheWeeds.com, which is data secure, has over 1500 plants on it in some 428 articles. I wrote every one myself, no cut and paste.

                             To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.  

Aralia Spinosa has blossoms high above the top of the plant

Cut off an spines on the shoot, keep the large part at the bottom

Eating some plants is the best revenge, sand spurs some to mind. Another one to add to that hostile list is The Devil’s Walking Stick. I usually notice the species too late, after it has sliced a long bloody line or two on my arm or leg. The only plant I loose more blood too is the jujube. 

There are several edible Aralias, and they are popular foraging food in other countries, among the edible species are  Aralia elata, the Japanese Angelica tree (invasive in Northeast America). A. cordata, A nudicaulis, and A. racemosa. In the southeast ours is Aralia spinosa. 

Officially the species gets to north Florida — though I have seen it in Deland in Central Florida — and I expect to see it this Saturday at my Gainesville Foraging Class. Edible parts are young spring shoots, raw or blanched/boiled. I think cooked is best, and safest. As it is in the order of araliaceae you detect a might detect a hint of parsley and or cilantro in the flavor. 

A. spinosa is well-armed

One precaution is to make sure you have a true aralia. There are several ornamental plants in south Florida and other warm place commonly called “Aralia” but are not and are not edible. There is a Schefflera (elegantissima) is commonly called the False Aralia. It is not edible. Fatsia japonica, sometimes called Japanese aralia, is not edible. However, the house plant called Ming Aralia is actually Polyscias fruticosa and is edible like A. spinosa.

A. spinosa is also called Prickly ash, Hercules club, Angelica tree, Prickly elder, Pick tree, Toothache tree, and Shotbush. A separate species, Zanthoxylum clava-herculis, is also called the Toothache Tree and Hercules’ club. The latter grows into a large tree, A. spinosa is usually a spindly shrub.

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

Foraging classes this weekend might have to endure heavy rain depending upon where the system in the Gulf of Mexico decides to go. Usually rain does not stop classes, named storms do.  

Saturday, June 4th Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St.,  Gainesville, FL 32641. 9 a.m. Meet at the picnic tables next to the pump house.

Sunday June 5th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, 32127. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion.

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

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

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

Natal plum have double sets of thorns. Photo by Green Deane

Natal plums are not plums but they are a tasty fruit which once established are extremely wind, drought and salt tolerant. This makes sense as the first time I saw them was some 35 years ago was at a beach house inside Canaveral National Park in New Smyrna Beach. For $75 we could rent the two-story place from Friday afternoon until Monday morning. It slept six, was almost across the street from “Turtle Mound” and was right on the beach, literally. The best part is we were locked in the park from sunset to sunrise giving us the entire beach to ourselves. That house had a hedge of Natal Plums on the west side. In fact just north of Bethune Beach Park there is a half-mile section of A1A that is residential and on the beach. Many of those houses have Natal Plums and where I go when I want to collect a lot of them.

Natal Plums have edible latex and seeds. Photo by Green Deane

Some 20 years later when I was in San Diego on business I saw Natal Plums everywhere in both commercial and residential landscaping. They can take the heat. And in Port Charlotte, Fla., where I teach some of my foraging classes, there are several Natal Plums in the area. There are some in the neighborhood where I live. Invariably when I ask the owner if I can have the fruit they have no idea they are edible. I find most of the Natal Plums when I’m driving. When I spy a dark green hedge with plum-size red fruit it’s almost always the Natal Plum. Although it’s closely related to the deadly Oleander there is a large, commercial variety of the species available. And while various fruit councils have championed the species for decades it never really took off as a commercial fruit. You can read about it here.

Suriname Cherry might be an acquired taste.

While on the topic of wild fruit  Chickasaw Plums should ripen soon.They are late this year. I have never found any Chickasaw Plum fruit after the Fourth of July but this year might be different. Also ripening are the Surinam Cherries. They are perhaps an aquired taste Some people dislike them intensely .There are also two varieties, the deep red shown left and a dark purple variety (which I think is sweeter and less acidic.) If you eat them when orange red they are not pleasant tasting. 

Vitis munsoniana getting close to ripening. Photo by Green Deane

 The general calendar date for grapes them is September first. In Maine in the past school always started the Tuesday after Labor Day. A couple of weeks later I’d be late for school and home because of grapes and apples. I walked two miles each way and that took me past hedgerows of Concord Grapes. A couple of weeks after that apples in the nearby orchard got my attention. Before modern slang “scrumping” meant stealing local fruit usually by kids. And that I did though most of these vines and trees were around old farmsteads and not tended. Locally grapes have shown up in August even late July.  These are in the single-tendril clumpinggroup. I suspect the forked-tendril bunch grapes will wait until September to ripen.   You can watch my video on grapes here and read about them here.

