Search: burdock

If flowers could think they would view man as an errand boy. That floral perspective would also explain one of man’s more annoying habits.

Triassic dinosaurs

Scientist who study such things tell us that up until about 200 million years ago there were no flowers, or humans. The world was green, leafy and filled with big reptiles. Everything moved slowly, including evolution. The plants pollinated by using wind or water. Plant sex was in a word, boring. It was also by chance. Since wind and water were the only modes of pollen transportation plants also did not spread very far or fast. Life was local. That isolated tranquility exploded when the blossom bust onto the scene, and the world was change, so much we are told that without flowers there would be no humans.

Achaefructus liaoningensis, the first flower?

Imagine if you will a rather drab leafy landscape and then a glimmer of color, a flower. That would certainly attract attention, like a light in the dark. That flower would lure visitors of various sizes and numbers of legs. And then instead of just wind and water would be visitors to spread that plant’s pollen. Thus living things that moved came to serve living things that did not move. Insects, pseudo-mammals, proto-birds, yes, even lizards found function, being the sex salves of flowers. And the flowers responded.

Dandelion as a bug sees it and how we see it

Flowers developed special parts to attract various visitors: Color, shape, fruits, seeds, sugars and proteins. They even tapped into different wave lengths of light to create landing patterns only insects could see. Dandelions lose their familiar color if you can see other wavelenghts of light. Flowers exxentially made the world move, and change. Flowering plants spread faster than those that did not, and more creatures started spreading all the things flowers were

Female Fig Wasp

offering. In response the spreaders even specialized, the fig wasp that only pollenates figs, the Dufourea novae-angliae bee that only services the pickerel weed, and the Melipona bee that seems to be the only insect who knows how to sneak inside a vanilla blossom. Also among those spreading creatures was man.

As a mammal man’s role in all this was quite clear, take parts of a plant from here, deposit there, deposition usually in the form of an on-the-spot rest room, occasionally

Dog with burdocks

perhaps seeds or pollen on hair. Flowers started it all and the relationship between them and man continued up to modern times. We know, for example, what folksback in ancient times ate by studying their trash heaps and bathrooms: Nuts, fruits, and vegetables. We don’t find grains or legumes until later times. Those required cooking and that required something to cook in and or a fire. But it’s hard to find roasted wheat groats in the ashes of a fire.

Most people stopped foraging about a century ago. Man also stopped depositing seeds willy-nilly longer ago than that. But until suburbia man did his share of spreading seeds around. Now indoor plumbing is common and any seed eaten by man most likely does not make it through the treatment plant. So not only has man stopped spreading wild seeds around but he is is trapping what seeds he does eat. That certain alters the environment some. But ,the past dies hard because he is still selectively spreading seeds around.

Instead of spreading around seeds of foraged fauna man is distributing those of ornamental flowers and agricultural crops. Pretty flowers and vegetable crops still have man engaged in spreading their seed, even if only from garden to garden. One could say these plants are still manipulating man by making him preserve their seeds (note the seed bank recently created in the arctic circle. Most weeds did not make the cut. )  So whether plants are still manipulating man, or man plants, is a bit of a debate. But there is one other aspect.

As a boy growing up in rural Maine, I wondered why apples trees always grew next to the road, not out in the field. Some of my favorite “wild” apples grew next to woods roads, never just in the woods like other trees. The apple trees grew next to roads because people tossed apple cores away. It’s interesting to realize that someone’s littering decades ago is now a tree you’re enjoying. It also implies more.

Perhaps littering is a natural instinct, a bit of the flower’s directive still operating within us. Throwing away the seeds of a fruit 40 thousand years ago was doing a plant a favor, maybe its bidding. Tossing the apple core beside the road is no different. We may just have a litter gene developed by flowers. Think of it! Most littering comes after eating food products. We consume and toss. That litter along the road side might be an evolutionary echo from long ago, a bit of our distant foraging past still with us. I think the flowers would agree.

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Green Deane’s Newsletter
September 2010

Why learn how to forage?

The pocketbook is always a good reason.

The price of food staples are predicted to rise 45% over the next 10 years. (Corn, rice and wheat prices alone tripled from 2006 to 2008.) The prediction was made by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

Most of the food most people eat on earth are comprised of one or more of six staples: Corn, wheat, rice, potatoes, taro, and cassava. The price of vegetable oil is also predicted to go up as much as 40%. As I am a critic of vegetable oil removed from the vegetable that might be an opportunity to reduce consumption of said.

As for the staples, you should to learn to identify your local “staples” and benefit from their superior nutrition and almost zero cost.  Locally those are cat tails, the winged yam, ground nuts, the spurge nettle, and acorns. If I could add a second tier more it would be bulrush root, thistle root, kudzu starch, crowfoot grass seed, pickerelweed seeds and perhaps red spiderling root, also called the tar vine. Farther north I would certainly add burdock root to the list as well as other roots and nuts.

Interestingly the predicted increase in cost is based upon not less production but on more difficulty getting the raised food to market.  That makes picking sow thistles in my yard even more attractive. So when someone asks “why forage” you can say because you can get your own food rather than be dependent on someone growing and delivering it.

This leads me theft. I am going to borrow the phrase, “peak oil.” That is the theory that at some point oil will become too expensive to find and refine and society will collapse. I’m not so sure about “peak oil” but I let me introduce what I will call “peak food.” Will there come a time when food is too expensive to grow and transport?

If I were inclined I could go to my local grocery store and buy cucumbers nearly all year long. The buyers simply move about the country and the world following seasons and buy successive in-season cukes. What if they become too expensive to transport? Or grow? Fertilizer is tied to industry and without it, less food. We’ve seen sporadic food shortages and price spikes. I don’t know if “peak food” is a possibility or not, but if so foraging is an answer for some.

As a side note about staples, you may be thinking “I almost never eat corn.”  But, it is nearly impossible to escape eating corn in America even if you never eat corn. It is fed to nearly every food animal we raise, its fructose is in nearly every prepared, packaged and or canned food. It’s oil is almost as common. Even chemicals far removed from edible corn are made from corn. If one plant holds the American society together, it is corn, as rice does elsewhere in the world. Corn is so woven into our lives that if you were to analyze the carbon of your cells and where it came from, you are made of corn carbon. Believe it or not.

THE PAPER TRAIL

I’ve had some surprises since my last newsletter, which shows that no matter how long you study foraging there is always something new to learn, and keep you interested.

When I was first foraging in Florida I asked what a particular tree was. The answer I got from my foraging friends (and teachers) was they did not know. I was always curious because the tree was everywhere in colonies and seened too common to be totally useless.  In time I identified it as the Paper Mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera, formerly Morus papyrifera.)  A transplant from East Asia it is naturalized in about 30 states from Vermont southwest to Nebraska and all points south. It came to Florida in 1903.

As the name suggests its zebra-striped bark was and is used to make paper and cloth.  Young leaves can be cooked as a green though there is a texture issue. Its huge leaves can be used to cook food in. It also has a pom-pom like fruit.  That was the part I had never seen. In fact I had never seen 1) a female tree and 2) a female tree in fruit. The tree can spread by roots, but since I found it in places such as in the middle of a forest I presumed there had to ladies around and they had to fruit now and then. However, years of searching never turned up any female trees or fruit.

While giving a foraging class in Ocala in early May I came upon not one but several fruiting Paper Mulberry Trees. The fruit were still green so a month later I made the near 200 mile trip just to the tree in its full reproductive glory. The result was video 119.

The real question is why did it fruit? The tree grows from tropical humid climates to temperate ones. Male trees — mostly clones — were planted among the pacific islands, apparently producing better fiber. And all the trees locally are male, imported as ornamentals. But some female trees must have been planted (though one writer has suggested the trees can change sex.) I think I have a less exotic possible answer why they fruited this year.

While the tree is commonly known as one that thrives in warm climates its native range is temperate, read cool or cold winters but not bitterly cold. This past season Florida had its coldest winter in 30 years, breaking many records. Maybe, just maybe, the trees need a certain amount of chill hours to produce fruit. That is not uncommon among many trees, apples to olives.

So while I did get a chance to taste some this year we will have to wait and see what the coming winter is like and if there will be Paper Mulberry to be had in the spring.

Surprise #2

The other surprise came from a book I picked up called:  Edible Plants of the Gulf South. In there it says the Liatris species are edible. I’ve been looking at them for 30 years and didn’t know that. At the moment however, the only spot I know where they go is in a non-pick state park. As soon as I find a patch elsewhere it will be time to experiment. Thus I cannot yet recommend them as I have not tried them. However…

There are a couple of reasons to be excited about the Liatris. First, they are fairly easy to identify, and where they do grow there’s usually a lot of them. But what’s more interesting is that some experts think they can live for a century or more waiting for just the right conditions to flower, usually right after a forest fire. It seems the corm is dependent on fire to tell it when to send up a sprout.

Many years ago I remember Dick Deuerling talking about the Liatris but I don’t remember him mentioning it was edible. Dick is the professor emertitus of foraging here in Florida and now in his 90’s. Uncoperative knees, however, keep him from foraging as much as he would like.

As for Edible Plants of the Gulf South, I would be careful. I have found a few discrepancies that makes me add a note of caution. The book mentions pyracantha fruit are edible but fails to mention the seed should not be eaten. In discussing Sumac no mention is made of edible shoots and branch tips. And the book repeats the old advice that Nuphar lutea root is edible. I have tried for some 20 years to figure out a way to make that root edible, all ending in bitter failure. I do not know of any professional forager anywhere in the world who recommends it.  I have even raised it myself in good water and harvested it young to see if that made any difference.  It didn’t.

There is one reference in the 1600’s by naturalist John Josselyn who said of the Nuphar, “The Indians eat the roots, which are long a boiling they taste like the liver of sheep.” Frankly, tasting like the liver of sheep would be a grand improvement.  A Dr. Edward Palmer, presumably the one who traveled to Indian reservations in the 1800s, said squaws dove into ponds for the roots but preferred to raid muskrat dens for them. However, he made that observation in California and identified the plant as  N. advena.

If I can get pseduo scientific for a moment. Technically, Nuphar lutea does not grow in North America. For a long time many botanists thought there was just one Nuphar, the lutea. Other botanists disagreed and said there were different species because, gasp, they don’t all look alike.  The One-Species School ruled until 1997 when modern research showed there are some 15 different Nuphar. Thus the point has to be made that if there are several species of Nuphar in North America some might be edible some not. I know the ones here in Florida, Nuphar Lutea subsp advena,  are not, or at least I have not made them so. That said, Dick Deuerling did tell me once that he did harvest a local Nuphar root and found it edible after boiling. .. Maybe it was a mutant. He is the only person alive that I know of that can make the claim he at Nuphar root and that it was good.

To read the Nuphar confusion in its entirety click here:

LET THERE BE POKE

Poke weed (Phytolacca americana) is a rite of passage for many new foragers. Common, toxic, and tasty when prepared properly, no one forgets the first serving of poke weed they collected on their own and consumed. Once past that comes the common question, “can you eat the berries?” The answer is no. However, Professor Julia Morton said the cooked juice was edible, though drinkable would be more accurate. Now we know poke weed juice has another use. Researchers have found that the red coloring of the berries when painted on fiber-based solar cells creates greater conversion of light into electrical energy.

Fiber-based solar cells are very efficient having the ability to generate twice as much power than “traditional” solar cells. Usually plastic fibers are stamped onto plastic sheets, using the same technology used for attaching tops of soft-drink cans.  After that, an absorber (in this case, dye from the pokeberries) is sprayed on the cells.  The results is a lightweight, adaptable electrical source that can be shipped anywhere in the world at a low cost. Not bad for a toxic plant some would make illegal.