You get the USB, not the key.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

This is my weekly newsletter #510. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page. My website, EatTheWeeds.com, which is data secure, has over 1500 plants on it in some 428 articles. I wrote every one myself, no cut and paste.

                             To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.  

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

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

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

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

Note the long stem on the middle leaf.

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

American lostus seeds are choice. Photo by Green Deane

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

Blackberries are ripening

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seeding Seablite. Photo by Green Deane

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

Blueberries, Roan Mt. North Carolina.

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

You get the USB, not the key.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

This is my weekly newsletter #506. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page. My website, EatTheWeeds.com, which is data secure, has over 1500 plants on it in some 428 articles. I wrote every one myself, no cut and paste. 

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

                             To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.  

The unripe cone of the Norfolk Pine. Photo by Green Deane

Undeveloped seeds in the Norfolk Pine cone. Photo by Green Deane

The Bunya Bunya and Norfolk Pine are closely related. Neither look good in landscaping though the Norfolk Pine is far more common than the Bunya Buyna locally. They both awkwardly stand out. Unlike cones of the Bunya Bunya, which one finds regularly, Norfolk pine cones are more rare. And like their relative they, too, have edible seeds. During a class in Port Charlotte we saw an immature Norfolk Pine cone. The undeveloped seeds were intensely pine flavored.   The Bunya Bunya fruits about every three years. One sees Norfolk Pines regularly but not their cones. Hopefully this tree will drop some mature cones in August which is also about when the champagne mangos in the area ripen (and rot on the ground.)

Dollarweed has its stem in the middle.

Allergic reactions. While a teacher can guarantee that a particular species is edible they cannot control for individual allergic reactions. We now have far more allergic people than half a century ago. The rate was about 3% in 1960 and 7% in 2018. Some think that has been caused by over-protective parents and no child ever unsupervised. We also know kids raised on farms have less allergies than most kids supporting the so- called hygiene hypothesis. When I was young no one ever heard of a peanut allergy or the like. As plants are chemical factories one can expect some people to have an allergic reaction to them. Among wild plants two sometimes produce a mild allergic reaction, Cucumber Weed and Epazote.  Pawpaws carry a huge warning because they can cause a rare anaphylactic shock which is a severe allergic reaction. In a class this past week a fellow had an itchy throat reaction to Hydrocotyle bonariensis, our local common dollar weed. It wasn’t a severe reaction and all is well but it is one to be mindful of. 

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

Foraging classes: On this holiday weekend I have one class, Saturday, in Winter Park. It’s plant-rich location and a good time of year to go treasure hunting. 

Saturday, May 8th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet by the bathrooms. The entrance to Mead is on Denning not Pennsylvania. Some GPS get it wrong. 

Saturday, May 15th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 to noon. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park.

Sunday, May 16th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, 32127. 9 a.m. to noon, meet at the pavilion.

Saturday, May 22th, George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, FL, 34981. 9 a.m. to noon, meet at the parking lot. 

Sunday, May 23th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park, 9 a.m. to noon.

For more class information, to sign up or prepay, go here. 

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

It was a “Prunus“ foraging week. While rummaging around our usual class location we saw Chickasaw Plums. They are just beginning to ripen and should be around for about six weeks. The Chickasaw Plums were not completely ripe but give them a week or two.  Black Cherries are also ripening but are often more difficult to find because the birds also like them. Cherries and plums are in the same genus, Prunus, so it’s not surprising they are ripening at about the same time.  Also setting fruit are the Flatwood Plums but they are different story and are included in my related article. I have a video on the Chickasaw plum here, Black Cherry here. To read about the Black Cherry go here, the Chickasaw Plum, here.  Completely unrelated Tallow Plums are blossoming.

Lactarius indigo mushrooms are difficult to misidentify.

It’s been a strange week for edible wild mushrooms. Ringless Honey Mushrooms favor the fall but the right weather conditions in the spring — May specificially — can cause a minor occurrence of them. This this week there were sporadic reports of said about the South. I have even seem them on a Banyan in West Palm Beach in July.  I saw five agung  Lactarius indigo in Venice, Fl., this week, quite out of season. It is indeed a pretty mushroom and edible though its texture can be a tad grainy. With rains between now and the end of the month the summer mushroom season should get a good start. Hopefully by mid-June the Orlando Mushroom Group (OMG!) can have a forage. 

No plant produces more starch per acre than cattails.

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

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

150-video USB would be a good spring present and is now $99. My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out. The USB videos are the same videos I have on You Tube. Some people like to have their own copy.  The USB videos have to be copied to your computer to play. If you want to order the USB go to the DVD/USB order button on the top right of this page. That will take you to an order form. I’d like to thank all of you who ordered the DVD set over the years which required me to burn over 5,000 DVDs individually. 

Want to identify a plant? Perhaps you’re looking for a foraging reference? You might have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane and others from around the world — chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food.

Your donations to upgrade the EatTheWeeds website and fund a book were appreciated. A book manuscript has been turned it. It had 424 articles, 1325 plants and a third of a million words. What it will be when the publisher is done with it next year is unknown. It will be published in the spring of 2023. Writing it took a significant chunk of time out of my life from which I have still not recovered. (Many things got put off.) The next phase is to update all the content on the website between now and publication date. Also note as it states above the 135-video DVD set has been phased out for 150-video USB. Times and formats change. Which reminds me I need to revisit many plants and make some new videos. 

This is weekly newsletter #456. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

There are five edible mushroom species in this photo, four very good. We should see them and more at a mushroom class this weekend. Photo by Green Deane

There’s an old song “what a difference a day makes.” If it were about mushroom it would be “what a difference a week makes.” A week ago I walked my “mushroom mile” and saw nothing. This week the fungi is fruiting all over. Thus this year the timing was good. OMG (the Orlando Mushroom Group on Facebook) wanted to hold classes in June last year but the mushroom season was six weeks late. That threw everything off and we never got a change to meet. (Only two mushroom groups in the state meet, Gainesville and Orlando.) This year after studying long-term forecasts we took a guess that mid-June would be good and luck was with us this time. I put off foraging classes in the Carolinas, put a mushroom foray on the schedule, and the Rain Gods cooperated (along with warm nights.) 

Joshua Buchanan on an OMG mushroom hunt.

Joshua Buchanan and I will be having a mushroom hunt this Saturday, June 13th, in Lake Mary, Fl. He’s interested in all mushrooms including cordyceps. I know a few dozen edibles. He brings a west-coast perspective and broad knowledge, I’m east and more an edible specialist. The class is 9 to noon, $10 per adult, 8515 Markham Rd, Lake Mary, FL 32746. Some reference material will be provided. This is a bicycle trail head so there is ample parking and bathrooms. Kids and other pets welcome. Reservations are not necessary. As foraging is illegal in Florida this is a mushroom hunt not a forage. Should you choose to take some fungi home for further … ah… study … that is your choice. It is recommended you discretely use a backpack or a tote rather than a mushroom basket.  The hunt is rain or shine: Tropical storms or hurricanes excepted. Other species common in the area but not in season are Deerberries, Persimmons, Opuntia and Gopher Apples. Wild life is deer and gopher tortoises. You might see bear tracks. Occasionally a pygmy rattler is seen on the east side of the park by the trails. Look before you reach. As it has been wet something ward off mosquitoes and ticks is recommended.  

Classes are held rain or shine.

Only one plant foraging class this weekend, in Blanchard Park this Sunday, always a pleasant location. 

Sunday, June 14th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. Meet at the pavilion between the YMCA building and the tennis courts. 9 a.m. till noon. 

Saturday June 20th, John Chestnut County Park: 2200 East Lake Road, Palm Harbor, FL 34685. Meet at the trail head of the Peggy Park Nature Walk, pavilion 1 parking lot. 9 a.m. until noon. 

Sunday, June 21st, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte. 9 a.m to noon. Meet at the parking lot at Bayshore Drive and Ganyard Street 9 a.m. to noon. 

Saturday, June 27th, George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, FL, 34981. 9 a.m. to noon. Third time is a charm. This class has had to be rescheduled twice because of weather. This is also the only location without any official bathrooms. 

Sunday, June 28th, Haulover Canal, Merritt Island National Refuge, north of the Kennedy Space Center, 9 a.m. to noon. This is contingent on the park being open. I will get a definite answer this coming week.  

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

Natal plums are not plums but they are a tasty fruit which once established are extremely wind, drought and salt tolerant. This makes sense as the first time I saw them was some 35 years ago was at a beach house inside Canaveral National Park in New Smyrna Beach. For $75 we could rent the two-story place from Friday afternoon until Monday morning. It slept six, was almost across the street from “Turtle Mound” and was right on the beach, literally. The best part is we were locked in the park from sunset to sunrise giving us the entire beach to ourselves. That house had a hedge of Natal Plums on the west side. In fact just north of Bethune Beach Park there is a half-mile section of A1A that is  residential and on the beach. Many of those houses have Natal Plums and where I go when I want to collect a lot of them.