AND YOU THOUGHT IT WAS YOU

Mosquitoes prefer to bite beer drinkers over non-beer drinkers. French researchers used 25 volunteer beer drinkers and 2500 mosquitos (and as a control 18 volunteers drinking water, and 1800 mosquitos.) Before you start feeling sorry for the volunteers know the mosquito activity was not biting but rather taking off and flying up wind towards the volunteers.

Now, one might ask, why research such an issue? Apparently in malaria-infested areas 20% of the population account for 80% of the cases of malaria. The researchers were looking for a correlation between increased alcohol consumption and malaria cases. Their conclusion, released in March, is that getting malaria is not always just a random event.  As alcohol consumption increases, or moves into an area, so to does malaria.

Incidentally, body temperature and amount of carbon dioxide exhaled did not influence mosquito behavior.

WASABI TO THE RESCUE

Smoke alarms for the deaf and now being made to send out an odor plume of the horseradish-like condiment wasabe. It is said to be very effective waking them up.

NOT WELSH BUT SCOTTISH RABBIT

A Sottish island with 20 residents had a rat infestation.  They brought in experts from New Zealand and several million dollars later the rats were gone. Now they have a bunny infestation. Apparently the rats were rabbit birth control. With no rats the bunnies played house. At least they are moving up the food chain. Hoffenpepper is better than … rat-atoe.

Lawn Tax

Someone once said that coincidences is just God’s way of letting you know he exists. If that’s so it has to apply to innocent coincidences, I think, like getting a random seat at a concert in a foreign country and ending up sitting next to the mother of one of your student (that happen to me in Scotland.) Then there are other coincidences such as every time I get a home owner’s meeting notice left at my door (rather than mailed) I get a notice within two weeks from the county that my front yard is “over grown” and in violation of code… a not-so-innocent coincidence. It is the tenor of the times and I think it will happen to more people as we come to realize laws just aren’t “green.”   Here’s a related link I did for National Dutch Radio.

While I would like to broadside home owner associations one has to recognize what they are doing, which is representing property owners who expect and want a certain kind of physical look and use to their property. What is ignored is that I, too, want a certain physical look and use to my property. They want decapitated grass putting greens for lawns. I want au natural and food. We have opposing use in mind and right now they inherited the legal clout. Thus three things have to happen.

The grass fanatics, and Lawn Enforcement Officers, have to learn that au natural is good and that lawn is not good for the environment or the economy.  In short we have to get away from the idea that one is allowable in suburbia and one is not. At the same time we have to be aware of everyone’s property rights (at the moment if you want something other than lawn your property rights are being excluded from the legitimate column.)

It is rather odd when one thinks about it. My neighbor dumps herbicides on her lawn, and pesticides and fertilizer. She plants toxic ornamentals and drains off precious water to keep the entire artificial concoction alive. If you ate any part of it it would make you sick or kill you (indeed, such lawns are the source of nearly all children poisonings.)  There are no living creatures about her lawn, no bugs or birds et cetera. Her toxic, sterile front yard is legal.  My front yard is not pesticided, herbicided, fertilized nor draws off water. It is full of life and provides food as well.  It is illegal. As they say, what’s wrong with this picture? The problem is people, in and out of  authority, think grass is good, non-grass is bad. That has to change.

Americans grow only one crop more than lawn grass, and that is corn. We grow more lawn grass than wheat. We spill some 17 million gallons of gas and oil annually taking care of that lawn grass. Homeowners use 10 times more fertilizer and pesticides than they need to, and lawns take up to 60% of the fresh drinking water in urban areas. And while all of that may be illegal, it is irresponsible.

At some point not only does my kind of front yard has to become legally acceptable but my neighbor’s yard should become taxable for the burden it causes. In other words, if she wants to keep an environmentally harmful stretch of chemicalized decapitated grass and child-sickening ornamentals, she should be taxed and that money used to help undo the effects of her pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer, water use and buffet of poisonous plants.  She is harming the environment, presenting a threat to children, and getting a free ride.  The near century old notion that lawns are better and the suburban standard must give way to new permaculture views.

The law, the home owners associations and the code enforcers should respect the property rights of BOTH groups of homewoners, not just one. That way I can eat the weeds and she can have putting green. But instead of fining me for my environmentally friendly front yard tax her for maintaining a toxic dump. Not only will the environment be better off for it but governments will have a new source of revenue, a lawn tax, by the square foot.

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    Munching Cornus canadensis/unalaschkensis
    Discussing things little ears shouldn’t hear, they barely interrupt their conversations to pick a low Bunchberry from…

  • Bunya Pine: The Australian Aboriginals knew a good thing when they tasted it. So did the immigrants. It’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t like the taste of Bunya Pine nuts. But you will find people who don’t like to clean up after it because the ancient species sheds sharp leaves and heavy cones.
  • Burdock Banquet

    Arctium minus: Burdock’s Plus Side
    I have a confession to make: When I was a kid I had a miniature corn cob pipe. And in it I smoked dried burdock leaf… I…

  • Buttercups:  Buttercups are usually considered not edible.
  • Cabbage Palm, Sabal Palmetto  (4)

    Heart of Palm and Controversy
    The state tree of Florida isn’t a tree, but it is a weed of many edible parts.

    The Sabal palmetto, actually an overgrown…

  • Cactus: Don’t Be Spineless  (3)

    Nopalea Cochenillifera: Cactus Cuisine
    Be brave when you collect cactus.

    Of course, good gloves and tongs help. With those tools you can have a very…

  • Caesar Weed Sampler  (5)

    Urena Lobata: Cash crop to noxious weed
    Once it was an invited money-maker, now it is a hunted money spender: Caesar weed, cash crop to noxious weed.

    We have…

  • Camphor Tree: Cinnamon’s Smelly Cousin

    Campy Camphor: Not Just For Grandma

    One would never guess Camphor trees are not native to Florida, or the South. One also probably wouldn’t guess they…

  • Candlestick Tree: If you are meandering through a botanical garden in a warm climate and you see a tree growing four-foot-long candles it might be Parmentiera cereifera.
  • Candyroot
    I will be the first to admit my experience with Candyroot is very limited. In a flower book I carried with me on field trips some 20 years ago with Florida…
  • Canna Confusion  (1)
    How many species of Canna are there? Used to be perhaps 100 but now there are 20 or so, plus one Scottish island with a …ah.. population problem. And…
  • Cannibalism
    There is no way to approach the topic of cannibalism without offending someone. Apologies offered. Cannibalism, the last great social taboo, is committed…
  • Can We Eat Grass?  That simple question has a complex answer: Yes, no, and maybe.  It’s a topic I explored in a recent Green Deane Newsletter and the basis for this article.
  • Carolina Bristle Mallow  (1)

    Modiola caroliniana: A Bristly Drink
    No one knows how many species of edible plants there are in the world, or in North America. In the former the guess is…

  • Carpetweed  (3)
    When it comes to Carpetweed you need to know only two things: It grows nearly everywhere, or will. And the plant above ground is edible. To quote Cornucopia…
  • Cassia Clan aka Senna

    Cassia occidentalis: Faux Coffee & Greens
    You either cook the Cassia Clan right or they make you sick. Any questions?

    Now that I have your attention,…

  • Cast Iron Cookery, Buying and Restoring  (3)

    Cast Iron Pans: Yesterday is tomorrow
    Many books have been written about cast iron cookware. I will try to say a few things here perhaps not said elsewhere.

    B…

  • Cast Net Junkie

    I will admit to being a cast net junkie.

    Some people collect coins or stamps. I collect cast nets. I started throwing nets some 30 years ago and have been…

  • Cast Nets: Throwing Your Weights Around

    Throwing Your Trouble Away
    I love cast netting. I own five of them and rarely come home empty handed. I also never throw for bait: I go for the…

  • Cattails – A Survival Dinner  (3)

    Cattails: Swamp Supermarket
    The United States almost won WWII with cattails.

    No green plant produces more edible starch per acre than the Cat O’ Nine…

  • Caulerpa

    Caulerpa: Warm-Water Salad and Pest
    Caulerpa ssp.would seem to be a paradox. Eaten around the world by thousands for thousands of years but called a killer…

  • Cereus Today Not Tomorrow

    Getting Down To Cereus Business

    There are three things irritating about Cereus other than their spines: 1) several botanical names for the same plant; 2)…

  • Ceriman, Delicious Monster

    Monstera deliciosa: Hmm Hmm Good!
    Large Delight. That’s what Monstera deliciosa means…. It was an edible I did not know about until pointed out to me by my…

  • Chain of Contamination

    In police work there is the chain of possession. When evidence is collected, who has it, and where it’s kept is recorded constantly. With food we might call it…

  • Chaya: The Spinach Tree  (7)

    Cnidoscolus aconitifolius: Tree Pot Herb
    I knew about Chaya long before I ever saw one.

    It’s in the Cnidoscolus genus and has two relatives in the…

  • Che: Che is not the tree it used to be.
  • Checkerberry cum Wintergreen

    The Teaberry Shuffle
    I saw Gary Vickerson eat an earthworm I found near a checkerberry plant. Personally I preferred the Checkerberry.

    Before I go any…

  • Chestnuts: Chestnuts have done more than just disappear from the landscape: They have dropped out of our lives save for a token appearance at Christmas.
  • Chewstick, White Root

    Gouania lupuloides: How to Get Chewed Out

    The modern toothbrush was unknown in Europe until 1498, the year it came from China. Before that people…

  • Chickasaw Plum: Yum  (5)

    Chickasaw Plum: First Springtime Blossom

    Every spring, three wild plums put on a show locally: The Chickasaw, the Flatwood, and the American. They…

  • Chickweed Chic  (11)

    Chickweed Connoisseurs
    My being green really paid off this spring: For the first time (2009) I have chickweed in my lawn. I don’t know how it got there but it…

  • Chicory History

    Cichorium intybus: Burned to a Crisp
    Chicory was not a common plant where I grew up or where I live. But I remember the first time I saw it, in 1990, in a…

  • Chinese Box-Orange, Tsau Ping Lak

    Atalantia buxifolia: Wine-Cake Thorn
    The Chinese Box-Orange is one of my botanical mysteries. I know it is edible but I don’t know how… But I may still…

  • Chinese Elm Take out

    Chinese Elm: A tree that doesn’t go Dutch
    Sometimes a wild edible can be under your feet and you never notice, or in this case, over your head.

    Anyone with…

  • Chinese Tallow Tree  (1)

    Popcorn Tree, Florida Aspen, Tallow Tree

    There is a lot of debate whether the white waxy aril of the Chinese Tallow Tree is edible or not…

  • Chocolate Vine, Abeki: Any plant with “chocolate” in the name is sure to get attention. And when it’s also called an invasive species then even more so.
  • Christmas & Maiden berries

    Crossopetalums: Edible Berries & Medicine

    When I was an undergrad in music it was a revelation to learn that by studying music you also studied history:…

  • Christmasberry, Wolfberry, Goji  (1)

    Christmas, Wolf, Goji, They’re All Berries
    It’s called the Christmasberry even though it fruits in April, and while it is one of several “Christmas Berries”…

  • Chufa For Two  (1)

    Cyperus esculentus, C. rotundus: Serious Sedges
    There are two edible Cyperus locally: One that tastes like hazelnuts and one that smells and tastes to me…

  • Cider Barrel Rules  (2)
    My mother was a horrible cook.I used to joke she thought I was a Greek god: Every meal was either a burnt offering or a sacrifice.I learned to cook…
  • Cider Hard, But Quick and Easy  (22)

    How To Make Hard Cider
    You can make hard apple cider the difficult way, or the quick and easy way. I prefer the easy quick way. I’ve made a lot of beer and…

  • Citron Melon, Tsamma  (6)

    Citron Melons: Abandoned Preserves
    Are they edible?

    Even people who do not forage want to know if the little watermelons they see in citrus groves are…

  • Civilized Food

    While making my purslane video I was thinking back to a family friend who refused to eat purslane because it was a “weed.”

    It had taken over about one third…

  • Climbing Fig, Creeping Fig  (3)
    If there is one thing about the Internet that irritates the sap out of me it is how mistakes proliferate rather than get corrected. I have ranted about…
  • Clover, Available Around The World  (7)

    Clover, Available Around The World
    Hay may be for horses, but clover is for people…well…. almost.

    I was forever nibbling on clover blossoms when I…

  • Coco-Plums

    Chrysobalanus icaco: Multi-Colored Fruit
    Coco-plums are three quarters patriotic: They can be red, white, or blue ( and yellow.)

    Actually, the “blue” is deep…

  • Coconuts: It’s A Matter of Degrees

    Coconut, An Equatorial Palm
    Popular media and commercial production have made the coconut a common cultural item, even if you live thousands of miles away…

  • Codium Compendium

    Codiums: Edible around the world
    Oceanographers like to call Codium a minor seaweed because it is not commercially exploitable. Yet where it is found around…

  • Common Reed  (1)
    Some 20 years ago I pondered upon the identity of what appeared to be a very tall grass in a former marlpit in Port Orange, a few miles south of Daytona…
    • Cooking Like A Caveman

      The Mesolithic Era is not a sexy topic that will win friends and influence people at parties. But, it is something foragers should think about. If you are a…

    • Cooking without Pots or Pans  (2)

      Mesolithic Cooking: It’s the Pitshttps://www.eattheweeds.com
      How do you cook without pots or pans?

      It’s a question our distant ancestors never asked because pots and pans didn’t…

www.eattheweeds.com

  • Coontie Courage

    Zamia Floridana: Making Toxins Edible
    This plant is included here in case 1) society falls apart; 2) You live in Georgia or Florida and need starch…

  • Coquina: Tasty Tiny Clam
    Coquina: Donax: Good Eats
    Ounce for ounce there is probably no more delicious seafood than Coquina. The problem is getting an ounce of it, so we usually…
  • Coral Bean: Humming Bird Fast Food
    Erythrina herbacea: Part Edible, Part NotThe (eastern) Coral Bean is one of those damned if you do, and damned if you don’t kind of things. Parts of…
  • Coral Vine

    Antigonon leptopus: Creeping Cuisine
    The Antigonon leptopus ( an-TIG-oh-non LEP-toh-puss) inspires local names everywhere it grows: Tallahassee Vine, Honolulu…

  • Corn Poppy
    Several plants have relatives whose reputations are difficult to live down. The Natal Plum is one. Related to the oleander the delicious plum suffers from…
  • Corn Smut:   Mexican Truffles. Corn Smut. Raven Scat.  Ustilago maydis gets more unappetizing the further one goes down its list of names. The Aztecs called it huitlacoche.  The Mexicans call it a delicacy.
  •  Crabgrass Was King  (3)

    Forage, Grain, Flour, Manna, Pest
    Americans did two interesting things when they moved from the farm to suburbia: They surrounded their homes with toxic…

  • Cranberries, Lingonberries

    Get Your Annual Vaccinium Every Year
    Frozen cranberries are just as sour as fresh ones.

    I know that because when I was a kid skating on frozen ponds in Maine…

  • Creeping Cucumber: Melothria Pendula  (2)

    Cute Cuke! Melothria Pendula

    The Melothria pendula is a little cucumber with a big reputation.

    That said, when it comes to the “creeping cucumber”…

  • Crowfoot Grass, True Grits

    Dactyloctenium aegyptium: Staple Grain
    Grasses can be a pain in the …ah… grass…

    First, books about grasses are few and incredibly expensive. Next,…

  • Dad’s Applewood Pipes  (3)
    Time edits your memories. It sands off the rough edges that were once painfully sharp. It makes some moments clearer by evaporating the fog of being…
  • Dahlia Pinnata
    Here’s the good news: At least one species of Dalhia has edible roots. Here’s the bad news, there are some 20,000 cultivars, maybe even thousands more. A…
  • Dandelions: Hear Them Roar  (3)
    Dandelion Wine and Coffee and SaladDandelions and I go back a long ways, more than half a century.When I was very young in Maine my mother…
  • Dayflowers, Often One Petal Shy  (4)

    Commelina diffusa: What a day for a dayflower
    Common names can be a headache when one is trying to index a plant. The plant to the lower right is commonly…

  • Daylily Dilemma  (3)

    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 significan…

  • Dead Man’s Fingers
    Decaisnea fargesii: True Ghoul Blue
    There are three Dead Man’s Fingers: A seaweed, a mushroom, and a shrub, all so-called because of the way they…
  • Does Anyone Know What Time It Is?  (2)
    It is time for my semi-annual rant and wish that G.V. Hudson had a different hobby. Hudson, a New Zealander, collected insects and was a shift worker. In…
  • Does The Nose Know?

    What Does a Word Smell Like?

    During nearly every class I have students smell three or four plants — depending upon the season — and I ask them what common…

  • Dog and Cat  (1)
    Most Westerners would starve than eat their pet, and understandably so. There is a tacit agreement between pets and their owners. In exchange for putting…
  • Doveweed

    Murdannia nudiflora: Tiny Dayflower Kin
    In India the Doveweed is a famine food. That should give you some idea of how it lines up in the culinary kingdom. The…

  • Drymaria Cordata, Tropical Chickweed  (3)

    Drymaria cordata: Kissing cousin chickweed
    Drymaria cordata is one of those plants that confounds the mind. You know what it resembles: Chickweed. It has one…

  • Duckweed

A Weed Most Fowl. Do ducks eat duckweed? Yes and no. Do humans eat duckweed? Yes and no. Domestic ducks tend to eat duckweed, wild ones don’t.…

Foragers tend to ignore seaweed.

  • Ear Tree, Sound Food

    Lend Me An Ear Tree

    Just about anyone who has spent anytime in a warm climate will some day find on a sidewalk a black seed pod that looks like a human…

  • Earthworms  (7)

    Cooking with Earthworms
    The cartoon strip BC once had its peg-leg poet write: “The bravest man I ever saw was the first one to eat an oyster raw.”

  • Eastern Gamma Grass:   Someone who supposedly knew their grasses wrote there are no toxic native North American grasses.
  • Eastern Red Bud: Pea Pods Tree  (5)
    Cercis canadensis: In The Bud of TimeIt’s one of those trees that if you don’t see it at the right time you’re not looking for it the rest of the year.…
  • Eating In Season  (1)
    There is little doubt that eating certain fiddlehead greens can significantly increase ones chances of cancer. In fact, science says they cause cancer. On…
  • Edible Flowers: Part One  (1)Nasturtium, Calendula, Spanish Needles, Arugula, Squash, Cilanto, Bee Balm, Carnation, Dandelion, Lilac
    Which blossom will be your favorite edible…
  • Edible Flowers: Part Two  (9)Tulips, Yucca, Begonias, Blue Porterweed, Queen Ann’s Lace, Dill, Gladiolas, Wapato, Impatiens, CitrusTulips are one of those wonderful flowers you…
  • Edible Flowers: Part Three  (2)Mayflower, Chrysanthemum, Cornflower, Rose, Daylily, Elderberry, Chicory, Johnny-Jump-Ups, Linden, BananaA rite of spring in the frozen north, or at…

Spiderwort, Marigolds, Rosemary, Smartweed, Pineapple Weed, Chamomile, False Roselle, Lavender, Forsythia, Borage

Apple, Fuchsia, Sweet Goldenrod, Basil, Gorse, Bauhinia, Eastern Redbud, Angelica, Honeysuckle, Eastern Coral Bean
Apple Blossom
Every seed in every apple…

  • Edible Flowers: Part Six  (1)Burnet, Magnolia, Fennel, Garden Sorrel, Tansy, Pink Wood Sorrel, Sunflower, Pineapple Guava, Prickly Pear, PansiesBurnet (Sanguisorba minor) is…
  • Edible Flowers: Part Seven  (1)Scarlet Runner Bean, Peony, Hyacinth Bean, Clover, Jasmine, Chervil, Water Hyacinth, Plantain Lily, Meadowsweet, Perennial PhloxScarlet Runner Bean is…
  • Edible Flowers: Part Eight

    Society Garlic, Anise Hyssop, Black Locust, Gardenia, Fragrant Water Lily, Strawberry, Marsh Mallow, Maypops, Milkweed, Hollyhocks

    It’s clearly not…

  • Edible Flowers: Part Nine  (1)Mahoe, Moringa, Pineapple Sage, Plum, Hawthorn, Cattail, Papaya, Purslane, Tuberose, Wisteria
    Mahoe’s Blossoms Change Color
    One of the more fascinating…

Alliums, Oregano, Pinks, Peas, Okra, Galium, Ginger, Scented Geraniums, Primrose, Mustard/RadishThe author of “Florida’s Incredible Wild Edibles” Dick…

Coral Vine, Citron Melon, Milkweed Vine, Dayflower, Evening Primrose, Kudzu, Stock, Dame’s Rocket, Freesia, Dendrobium phalaenopsisThe Coral Vine has…

  • Edible Flowers: Part Twelve  (2)Forget-Me-Nots, Calamint, Mimosa Silk Tree, Clary Sage, Petunia x hybrid, Balloon Flower, Yarrow, Corn Poppy, Daisy, Sweet AlyssumThe story I heard…
  • Edible Flowers: Part Thirteen  (1)Sesbania Grandifolia, Lemon Verbena, Szechaun Buttons, Horseradish, Tea Olive, Tiger Lily, Currants, Honewort, Thyme, Indian Paint BrushSesbania…
  • Edible Flowers: Part Fourteen  (2)
    Manzanita, Rose of Sharon, Tea, Campanula, Artichoke, Saffron, Samphire, Sage, Parsley, Common MallowWestern states often seem to get short-changed in…

Mango, Catnip, Pignut, Lovage, Salsify, Hairy Cowpea, Fritillary, Mint, Cow Slip, BirchDid you know mangoes and poison ivy are botanical kissing…

Oregon Holly Grape, Snapdragon, Caesar’s Weed, Golden Alexanders, Loroco, Safflower, White Sagebrush, Puget Balsam Root, Yellow Commelina, Bitter Gourd

Black Salsify, Coltsfoot, Yellow Pond Lily, Mexican Hyssop, Carambola, Baobob, Kapok, Durian, Italian Bugloss, BlueweedEdible plants collect a lot of…

Chinese Perfume Plant, Queensland Silver Wattle, Cloves, Chinese Lotus, Blue Lotus, Screwpine, Turpentine Tree, Sweet Autum Clematis, St. Anthony’s Turnip, Quince

All 20 articles in one article

  • Eels
    Eels: Lunch, Slip Sliding Away…
    I can remember the first time I caught an eel. It was in the Royal River in Pownal Maine, using an earthworm on the…

Eggs for Survival and Food
Eggs would seem like a simple foraging topic and it is, and it is not. My copy of the U.S Department of the Army…

  • Elaeagnus Et Cetera

    Edible Elaeagnus
    First it was “poisonous.” Then it was “not edible.” Later it was edible but “not worth eating.” Actually, it’s not toxic but tasty, and easy…

  • Elderberries: Red, White and Blue  (10)

    Sambuca’s Fine For Elderberry Wine
    Start your New Year off right with a glass of elderberry wine or elderberry blossom champagne. Don’t have any?…

  • Epazote: Smelly Food of the Gods
    Mexican Tea, Dewormer: EpazoteHere is my dedication to being comprehensive: I am going to write about a plant I do not like.Why don’t I like…
  • Eryngo, Tough Sweetie

    Eryngiums: Elizabethan Eryngo Candy

    While the edible versions are not widely distributed in North America, Eryngo (ERR-in-go) was too pretty a name to be…

  • Evening Primrose  (5)

    Oenothera biennis: Foraging Standby

    The Common Evening Primrose has long been a foraging standby and for a century or so was a common vegetable found in…

  • Experience and Judgment

    Sometimes a toxic plant can give even an experienced forager reason to pause.