Natal Plums have edible latex. Photo by G.D.

Some 20 years later when I was in San Diego on business I saw Natal Plums everywhere in both commercial and residential landscaping. They can take the heat. And in Port Charlotte, Fla., where I teach some of my foraging classes, there are several Natal Plums in the area. There are some in the neighborhood where I live. Invariably when I ask the owner if I can have the fruit they have no idea they are edible. In fact find most of the Natal Plums when I’m driving. When I spy a dark green hedge with plum-size red fruit it’s almost always the Natal Plum. Although it’s closely related to the deadly Oleander there is a large, commercial variety of the species available. And while various fruit councils have championed the species for decades it never really took off as a commercial fruit. You can read about it here.

Suriname Cherrie might be an acquired taste.

While on the topic of wild fruit we are down to the last few days locally of Chickasaw Plums for the year. Height of the season was perhaps three weeks ago but there are some lingering fruit here and there. Annually I have never found any Chickasaw Plum fruit after the Fourth of July. Also confounding foraging some this year are the Surinam Cherries. In two different locations some 200 miles apart the Suriname Cherries seem to have had two fruitings. In both locations they flushed out with smaller than usual fruit, stopped bearing for about three weeks then came back with a second set of fruit. This time many making it to full size. The weather can indeed be strange. There are also two varieties, the deep red shown left and a dark purple variety (which I think is sweeter and less acidic.)

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

Changing foraging videos: My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been selling for seven years. They are the same videos I have on You Tube. Some people like to have a separate copy. The DVD format, however, is becoming outdated. Those 135 videos plus 15 more are now available on a 16-gig USB drive. While the videos can be run from the DVDs the videos on the USB have to be copied to your computer to play. They are MP4 files. The150-video USB is $99 and the 135-video DVD set is now $99. The DVDs will be sold until they run out then will be exclusively replaced by the USB. This is a change I’ve been trying to make for several years. So if you have been wanting the 135-video DVD set order it now as the price is reduced and the supply limited. Or you can order the USB. My headache is getting my WordPress Order page changed to reflect these changes. We’ve been working on it for over three weeks. However, if you want to order now either the USB or the DVD set make a $99 “donation” using the link at the bottom of this page or here.  That order form provides me with your address, the amount — $99 — tells me it is not a donation and in the note say if you want the DVD set or the USB. 

Green Deane Forum

Want to identify a plant? Perhaps you’re looking for a foraging reference? You might have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane and others from around the world — chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food.

This is weekly newsletter 409, If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Chickasaw Plums are starting to ripen. Photo by Green Deane

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

This was a “Prunus” foraging week. While rummaging around our usual class location in Gainesville we sampled Chickasaw Plums. They are just beginning to ripen and should be around for about a month. The Chickasaw Plums were not completely ripe but give them a week or two.  Black Cherries are also ripening but are often more difficult to find because the birds also like them. Cherries and plums are in the same genus, Prunus, so it’s not surprising they are ripening at about the same time.  Also setting fruit are the Flatwood Plums but they are different story and are included in my related article. I have a video on the Chickasaw plum here, Black Cherry here. To read about the Black Cherry go here, the Chickasaw Plum, here.  Incidentally, renovations at Boulware Springs appears to be stalled and they are also removing the portable toilets. Looks like I will be needing another location for classes in the area. 

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

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

Note the long stem on the middle leaf.

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

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

The resumption of foraging classes is going well and in time as it is an interesting growing time of the year. I use a portable address system so all can hear and keep the distance they are comfortable with. Foraging is treasure hunting for adults and a good way to get out in the sunshine… and sometimes rain. 

Saturday, May 23rd, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park. 9 a.m to noon. 

Sunday, May 24th, George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, FL, 34981. 9 a.m. to noon. THIS CLASS IS CANCELLED AND WILL BE RESCHEDULED AT A LATER DATE.

Saturday May 30th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park.

Sunday, May 31st, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789. Meet at the parking lot. 9 a.m. to noon. 

For more information, the pre-pay or sign up for a class go here. 

No plant produces more starch per acre than cattails.