    When I was making a video last week I saw a beautiful growth of watercress,…

  • False Dandelions For Lunch  (2)

    Pyrrhopappus, Hypochoeris: Dandelion Impostors
    Most people don’t notice False Dandelions because they have the real thing. But here in the South where…

  • False Hawksbeard

    Crepis Japonica: Seasonal Potherb
    If the Crepis fits….wear….ah…eat it

    Crepis japonica gets no respect. You won’t find it in field guides on edible…

  • False Roselle  (1)I can’t do a stir-fry without visiting a tree. Actually, the False Roselle is a shrub not a tree but the point is made. Its leaves have just the…
  • Fiddlehead Ferns, Signs of Spring

    Fiddlehead Fanatics
    If poke weed tests your foraging bravery, fiddleheads test your foraging philosophy.

    Pokeweed can kill you within hours if you make a…

  • Fiddlewood  (1)

    Citharexylum fruticosum: Edible Guitar
    The Fiddlewood tree is not high on the list of edibles. As some authors state, only kids eat the fruit, lots of seed,…

  • Field Testing Plants for Edibility  (7)

    I am dead set against it because it can kill you. I will make a large argument against it, and a small argument for it.

    “Field testing” is running through a…

  • Figs, Strangler, Banyan and Strangler  (4)

    Wild Ficus: Who Gives An Edible Fig?
    It’s only 90 miles to the east, and 117 to the west, but the Strangler Fig and Banyan trees will grow farther south and…

  • Finding Caloric Staples  (8)
    An Australian study tells us that modern day hunter gatherers get  two thirds of their food from animals, one third form plants.
  • Firebush:
    The Firebush is probably one of the most commonly planted unknown edibles. They are usually arranged in the landscape…
  • Fireweed Sale  (1)

    Erechtites hieraciifolia: Edible Pile Driver

    When I go to Greece I always stay a few days in Athens to get used to the time change and visit in-town…

  • Fish Sauce and Rotten MeatFish Sauce, Rotten Meat, and Other Garbage
    There was a great scene from an episode of Barney Miller, a popular sitcom in the 70’s based in a…
  • Fishtail Palms  (3)

    Caryota: Fishy Toxic Palms

    Often the botanical name of a species tells you nothing about the plant. Magnolia comes to mind. It’s a person’s name. However…

  • Five Mile Walk

    Can you live off the land? Can anyone these days? I suppose the answer depends on what land, what you know, and whose else is also trying to live off it.

    Whe…

  • Flamboyant FuchsiaMention “fuchsia” and most folks who recognize the word will think of a bright color. Personally I think of Fuchsia’s edible fruit and flowers.…
  • Flowering Rush

    In one area of its native range — Israel — it’s endangered becauses of dwindling habitat. In another part of the world it is an invasive weed, and you can…

  • Foraging After Dark

    I took a residential walk this evening to identify trees after dark. Yes, after dark. Now why do a silly thing like that?

    I know someone who has his foraging…

  • Foraging Before There Was Botany

    Foraging before there was botany had to be a lot easier than after botany. Someone showed you what was edible and that was that. Of course somewhere back along…

  • Foraging for Beginners

    I was asked to write a short piece for a survivalist blog on getting started in foraging:
    How are a Musician and a Botanist Alike?
    As a professional musician I…

  • Foraging in Florida  (1)

    Of all the “survival” skills foraging is probably the most difficult to learn, or certainly the one that takes the most time and personal fortitude. It is one…

  • Foraging Myth Busting  (3)

    As many of you already know I am highly critical of the Internet as a source of information on foraging. This is not to say there isn’t quality information…

  • Forsythia Foraging For Forsythia
    If you study the eating habits of North American Indians you learn one thing quite quickly. They weren’t mono-green eaters.…
  • Garlic Mustard: Gather Garlic Mustard now for pesto or it may disappear presto… well… maybe not immediately but if one university succeeds Garlic Mustard will become hard to find or extinct in North America.
  • Galinsoga’s Gallant Soldiers
    Galinsoga ciliata: Quickweed is fast foodQuickweed does not look edible or gallant. In fact, it looks like a daisy that lost a fight. But it, and a…
  • Gar: Treasured Trash Fish  (1)

    Eating Gar, a Taste of the Primitive
    There are two things you need to know about the Gar. The first is that it is very edible, really. The second is that…

  • Geiger Tree, Scarlet Cordia
    Cordia sebestena: Foraging Geiger Counter
    Foragers eat the mild fruit of the Geiger Tree and care not about the particulars. Botanists care about particular…
  • Getting To The Leaf Of The Problem

    Why sudy with someone? Because student foragers see what they want to see rather than what’s in front of them. Let me give you consistent example.

    There are…

  • Giant Taro
    One can ignore large leaves for only so long, and the Alocasia macrorrhiza has big leaves, up to four feet long. As one might suspect, it also has a large…
  • Ginkgo: Putrid Perfection

    Going Nuts Over Ginkgo Biloba Nuts

    Though the Army sent me to Japan I didn’t see my first Ginkgo biloba (GINK-go bye-LOW-buh) tree until I attended the…

  • Glasswort Galore  (3)

    Salicornia bigelovii, Brackish Nibble
    Glasswort does not sound like breaking glass at all, though it does crunch a bit.

    Salicornia bigelovii (sa-li-KOR-nee-a…

  • Golden Dead Nettle  (1)
    Lamiastrum is in the eye of the beholder.If you want a ground cover that will grow in dry, shady places, Lamiastrum is exactly what you’re looking for.…
  • Golden Rain Tree

    Showers of Golden Rain Tree

    The scallions didn’t have a chance.

    My Taiwanese friend liked to grow scallions in a postage stamp garden in her back…

  • Goldenrod Glorified  (1)

    Solidago Odora: Liberty Tea

    After the Boston Tea Party of 1773 the colonists had only one good alternative: Goldenrod tea, and not just any Goldenrod,…

  • Gooseberries

A century can make a lot of difference.

 

Galium aparine: Goosegrass on the Loose

You don’t find Goosegrass. It finds you.

Covered with a multitude of small hooks, Goosegrass, Galium…

  • Gorse, of Course

    Ulex europaeus: Edible Gorse or Furze Pas
    Gorse has edible flowers. It also has thorns… Really bad thorns.

    In August 2005 an Englishman, Dean Bowen,…

  • Gout Weed  (6)
    Gout Weed does not sound too appetizing. Nor do some of its other names: Ground Ash, Ashweed, Pot Ash, White Ash, Ground Elder, Dog Elder, Dwarf Elder,…
  • Gracilaria, Graceful Redweed

    Gracilaria: The pot thickens
    People eat a lot of seaweed. They just don’t know it. In the industry it is called covert consumption vs overt consumption. What…

  • Grapes of Path  (3)

    Vitis: Wild Grapes
    Who ever first wrote the phrase “grapes of wrath” certainly must have been trying to identify a particular grape vine.

    Grapes are at the…

  • Grass and Tree War  (1)
    Point of view, thinking differently… Consider:What if plants are more goal-orientated than we think them to be? After all, we put ourselves on the…
  • Great Grandmother Cat  (1)

    One of the reasons why Eat The Weeds exists is to advocate eating the wild foods around you but also to be another voice in the growing chorus that is…

  • Green Deane’s Bio, and Oliver, Too  (1)

    If you have any comments or suggestions please send them to GreenDeane@gmail.com. The B&W picture is from a Christmas long ago. That’s Tinkerbell on my…

  • Green Deane’s Videos On You Tube
    While these videos are still on You Tube and will soon be on DVDs, these links below do not work. In creating the page one character was dropped from every…
  • Ground Cherry, Wild Husk Tomatoes, Almost  (2)

    Physalis: Tomato’s Wild Cousin
    I discovered ground cherries quite by accident.

    It was back in the last century. I raided a particular field…

  • Ground Ivy  (2)
    Most of the time when someone mentions Ground Ivy the comment usually is something like “How do I get rid of the damned stuff?” Here at ETW we have have…
  • Groundnuts and Bridge Diving

    For the second time recently I was reminded of development. My favorite field of lamb’s quarters is now an upscale gated community. And where I used to forage…

  • Groundnuts: Anti-Cancer Treat  (3)

    Groundnuts: Dig ’em
    I will never forget the first time I dug up Apios americana, groundnuts. I got poison ivy. Oddly it showed up in the crook of one elbow,…

  • Grub-A-Dub-Dub
    It had to happen. If you forage for wild foods at some point you run in to grubs and related insects and you wonder… edible? And once you’re past…
  • Guinea Grass Panic Attack

    Panicum maximum and then some
    I eat grass. Actually we all do — rice, wheat — but my local trail nibble is Guinea grass, a relative to millet. I’d like to…

  • Guinea Pigs, Cavy, Cuy
    Peruvians eat more than 65 million guinea pigs every year. That should answer any question about edibility.Sixty-five million guinea pigs (a 2005…
  • Hairy Cowpea  (4)
    It’s called a Cowpea but it’s not THAT cowpea, and it has a famous relative that no one calls by its botanical name.So which Cowpea is it? Vigna…
  • Halloween Editorial  (2)

    Halloween today is the most debatable of non-holiday holidays. With a past that perhaps goes back to Roman times it became in the Christian era All Hallows…

  • Hardy Orange: Is the Hardy Orange edible? That depends on how hungry you are, or which century you live in.
  • Have Dewberry, Will Travel

    Dewberries: Rubus Trivialis

    Dewberries go far in the world, for a lowly vine. They can reach up to 15 feet long, one node root at a time.

    Essentially a…

  • Hawthorne Harvest

    The Crataegus Clan: Food & Poison
    The very first Hawthorn I ever saw — and the only one I knew for quite a while — grew on the other side of the dirt…

  • Henbit: Top of the pecking order  (2)

    Henbit: Springtime Salad Green and More

    It was a zig and a zag for me. I heard the name as an edible for many years and saw the plant often but never…

  • Hercules’ Club: Speak Softly But…

    Hercules’ Club: Zanthoxylum Clava-Herculis

    I sometimes feel sorry for my neighbors, who have lawns of decapitated grass. I’m sure my wild-looking…

  • Hickory Harvest  (2)

    Cayra coffee, or Hickory Java
    Hickories are not a migraine, but when you’re learning trees hickories can be a headache.

    Just as plums and cherries are bothin…

  • High Bush Cranberry  (1)
    I miss High Bush Cranberries. They don’t grow within a thousand miles of here, and they aren’t really cranberries. But they are hearty and familiar fare in…
  • Hit With A Plank  (1)

    There’s an old joke. A man had a mule sit down under a load. Mules can be very stubborn. And despite all his efforts the man couldn’t get the mule to get up. I…

  • Hollies: Caffein & Antioxidants  (4)

    Holly Tea With Vitamins A & C

    This time of year in the South — late fall, early winter —some of the hollies are so scarlet with berries that even…

  • Honeysuckle Heaven

    Lonicera japonica: Sweet Treat
    The honeysuckle family is iffy for foragers. It has edible members and toxic members, edible parts, toxic parts, and they mix…

  • Hornbeam, Ironwood, Blue Beech

    Carpinus caroliniana: Musclewood
    British author Ray Mears must have been thinking of the Hornbeam when he said a forager mustn’t pass up food no matter how…

  • Horse Meat
    “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”We’ve all heard the phrase, and it comes from when horse was on the menu. It was rather significant phrase to me as…
  • Horsemint, Spotted Beebalm

    Monarda Punctata: Bergamot’s Bud
    First the good news: Horsemint makes a nice, intentionally weak tea. Stronger brews are used in herbal medicine. The…

  • Horseweed, Mare’s Tail  (1)

    Conyza canadensis: Herb, Fire, Food
    Conyza will light your fire!

    If you’ve ever made fire with a bow and drill — you know, the Boy Scout way — you also know…

  • How Do Things Pan Out?
    When Europeans began to migrate into tracts of North America what was the one thing they had the native Americans wanted more than anything else? Rifles?…
  • How Ungreen Of Us  (29)
    I’m reaching retirement age. I’m also reaching the point of being tired of being told how green we are today and how ungreen we were in the past. Oh? When…
  • Hyacinth Bean

    Hyacinth Bean: Purple Protein, and More
    I’ve never understood the brouhaha over the Hyacinth Bean. Is it edible or is it not?

  • Hydrilla:     There is only one species of Hydrilla, verticillata.
  • Ignite of the Iguana  (6)

    The cookbook’s title says it all. South Florida, parts of Texas and Hawaii have iguana issues. While teaching a class in West Palm Beach last fall I could not…

  • Indian Pipes, Gold, and Emily Dickinson  (8)
    Monotropa is almost a monotypic genus. Instead of having one species in the genus there are two: Monotropa uniflora and Monotropa hypopithys.Most…
  • Indian Strawberry  (5)

    Potentilla indica: Mistaken Identity
    One of the first things my uncle’s second wife said to me when I moved from Maine to Florida was “they have strawberri…

  • Ipomoea: Water, Land & See in Gardens

    Glorifying Morning Glories
    Three of the pictures below are are not of the same Ipomoea. It’s three different species, but that should tell you something.…

  • Is This Plant Edible?
    For a surprisingly simple question there is often a complicated answer. If it’s sea kale, then the answer is yes, top to bottom. It is edible. It is…
  • Is wild taro in Florida edible?  (10)

    IS WILD TARO IN FLORIDA EDIBLE?
    “Wild Taro.” My research to date (fall, 2011)

    Is the wild taro in Florida edible? In one word, no. In two… may……

  • It’s About Time  (1)

    I spend a lot of times in the woods, and also afloat. Three things you should always know in such environments are the cardinal directions, time of day, and…

  • Ivy Gourd, Scarlet Gourd, Tindora  (2)

    Coccinia grandis: Cucumber’s Versatile Kin
    I was riding my motorcycle one day when I rumbled over a raised railroad track in an industrial area and to my…

  • Jabuticaba: In it’s native Brazil the Jabuticaba is by far the most popular fruit.
  • Jack-in-the-Pulpit, and Jill

    Arisaema triphyllum: Jack and Jill and No Hill
    For a little plant there’s a lot to write about with the Jack-In-The-Pulpit. Where does one start? What does…

  • Jambul  (1)Syzygium: A Jumble of Jambul
    The Jambul tree makes you wonder what people were thinking.For a half a century or so the United States Department of…
  • Japanese Knotweed: Dreadable Edible  (9)Japanese Knotweed gets no respect. Nearly everywhere it grows it’s listed as a prolific, noxious, invasive, dangerous bad-for-the-world,…

Stomolophus meleagris: Edible Jellyfish
“Music to the teeth” is what the Malaysians call them.Americans may not eat jellyfish, but the…

  • Jerusalem Artichoke: Root Them Out  (5)
    There used to be a huge patch of Jerusalem Artichokes here in Central Florida beside the Interstate. Now they’re under a new exit ramp, and that was the…
  • Jerusalem Thorn, Paloverde

    Parkensonia aculeata’s Thorny Past
    As foragers we are indebted to past writers and at the same time constrained by them.

    People who chronicled how Native…

  • Jujube TreeZiziphus zizyphys: The Misspelled Jujube
    If you don’t find the Jujube tree, it will find you. The Jujube is covered with long, sharp thorns. They…
  • Jumbie Bean, White Lead Tree  (2)

    Leucaena leucocephala: Food and Fodder
    Professor Julia Morton, the grand dame of toxic and edible plants in Florida, had this to say about the Jumbie…

  • Juneberry

    Amelanchier arborea: Busting Out All Over
    Juneberries are as American as apple pie. In fact, they are more American than apples.

  • Junipers:  In the cobweb recesses of my mind I have two memories of junipers
  • Katuk Kontroversy  (2)

    Edible Katuk: Sauropus androgynus

    Katuk grows reluctantly in my yard. It likes truly tropical climes and I am on the subtropical/temperate line. But it’s…

  • Kochia
    Immigration brought weeds from around the old world to the new world. Quite a few of them came from southern Russia — the grassy steppes — to the…

The Kousa Dogwood is one of those plants that makes you ask: What is it?Its large, bumpy, red fruit looks like a…

  • Kudzu Quickie  (4)Kudzu: Pueraria montana var. lobataThe government tells me that what grows up the street isn’t there.It’s kudzu, you know, the plant that…
  • Landmarks

    Landmarks — accomplishments — are like a melody. Regardless of your taste in music, music is more than organized sound. Music firmly places you in time. When…

  • Language of Flowers: A flower is a flower is a flower. But in Victorian England, one of the most self-repressed societies in modern times, the practice of using flowers to communicate was developed.
  • Lantana  (3)

    Lantana camara: Much Maligned Nibble

    Ask anyone who has heard of the Lantana camara and they will tell you it is poisonous. And they are right. Unripe…

  • Lawn Garden

    Can you have a “garden” that you ignore?

    I don’t see why not.
    Is That A Garden?
    Indeed, some might argue that is what my front lawn currently is. I really…

  • Lemon Bacopa: Let’s Call It Lime Instead
    Lemon Bacopa, a misnamed edible nativeCall me cranky, but I think Lemon Bacopa has the wrong name.And, since it is wrongly named and no one comments on…
  • Lemon Grass

    Cymbopogon citratus: A Real Lemon
    Technically Lemon Grass is naturalized in only one county in Florida, but you can find it in many yards and landscaping, and…

  • Less Was Far More  (4)
    West of New Smyrna Beach, Florida, I stopped today and collected some thistle and took a few pictures. More than 50 years ago I marveled at the same plant…
  • Lettuce Labyrinth  (9)

    Sorting Out Species
    Sorting out wild lettuce is one of the more difficult foraging tasks and may require you to watch a plant all season.

  • Lion’s Mane

          I see Lion’s Mane (Hericium erinaceus) on the same oak log every fall at the same time to the day.

Foraging is a treasure hunt because with perhaps 6,000 edible species in North America there is always a surprise now and then such as the Litchi Tomato.

  • Living off the Foraged Land

    I am not a survivalist per se, though every day I do break my personal best record of consecutive days alive.

    That said, I know many survivalists. They tend…

  • Locusberry

    Byrsonima lucida: Food and Medicine

    The Locusberry rises to the occasion. When the soil is poor it is a foot-high tree. When the soil is good, it can be…

  • Looking for Lettuce
    I like my 14,000 subscribers, and the email I get. Many of the questions I can answer or I can refer the writer to where the answer can be found. But….…
  • Loquat: Getting A Grip on Grappa  (2)
    Lovin’ Loquats: Eriobotryae Japonicae
    Long before there were couch potatoes there were couch Loquats.Loquats are homebodies. Most people who live beyond…
  • Madeira Vine, Lamb’s Tail, Mignonette Vine  (1)

    Anredera cordifolia: Pest or Food Crop?
    The Madeira Vine is a love/hate relationship. You will either hate it — as many land owners and governments do — or…

  • Mahoe, Sea Hibiscus

    Hibiscus tiliaceus: Edible Chameleon
    It’s difficult to find a hibiscus you don’t like, including the Mahoe.

    In fact, to this writer’s knowledge all…

  • Mahonia Malange: When I first heard of the Mahonias it was a bit irritating. They’re widespread shrubs in the western United States and here I was in Florida. But as time revealed, we have a Mahonia here, just not a native.
  • Make My Day
    It was one of those moments. I was biking along a rails to trails, stopping and taking pictures of this and that plant for past and future blogs. Better…
  • Mallow Madness  (2)
    Lunch Landscaping: HibiscusMy mother’s favorite flower is the Rose of Sharon, which of course didn’t even go in one of my ears and out the…
  • Mangrove Mystery  (1)

    Mangroves: Marvelous Muck Masters

    I did an unknown favor years ago that may stump some stuffy botanist in the near or distant future, and a mangrove…

  • Maple Manna  (1)

    Maples: How Sweet It Is
    Maple Walnut Ice Cream. It’s amazing what you can do with two trees and a cow. It was the prime ice cream of choice when I was young.…

  • Marijuana Machinations: You can’t rummage around the woods as a forager without running into someone’s marijuana patch.
  • Marlberries and Ardisias kin

    Ardisias: Berries on the cusp of edible
    The Ardisias are a confusing family in Florida.

    There is the native Marlberry (Ardisia escallonioides) that has…

  • Mayapple, Mandrake  (2)

    Podophyllum peltatum: Forgotten Fruit
    The first time I saw a mayapple I was certain something that strange had to be toxic, and it is, unless totally…

  • Mayflowers, Trailing Arbutus

    Epigaea repens: Spring Sentinel and Nibble
    It was an annual family ritual. Every spring when the snow had finally melted we’d go through the low Maine…

  • Maypops Mania  (6)

    Maypops: Food, Fun, Medicine
    As popular as they are, Maypops get stepped on a lot, but that doesn’t keep them down.

    They are one of five hundred kin in…

  • Media Interviews With Green Deane

    This is Green Deane being interview for the local PBS station for Thanksgiving, 2009. This show was voted their best episode of the year. http://www.wmfe.org/au…

  • Melaleuca, Tea Tree, Sweetener, Pharmacy
    The Melaleuca tree is the most invasive “weed” in the state of Florida, quite a feat when you consider there are…

  • Mesquite  (1)

    Mesquite’s More Than Flavoring: It’s Food
    If Euell Gibbons was still around he might ask, “have you ever eaten a Mesquite tree?” rather than his famous…

  • Milkweed Vine, Latexplant, Strangler Vine  (13)

    Morrenia odorata: Menace or Manna?
    One spring I was looking for poke weed when I spied a liana I had not seen before. It had a large fruit that looked…

  • Milkweed, Common  (3)

    Asclepias: Some like it hot, some like it cold
    The question is to boil or not to boil.

    Actually that’s not quite accurate. There is general agreement…

  • Milo, Portia Tree, Seaside Mahoe  (2)

    Thespesia populnea: Coastal Cuisine
    One of my uncles had the type of personality that where ever he hung his hat, that was home. The Milo is much the same…

  • Mimosa Silk Tree  (7)

    Albizia julibrissin: Tripinnated Lunch
    I was drinking “Mimosas” — orange juice and champagne — about 20 years before I discovered the Mimosa tree was…

  • Mole Crabs  (8)

    Emerita: Mole Crab Munchy Crunchies
    Mole crabs are probably the most common ugly food there is, though most people don’t know they’re edible.

    Fishermen…

  • Mole Crickets and Lawns

    The name of my website is “Eat The Weeds (and other things too.)” If you wander around the long index — or click on the category “critter cuisine” — you…

  • Mole Crickets, Kamaro  (1)

    Mole Crickets: Digging Your Lunch
    Nearly everyone knows crickets are edible — cooked — but few ever mention the ugliest of them all, the mole cricket.