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

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

Changing foraging videos: My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been selling for seven years. They are the same videos I have on You Tube. Some people like to have a separate copy. The DVD format, however, is becoming outdated. Those 135 videos plus 15 more are now available on a 16-gig USB drive. While the videos can be run from the DVDs the videos on the USB have to be copied to your computer to play. They are MP4 files. The150-video USB is $99 and the 135-video DVD set is now $99. The DVDs will be sold until they run out then will be exclusively replaced by the USB. This is a change I’ve been trying to make for several years. So if you have been wanting the 135-video DVD set order it now as the price is reduced and the supply limited. Or you can order the USB. My headache is getting my WordPress Order page changed to reflect these changes. We’ve been working on it for over three weeks. However, if you want to order now either the USB or the DVD set make a $99 “donation” using the link at the bottom of this page or here.  That order form provides me with your address, the amount — $99 — tells me it is not a donation and in the note say if you want the DVD set or the USB. 

Podocarpus is setting. Photo by Green Deane

It’s a long ways to August but the Podocarpus is making seeds and that means edible arils in a few months. The species is a bit strange in that we don’t eat the mildly-toxic seed. We eat the aril next to it which are very grape-like. They can  be used as grapes, eaten off the bush or made into jelly and wine et cetera. The seeds are listed as toxic but I know of an adult who ate two at one time and had no issue. That said, don’t eat the seeds. When the Podocarpus fruits can be something of a guess. Locally I look for them in August. The fruit can last several weeks and are edible even when they begin to dry and look like raisins.  Oddly, in a local park in downtown Winter Park, a few Podocarpus have escaped trimming and have grown into moderate-size trees. Those fruit in December and my only guess as to why is perhaps they are a different species. My video on Podocarpus is here and you can read about it  here.

Loquat wine mellowing.

If any of you follow my Facebook page you will know I resumed making wine. I did it for literally 30 years. When I moved five years ago I stopped but the Covid-19 lockdown got me back into it. (Couldn’t go too many places and there were fruit trees ripening in the neighborhood. Ya work with what ya got.) I actually kept most of the equipment and have made up for lost time with eight musts going. Only two surprises so far. I misread a float that you use to record at the beginning and end of a fermentation to know how much alcohol and sugar you have. It indicated a reading that defied the laws of physics of this universe until I realized with older eyes I was missing a decimal point… or is it dismal point?… dim-sal point?  And a batch of orange wine was lollygagging so I gave it a stir then it geysered onto the floor. Perhaps why I stopped wine making is coming back to me now… I am working on some grape wine. I’m not as bad as Tom Good on the British show Good Neighbors. He was (in)famous for his “pea pod wine.”  I never made a video on crafting wine but I did one on making real vinegar from scratch. I also have one on making a quick one-week hard cider.

Blue Porterweed blossoms taste like raw mushrooms.

Do you like mushrooms but want to avoid some of dangers that come with fungi foraging? Then there is a subtle solution: Blue Porterweed. Found in flower gardens around the world and native to Florida the Blue Porterweed earned its name as a source for tea that tasted like porter beer. Someone had the fermenting idea to add yeast and sugar to a lot of tea and get a brew that tastes similar to porter beer, hence the name. The flower garden variety usually grows up and the local native grows horizontally. The blue flowers, raw, have a subtle flavor of mushrooms. You can read more about the Blue Porterweed here. Oh, and how did porter beer get its name? The same way porter steak did. Porters — baggage handles in old central London — worked all hours and needed quick food. Shops set up to meet that need and out of them came several dishes and named items.

Do you know what these are? They’re fruiting now. Photo by Green Deane

Want to identify a plant? Perhaps you’re looking for a foraging reference? You might have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane and others from around the world — chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food.

Like all mustards Sea Rocket has four-petal blossoms. Photo by Green Deane

We had a chance to visit Anna Maria Island — thanks Frank — and saw a surprise: Sea Rocket. It is not a surprise to find Sea Rocket on a beach. In fact that is about the only place you find it, and literally right in the sand. What was surprising is that we found some in May. It’s a winter species and definitely likes cooler weather. It was, however, heavily seeding so the season is closing. It has a typical mustard flavor to it and the seeds taste like Dijon Mustard. There are several species and Florida’s usually has two: Cakile lanceolata and C. edentula though there might be some subspecies. C. lanceolata tends to have pointed seed pods, C. edentula blunted seed pods. References say you can find them in the spring and summer but I have found them only in late fall to spring. C. edentula tends to be the dominant on the east coast and C. lanceolata the west coast. My article on them here.

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What’s blooming now? Wild Pineapple. We saw this attractive specimen in Gainesville.