  • Monkey’s Apple: Monkey’s Apple is proof kids will eat anything.
  • Monkey Puzzle Tree

    Lunch Drops In

    My good friend Saul is a luthier. He repairs premium wooden instruments. It is not unusual for him to be working on a Stradivarius or a…

  • Monkeys and Weeds
    Put five monkeys in a large cage. Then put a step ladder in the cage with a banana on top. Soon the monkeys learn to go up the step ladder and get the…
  • Moringa, More Than You Can Handle  (6)

    Moringa oleifera ….Monster…. Almost
    If you have a warm back yard, think twice before you plant a Moringa tree.

  • Morels are perhaps the most foraged and prized fungi in North America.
  • Motorcyclists and Mushroomists. I used to have a friend named Randy Armentrout. He died about 20 years ago of a brain tumor. We knew each other well and attended many a social function…
  • Mountain Ash, Rowan: Long before Henry Potter Rowanwood wands were popular  ancients carried talismans of the tree to ward off evil and ate the fruit.
  • Mugwort  (3)
    Like some other plants with famous relatives Mugwort gets lost in the negative publicity.Mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris, is completely over shadowed…
  • Mulberry Express

    Mulberries: Glucose-controlling hallucinogen

    I used to get a lot of dates using mulberries.

    Not to sound sexist, but women like sweet food. And when…

  • Musseling In:  His name was Hap Davis, gardener, woodsman, hunter, fisherman, teller of tall tales.
  • Mustard, Wild, Tender And Tough  (2)

    Cutting the Wild Mustard: Brassica & Sinapis
    Lorenzo’s Oil and Canola, Too
    If you can’t find a wild mustard growing near you, you must be living in…

  • Mustards, The Little
    Coronopus, Descurainia, Cardamine, Erucastrum & Sibara
    There are numerous “little mustards” that show up seasonally, to populate lawns and local…
  • Nagi Tree, Japan’s Calm Tree

    Nageia nagi: Forgotten Landscape Edible

    I discovered the Nagi tree quite by accident, and added another edible to the list. I was in Mead Gardens in Winter…

  • Nandina Not Bamboo

    Not So Heavenly Bamboo: Nandina
    It’s not heavenly nor is it a bamboo, but Heavenly Bamboo is an edible, barely.

    Naturalized in many part of the world…

  • Nasturtiums: Nature’s Nose Nabber
    Peppery Nasturtiums Natives of Peru. Do the peppery nasturtiums make your nose twitch? Then you know how they got their common name. “Nasturtium” means…
  • Natal Plums Num Num  (4)

    Natal Plum: Incredible Edible Landscaping

    A good reputation is hard to maintain when your closest relative has a reputation for killing people. That’s…

  • New Jersey Tea

    Ceanothus americanus: Revolutionary Tea
    New Jersey Tea wasn’t always called that. It was Red Root Tea until the Boston Tea Party. With no tea from China…

  • Non-Green Environmentalism  (1)
    Early on I developed two interests. One was foraging for wild plants. It assured me food where ever I went. The other was watching clouds, one of the few…
  • Nostoc Num Nums

    Nostoc: Nasal Nostalgia and Edible, Too
    My website is “Eat The Weeds and other things, too.” Well this one of those other things. While I have put seaweed…

  • Nutria, Coypu  (1)
  • I have a close friend who’s Cajun. He said his family was so poor growing up in the bayou that if it moved they cooked it and threw it on rice. That…
  • Nutrition or Food?

    The 20th century was a hundred years of significant changes in what we eat. In 1900 food was … well… food, and real. No food pretended to be something it…

  • Oaxaca lemon verbena

    Lippia alba: Oaxaca lemon verbena
    It all started with a little tour of his back yard.

    He’s an aging Greek professor and doesn’t like lawn, so his back yard…

  • Only Plant In Its Genus  (16)
    Call it an occupational hazard but I began to wonder one day how many genera were unique, that is, they had just one edible species in them, the so called…
  • Osage Orange  (13)

    Maclura pomifera: The Edible Inedible
    Sometimes everybody is almost wrong.

    If you google “Osage Orange” or “Maclura pomifera” (mak-LOOR-uh pom-EE-fer-uh…

  • Oxalis: How To Drown Your Sorrels  (2)
    Sorrels are like McDonald’s restaurants: No matter where you are on earth there’s one nearby.That’s because the sorrels, properly…
  • Palmer Amaranth  (1)
    A farmer’s headache is not necessarily a forager’s delight.Palmer Amaranth (Amaranthus Palmeri) has been a foraged food for a long time. It was used…
  • Palmetto Weevil Grub: Grugru

    Rhynchophorus cruentatus: Raw or Fried?
    Here’s what you’re looking for: A palm or plametto that is dying. The growing tip is dead, bent or otherwise…

  • Pandanus: During several visits over the course of a year it looked like a large berm of tall grass, about the size and height of a one-story house.
  • Papaya Proliferation

    Carica papaya: Survivalist plant

    Papaya comes from the grocery store, unless you live where it seldom freezes. Then it is another wild edible, naturalized in…

  • Paper Mulberry  (2)

    Broussonetia papyrifera: Paper Chase
    If you are a forager, you will be told two things constantly: One is that the plant of your admiration is “poisonous.”…

  • Partridgeberry: Split personality  (1)
    Mitchella repens: Madder BerryThe Partridgeberry will not save you from starving but it can make your salad prettier and might keep you alive or ease…
  • Pawpaw picking up is rare  (8)

    Pawpaw Panache

    Finding your first pawpaw is a thrilling moment.

    I can remember exactly where it happened and when. It was the summer of 1987 in…

  • Pellitory, Up Against The Wall Weed

    Pellitory: Parietaria is a Whiz
    Finding greens locally in the cooler months isn’t much of a challenge unless you’re looking for Pellitory . It likes to hid…

  • Pennyroyal Florida Style  (2)

    Florida Pennyroyal: Piloblephis Rigida
    You will thoroughly enjoy tea made by Florida’s native pennyroyal, or maybe even a Mint Julep Floridana.

    An…

  • Pennyworts Making Sense  (12)

    A Pennywort For Your Thoughts
    It’s one of those practices of civilization that plants with little flavor or calories — lettuce for example — are…

  • Peperomia:  I went to college in Maine where winter lasts from about November 1st to October 31st.
  • Peppergrass: Potent Pipsqueak  (3)

    Lepidium Virginicum: Bottlebrush Peppergrass

    There are two ways of thinking about peppergrass, either as a real neat wild treat, or an obnoxious, noxious…

  • Perilla, Shiso   (2)
    The first Perilla I ever had came from a can, just like the kind sardines snuggle in. The leaves were very spicy and were used that way, as a spice. Later…
  • Persimmon Provisions  (3)

    Persimmons: Pure Pucker Power
    About the only bad thing you can say about a persimmon tree is that it has pucker power, if you pick it at the wrong time.

  • Pick Of The Littering

    If flowers could think they would view man as an errand boy. That floral perspective would also explain one of man’s more annoying habits.

    Scientist who…

  • Pickerel Weed

    Pontederia cordata: In a PR Pickerel
    Pickerel Weed Primer
    If the Pickerelweed could commiserate, it would find a friend with the Natal Plum. The Natal…

  • Pigeon Plums, Dove Plums, Pigeon Seagrape, Tie-TongueCoccoloba diversifolia: Seagrape Sibling
    The first time you see a Pigeon Plum it will look familiar. In the same genus as the Seagrape it shares a…
  • Pigweed Potpourri  (7)

    Chenopodium album: Getting Goosed!
    My first recollection of Chenopodium album, pigweed, came around 1960 via a neighbor named Bill Gowan.

    Mr. Gowan was…

  • Pillbugs, Woodlice, Roly Pollies  (4)
    Armadillidium vulgare: Land Shrimp
    What shall we call them? Roly Pollies? Pill Bugs? Woodlice? Sowbugs, or a half a dozen other names?They are…
  • Pineapple Weed

    Matricaria matricarioides for Your Tea & Salad
    A hard-packed gravel driveway is the last place you would expect to find a delicate plant that makes an…

  • Pining for You  (5)

    Pines: Not just for breakfast anymore
    Euell Gibbons became famous for asking, “have you ever eaten a pine tree?”

    A lot of folks had a laugh over…

  • Plant An Alarm Clock

    I don’t need an alarm clock. I have a cardinal.

    I don’t know exactly which cardinal it is, and if I did I might be tempted to shoot him. Cardinals are early…

  • Plants Can’t Run  (1)

    Plants can’t run. That’s why the vast majority of them are unpalatable or lethal. Guesstimates range from 5 to 10 percent of plants are edible. Let’s split the…

  • Podocarpus macrophyllus  (4)Podocarpus: Your Own Hedge Fund
    One can’t learn everything at once, and so I came to know the Podocarpus macrophyllus late in my foraging…
  • Poison Ivy Ponderings  (28)
    I did something this past week I have not done in some twenty years. I got poison ivy.Given what I do for a living, running around the wild all the…
  • Poisonous and Irritating Plants of Florida  (4)

    Below is a circular published by the state of Florida in 1978. I think it is no longer in print though I have a hard copy. It is reproduced below. Visual…

  • Pokeweed: Prime Potherb  (11)

    Can Be Deadly But Oh So Delicious: Pokeweed
    Poke weed will challenge your commitment to foraging.

    It is not the most commonly eaten food from a poisonous…

  • Pony Foot: Are they edible? That is often asked about a little lawn plant called Pony Foot, or Dichondra carolinensis.
  • Poplars and Aspens

    Populus deltoides: Popular Poplars and Aspens

    I know where there is one (1) Eastern Conttonwood. For a popular Poplar it is not common locally. Fortunately…

  • Practicing Homelessness

    There are less Christmas parties this year than in the past, with economic conditions reducing the usual yuletide cheer. Still, there are some traditions.…

  • Prepared for Life  (2)

    We met by accident in the woods. I had hiked for a few miles already and he had just entered the trail.

    When ever I go into the woods, or on water, I am…

  • Prickly Apple, Apple Cactus, Fragrant Apple Cactus

    Harrisia Trio: Endangered Edibles All

    Just as it is important to know what to eat, it’s as important to know what not to eat, or if you do, how to do it…

  • Puffballs, Small and Gigantic  (2)

    Lycoperdon perlatum: Edible Puffballs
    I avoided mushrooms for a long time, and with good reasons. Some of them are on par with cyanide and arsenic and…

  • Purslane: Omega 3 Fatty Weed  (8)

    Purslane: Any Portulaca In A Storm

    Her name was Zona. She was a grand friend-in-law

    She had been a friend of the family for about a century. To be…

  • Pyracantha Jelly and Santa’s Belly

    Firethorn: Pyracantha Coccinea
    I don’t think it is a coincidence that “ho ho ho bellies and Pyracantha jelly jiggle into the season just before…

  • Pyrrolizidine on my Mind  (4)
    How much pyrrolizidine is too much? Or perhaps the better question is how little is too much?First, what is pyrrolizindine? Pyrrolizidine (pie-row-L…
  • Quack Grass  (4)
    Plants of little use often have only one common name, or not even that. Plants that are valued or are a pest usually have too many names such Quack…
  • QueenPalm: The Queen Palm and I got off on the wrong frond. Before I met one I had read it was toxic. There are a few toxic palms but the Queen Palm is not one of them.
  • Radish, Mustard’s Wild Rough Cousin  (7)   Raphanus Raphanistrum: Radical Radis. The Wild Radish has an identity problem. It looks similar to it’s equally peppery cousin, the wild mustard. In…
  • Ragweed: Some 18 generations ago — 600 years ago give or take a few centuries — some Natives Americans stopped cultivating a particular crop and may have moved on to maize. About 150 years ago — five generations — American farmers were raising crabgrass for grain when they, too, moved on to corn, the descendant of maize. So what crop did the Indians stop growing? Ragweed, the most hay-fever causing plant in the world.
  • Raspberry Razz  (3)

    Rubus ideaus: Delicate Raspberry. Raspberries were the first wild fruit I noticed on my own and ate as a kid.

  • Ravishing Radish Greens  (2)

    I didn’t cut the mustard this morning. I cut the radish… radish greens to be specific, Raphanus raphanistrum, said RA-fa-nus raf-an-ISS-trum.

    The only bad…

  • Real Food Rules!  (3)

    This blog all started with hot dog relish.

    I happen to like sardines on whole wheat toast with onions and mustard. (Regardless of what you think of…

  • Red Bay for all seasonings
    Persea borbonia, palustris, humilis, and americana, too

    Having a famous relative can make one grow in the shadows, as three Perseas know too well.There…
  • Redflower Ragweed: The first time I saw Redflower Ragweed I thought I was seeing two species at once some weird combination of Tassel Flower and Fireweed. It’s way too big and has the wrong leaves to be a Tassel Flower but the blossoms remind one of a Tassel Flower but the rests of the plant looks life Fireweed/Burnweed.
  • Reindeer Moss  (1)

    Edible Cladonia: What’s not to Lichen?
    Lichen can be harder to tell apart than twins in the dark. My guess my picture above is of Cladonia Evanii…

  • Resources
    The quickest and safest way to learn foraging is with a local expert. You not only learn what there is to know but do not spend time learning things you…
  • Ringless Honey Mushrooms: The first time I thought I saw the Ringless Honey Mushroom was on my neighbor’s lawn.
  • Root Beer Rat Killer  (1)

    It’s not smart or nice to lie about plants. It can get someone hurt. But the truth can sometimes be elusive, even with plants.

  • Rose Apple: The apple is in the Rose family but the Rose Apple is not though it can sometime taste like rose water… and watermelon… but not apples.
  • Roses
    I’m not sure I found wild roses or they found me.I grew up in Maine. The local soil was usually either ground-up glacial sand, clay, which is decomposed…
  • Rumex Ruminations  (1)
    Mainer Merritt Fernald, who was the Harvard wunderkind of botany from around 1900 to 1950, said all of the 17 native Rumex species in North America…
  • Russian Thistle, Tumbleweed

    Salsola kali: Noxious Weed, Nibble & Green
    When you first encounter a Russian Thistle it is the very last plant you would consider edible. Wiry, tough,…

  • Saffron Plum

    Sideroxylon: Chewy Ironwood
    The Saffron Plum is not yellow or a plum, that is, it is not a Prunus. And it is called a Buckthorn but it isn’t one of those…

  • Saltwort, Turtle Weed and Reef Banana

    Batis Maritima: Salt of the Earth
    It has a dozen or more names, but no one is quite sure about its scientific name, Batis maritima, (BAT-is mar-IT-i-ma.)

    Fora…

  • Sandspurs: Sandlot Sadists  (2)

    Sandspurs: Cenchrus’ Secret

    If I were ever to invent a torture it would be dragging someone naked through a field of sandspurs.

  •  Sargassum Sea Vegetable  (1)

Sargassum: Not Just for Breakfast Any More
Sargassum — Gulf weed — comprises a huge number of seaweeds in all oceans, both bottom dwelling and free…

  • Sassafras: Root Beer Rat Killer  (7)

    Sassafras Albidum: Beaux Gumbo

    Bet your sweet sassafras: If you’re on the young side ask anyone not on the young side: Root beer used to taste a lot…

  • Satinleaf, Olive Plum

    Chrysophyllum oliviforme: “Chewy Olives”

    “Turn left at the Satinleaf.”

    That’s not an unusual direction in an area where Satinleafs grow, they are that…

  • Saw Palmetto Saga  (4)

    Serenoa Repens: Weed to Wonder Drug
    Rotten cheese steeped in tobacco juice
    That’s how starving shipwrecked Quakers described the flavor of the saw palmetto…

  • Sawgrass, A Cut Below The Rest  (1)

    Cladium jamaicense: Water finder

    In Wekiva Springs state park in Florida there is a high and dry stretch of scrub pine and palmetto bushes, and oddly,…

  • Scarlet Runner Bean

    Two beans are grown for beauty, the Hyacinth Bean, edible with precautions, and the Scarlet Runner Bean, also edible.
    Humming Bird at “Emperor” Blossom
    It’s…

  • Scorpions  (1)

    Southern Fried Scorpions
    If I were going to rely on scorpions in Florida for sustenance, I would starve to death.

    In over 30 years of rummaging…

  • Sea Blite, Seepweed

    Suaeda linearis, maritima: Edible Blite

    While most people find Sea Blite next to the sea, I find Sea Blite on the other side of the barrier…

  • Sea Buckthorn, SallowberrySea Buckthorn: Sour Source of Vitamin C
    If you are collecting Sea Buckthorn you’re probably cold.Just as some edibles are found only in tropical…
  • Sea Club Rush  (2)

    Scirpus maritimus: a Tough Root to Crack
    If you mention Sea Club Rush among foragers they give you a very blank stare. Understandably so. It was a fall-back…

  • Sea Kale
    Sea kale is nearly the perfect primitive food. It’s difficult to imagine it not being on primitive man’s menu.We know from middens that seafood was…
  • Sea Lettuce, UlvaUlva: Sea Soup & Salad
    Ulva is the greenest seaweed you will ever see from shore, or in the sea for that matter.Ten species, all edible, are…
  • Sea Oats

    Uniola paniculata: Feeling your sea oats
    Opinions vary on Sea Oats. Not on flavor. They taste good. The questions are, are they endangered or not, and which…

  • Sea Oxeye: There are edible plants, and there are inedible plants. Then there are those that sit on the cusp of edibility: Edible but not tasty, edible in small quantities, edible but with a horrible texture, edible but strong-flavored.
  • Sea Purslane, Salty Nibble, Potherb

    Sesuvium portulacastrum: Maritime Munch

    It looks like garden purslane on steriods growing in sand. And it grows all over the local beach, and other beaches…

  • Sea Rocket Siblings

    The Cakile Clan: Seaside Edibles

    Food is where the water is, be it fresh or salt, and one of the waterway foods of North America is Sea Rocket. There are at…

  • Sea-Grapes: Maritime Marvels  (4)

    Sea-Grapes: Costal Caterer

    A lifetime ago I spent many a night on a dark Florida beach near the Space Center sleeping out under Sea-Grapes.…

  • Seminole Pumpkin

Cucurbita muschata: Seminole Edible
Unlike watermelons which are from Africa, pumpkins and their kin are North American. When Panfilo de Narvaez was…

  • Seminole Wekiva Trail

    Seven-Mile Appetizer
    The squirrels are in hog heaven, if you’ll pardon the menagerie metaphor.

    It’s Thanksgiving, 2007, in central Florida and I…

  • Sesbania Grandiflora  (1)
    Any plant called the Vegetable Hummingbird has to be written about.Sesbania grandiflora, has managed to work its way into warmer areas of the world…
  • Seven Year Apple

    Genipa clusiifolia: An Acquired Taste

    Like a Suriname Cherry, you’ll either find the Seven Year Apple edible or disgusting. In fact, a lot of folks can’t…

  • Sida, Wireweed  (5)
    Sida is barely edible. A member of the Mallow mob it’s an object de interest because it is also a significant herbal medication, of which I am totally…
  • Silverhead, Beach Carpet  (1)

    Blutaparon vermiculare: Beach Potherb
    My first thought on seeing Silverweed “was what is clover doing growing on the beach.” Well, Silverweed isn’t a clover…

  • Simpson Stopper

    Myricanthes fragrans: Nakedwood Twinberry
    I took me about a year to know the Simpson Stopper.

    While most people think of Florida as flat there’s actually…

  • Skunk Vine

    Paederia foetida: Much Maligned Skunk Vine
    Sometimes botanists go a little too far, or at least Carl Linnaeus did when he named a particular vine Paederia…

  • Slugs, Snails and Fresh Water Mollusks  (1)

    Are Slugs edible? What about Snails?
    There is only one rule you have to remember: When it comes to land snails, land slugs, and fresh water mollusks you must…

  •   Smartweed 
    Polygonum punctatum: Smartweed. I can remember my first taste of a smartweed leaf… kind of like trying a piece of burning paper. Indeed,…
  • Smilax: A Brier And That’s No Bull  (40)

    For The Edible Love of Krokus and Smilax

    No, that is not a “Walking stick” insect. It is the growing end of a Smilax, a choice wild…

  • Snakewood, Nakedwood, Mauby  (1)

    Colubrina elliptica: Mauby has Moxie
    First there was Moxie, then Mauby… actually it was historically the other way around though few until now would know…

  • Society Garlic  (3)
    Because I am asked about it all the time I decided to do an article on it: Yes, you can eat Society Garlic… well… most of it, maybe all of it.The…
  • Solar Cooking

    Solar cooking. Something new under the sun
    Once you cook your first solar meal, you’re hooked.
    Does it cost less than conventional methods? It can, but…

  • Sorrel: Not A Sheepish Rumex
    Of all the Rumex that grow in the South, Rumex hastatulus is probably the most pleasing. The tart-tasting intensely green leaves are hard…
  • Sourwood:  Sourwood honey is considered by some to be the best-flavored honey in North America, perhaps the world.
  • Sow Thistle, Prickly, Common, Field  (4)

    Sonchus: Sow Thistle, In A Pig’s Eye
    As I write it is in mid-January in Florida two of three local species of sow thistles are invading my lawn in great…

  • Spanish Moss  (3)
    Spanish Moss is not edible. Well, barely an edible. The bottom of the growing tips (pictured above) provide about one eight of an inch of almost tasteless…
  • Spanish Needles, Pitchfork Weed  (13)
    Bidens Alba: Medical Beggar Ticks
    Some plants just don’t get any respect. If there were a contest for under appreciated plants, Bidens alba , above…
  • Spinach Vine  (1)
    I like to think of myself as biclimatic, living part of my life (thus far) in a cold climate and  part in a warm climate.
  • Spring Beauty  (2)The Spring Beauty is aptly named.Actually there are several “Spring Beauties” and most of them are edible in similar ways. We’ll focus on…
  • Stinging Nettles

    Urtica chamaedryoides: Nettle Knowledge
    Stinging Nettles Know How
    I was hiking one day when I saw what I thought was a mint I had not seen before. I…

  • Stork’s Bill, Cranesbill

    Erodium circutarium, Geranium carolinianum: Two Bills You Want to Get

    Stork’s Bill is one of those little plants that’s not supposed to grow locally…

  • Strawberries of Spring  (1)

    Fragaria virginiana: Be A Strawberry Sleuth
    Fragaria don’t like Florida. Only one northern county in the state reports having wild strawberries. But that’s…

  • Strawberry GuavaPsidium littorale var. cattleianum: Strawberry Guava
    One man’s fruit tree is another man’s weed. My one Strawberry Guava tree is a fruiting…
  • Strawberry Tree Curse

    Strawberry Tree, Koumaria, Koumara, Pacific Madrone, Madrona
    Any plant called “strawberry” other than a strawberry is doomed. Strawberries pack a lot of…

  • Strongback  Not strong bark Bourreria succulenta: Soapy Fruit and Viagra
    Botanists are feisty in their own way. The Strongback is a good example. Is it B. succulenta or B. ovata? One…

  • Sugar Cane on The Run  (4)

    Saccharum officinarum: Sweet Wild Weed
    Among the edible wild plants on this site are a few escaped fruit trees and ornamentals that have become naturalized.…

  • Sugarberries & Hackberries  (3)

    Sugarberries are Hackberries with a Southern Accent
    Sugarberries like to be near water and that’s why it caught my eye as I coasted by: It was growing on top…

  • Sumac: More Than Just Native Lemonade  (4)

    Sumac, Rhus Juice, Quallah: Good Drink
    Sumacs look edible and toxic at the same time, and with good reason: They’re in a family that has plants we eat and…

  • Sunflowers: Seeds and More

    Sunflowers: Sun Sentinels

    His name was Bob Davis and he grew sunflowers some 15-feet high. I dated his niece, Edie May. I remember her and the…

  • Sunny Savage

    I had the pleasure this past week of having the well-know forager Sunny Savage visit two of my classes here in Florida (If you think she is attractive on TV…

  • Surinam Cherry: Only Ripe Need Apply  (18)

    Surinam Cherries: You’ll love ‘em or hate ‘em

    The Surinam cherry is not a cherry nor is it exclusively from Surinam. It’s also not from…

  • Swamp Lilly Wrap

    Thalia geniculata: Swamp Wrap
    You won’t find the “swamp lilly” in many foraging books. For a big plant it receives little attention.

    Thalia geniculata…

  • Sweet Clover

    Melitotus: Condiment to Tea to Blood Thinner
    When I was growing up we owned horses. Lots of horses. And they eat a lot of hay in the winter. Lots of hay.…

  • Sweet Gum Tree  (4)
    The Sweet Gum tree is the sand spur of the forest. You painfully find them with your feet. The vicious seed pods have impaled many a forager and has done…
  • Sweetbay MagnoliaMagnolia viginiana: How Sweet It Is
    Let’s say you want or need to trap a beaver. First you need a trap, but then you need to bait the trap. And…
  • Sword Fern’s Secret

    Nephrolepis cordifolia: Edible Watery Tubers
    Edibles are often right under your feet, or my feet as it were.

    I had a yard of non-edible ferns. If you like…

  • Sycamores Get No RespectSycamores: Not Just Another Plane Tree
    Sycamore trees are not high on the edible list, unless you’re in need.Actually, sycamores, Platanus occidental…
  • Take Things Lying Down
    Early in life I settled on a hobby I can do on a summer’s day, in a hammock, on my back….. No, it’s not napping. I watch clouds. Call it reclining…
  • Tallow Plum

    Ximenia americana: Known by Many Names
    If I listed this edible under its botanical name few would find it. On the other hand it has some three dozen commons…

  • Tamarind: I drove past a dozen Tamarind trees for a decade or so until I looked up one day. The lumpy brown pods on pretty trees had finally caught my attention.
  • Tansy Mustard, Western

Descurainia pinnata: Abandoned Seed
What shall we call this little member of the Brassica family? Western Tansy Mustard or Tansy Mustard? We could always…

  • Tape Seagrass  (3)
    It is said that all seaweed is edible but that’s not true. There’s at least one species that is not, Desmarestia ligulata. Why? Because it is laced…
  • Tar Vine, Red SpiderlingBoerhavia diffusa: Catchy Edible
    Some times you just can’t identify a plant. Some times you’re frustrated for a few days, other times for a few…
  • Tassel, Musk and Grape Hyacinths  (2)
    There are dozens of edible species that are wild in Europe and cultivated or escaped in North America. Three related species with a multitude of names are…

Thistle: Touch me not, but add butter. Thistles, you’re either going to love ’em or hate em. Of course, I think eating them is the sensible…

  • Ti, Good Luck Plant

    Cordyline fruticosa: Food, Foliage, Booze
    Simply called Ti (tee) Cordyline fruticosa spent most of its history with humans as a food, a source of alcohol, or…

  • Tick Clover  (2)
    Tick Clover barely makes it into our foraging realm.I have found only one reference to its edibility. In the 47th volume of the Journal…
  • Tiger Lily
    The word “lily” causes more confusion than four letters ought to be able to make. There are true lilies, usually not edible, some of them quite toxic, a…
  • Tomato Tobacco Hornworms  (4)

    Manduca Cuisine: Eating Green Gluttons
    You’re picking tomatoes and suddenly there it is: Big, ugly and green, a tomato hornworm. To which I say, get or the…

  • Tools of the Trail

    Over the years I have added a few items to my back pack that can make foraging more easier. You might want to add one or two of these items.

    The handiest…

  • Topi Tambo, Leren, Guinea Arrowroot  (2)
    A lifetime ago off the Maine coast at low tide there were many mussel shoals. The vertical tidal change near the rock-bound coast can be measured in…
  • Torchwood
    One reason to write about the Torchwood is very few people know about it these days yet it was once an esteemed wood and produces an edible, citrusy…
  • Toxic tomatoes: I rarely write  about toxic plants because this site is about edibles. However there are enough prickly nightshades around to justify an article about them and how to identify them even if they aren’t edible.
  • Traveler’s Palm Travails

    Ravenala madagascariensis: Palm, NOT!
    The Traveler’s Palm is reportedly known for providing wayfarers water, but it also has some food to offer as well.

  • Trilliam Trifecta: Every May Day — the first of May — we kids would hang a May Basket on our teacher Arlene Tryon and disappear off the school grounds.
  • Tropical Almond: I went to Ft. Myers one Friday to look at plants on an 11-acre monastery. On the property there was a large tree they didn’t know nor did I. The following Sunday while teaching a class across the state in West Palm Beach two students knew a tree there that I didn’t know. It was the same tree at the Monastery. Small botanical world. The tree was a Tropical Almond.
  • Tropical Chestnuts: Pachira aquatica  (1)
    My foraging existence is slightly schizophrenic. I grew up in a northern climate, and I write about many northern plants, or it is accurate to say that…
  • Tuberous Pea: Anyone who has mowed fields for hay hates vetch… wild pea.  It binds up the machinery and a lot of livestock won’t eat it. That’s a lose lose all around unless the vetch is Lathyrus tuberosus.
  • Tuckahoe, Arrow Arum  (2)Peltandra virginica: Starch Storer
    You wouldn’t think there would be a connection between the United States’ Capital and a toxic bog plant, but…
  • Tulip Tree  (9)
    Not every edible plant has to be a nutritional powerhouse. Some are “edible” by the barest of means. A good example is the Tulip Tree, Liriodendron…
  • Tulips  (2)

    Tulips: Famine Food, Appetizer Assistant
    Many years ago a social acquaintance upon learning I ate weeds said she and her mother had eaten tulip bulbs. If I…

  • Tupelos: Black, Swamp, Bear, Water, OgeecheeNyssus: Tart Botanical Tangles
    The Black Tupelo is an old friend from around ponds where I grew up in Maine to around ponds (called lakes) here in…
  • TurtlesThe Shell Game: Eating Turtles
    The evidence is clear: Man has been eating turtle for a long time. But which turtles and how?While land turtles…
  • Unresolved Botanical Ponderings  (2)Cnidoscolus stimulosis: Can the leaves be boiled and eaten like other species in the genus? I personally know of two account of…
  • Usnea: Likable LichenUSNEA is not an international committee. It’s a likable lichen. In fact all but two of the 20,000 lichen are forager…
  • Valuable Viburnums: The only significant problem with Viburnums is choosing which one to use, and which ones to write about.
  • Velvet Leaf: Velvet Leaf is a commercial failure but a successful foreign invader.
  • Vinegar: Your own unique strain  (5)
    The vinegar mother above —three inches across and a half in thick — was collected from the wild in Lake Mary, Florida, in 1996 and has been making…
  • Violets’ Virtues

    Viola affinis: Florida’s Sweet Violet
    My introduction to violets was seeing my mother eat “Piss-a-beds” in the spring (Viola rafinesquii. VYE-oh-lah…

  • Wapato: All It’s Quacked Up To Be  (2)

    Sagittaria Lancifolia: Duck Potatoes, Wapato
    Artificial grass is not grass. Non-dairy creamer contains a dairy product. And ducks don’t eat duck potatoes.…

  • Water Arum, Water Dragon, Wild Calla: 

    Calla palustris: Missen…Famine Bread. Like so many in the same family the starchy rhizome of the Calla palustris is laced with calcium oxalate crystals…

  • Water Chestnut: The Water Chestnut is a plant of contradictions.
  • Water Hyacinth Woes
    Water Hyacinth Stir Fry: The state of Florida minces no words about the water hyacinth: “Eichhornia crassipes is one of the worst weeds in the…
  • Water Lettuce  (5)
    No one knows if Water Lettuce is native to North America or not. Botanists disagree with some saying it’s from Africa, a few South America. Explorer and…
  • Water Shield Salad

    Brasenia schreberi: Palatable Pond Weed
    The Water Shield is edible. The problem is getting it sometimes. It likes water … up to six feet deep. On the good…

  • Watercress: Ancient Flavor

    Florida is the Winter Watercress Capital of the U.S.

    Nasturtium officinale (nas-STUR-shum oh-fis-in-AY-lee ) is one of the oldest leaf vegetables…

  • Wax Myrtle Jewels  (1)

    Myrica cerifera: A Tree That Makes Scents
    Wax Myrtle was the Indians’ minimart of the forest.

    Need some spice? Drop by the Wax Myrtle tree. How about a…

  • Weeds and Wolves  (2)

    I am often invited to see someone’s vegetable garden, and it’s usually growing well. Then I’m asked if I see any edible weeds, and usually there are some. I…

  • Weeds of Southern Turfgrasses
    The link to the university’s site to buy the book — I do not get a cut — is here.The list of known edibles in the book is below. Many of…
  • Welcome to EatTheWeeds.com  (28)

    No description found for this item.

  • What’s Green and What’s Not?

    An arctic express of frigid air recently sped down and across the United States. Here in Florida it snowed for the second time in 33 years, delivering a week…

  • When Is A Lawn A Lake?  (2)

    It sounds like a trick question, when is a lake a lawn, but there is a non-tricky answer: When it is in Florida.

    Regular followers of this writer know I am…

  • When Scholarship Isn’t Enough

    I saw a religion-themed movie once that actually holds an instructive point for us foragers.

    In it a Catholic priest is facing a moral decision that could…

  • Where Do You Forage?

    It’s a simple question with a complex answer. When I was younger the 1000 acres behind the house and the 2000 across the road answered that question. Today it…

  • Where the Weeds Are

    There is little doubt that man has been foraging for food for a long time. As one might guess, in different places he foraged for different plants. He also…

  • White Indigo Berry Has A Dark Side

    Randia aculeata
    The White Indigo Berry is not high on the food list. Dr. Daniel Austin, author of Florida Ethnobotany, has this to say on page 562:

  • White man’s Little Foot: Dwarf PlantainWhite man’s Little Foot: Dwarf Plantain
    Plantain, Plantagos To Go
    When I was about 10 a bee stung my hand while I was being a pest in the…
  • Who’s Manipulating Whom?
    I don’t care for Salvia coccinea. It’s not edible and it likes to crowd out my herbs. I’m forever removing it from flower pots. The other day I was about…
  • Why Forage?  (1)

    Often I am asked “why forage for wild food?” Why that question is asked is probably worthy of an article unto itself. But here let’s focus on one answer (out…

  • Wild Carrots and Queen Ann’s LaceDaucus Carota & Pusillus: Edible Wild Carrots
    I’ve never understood the confusion over identifying the Wild Carrot also called Queen Ann’s…
  • Wild Citrus, Footloose Plants

    Feral Citrus: Snack, Seasoning and Soap
    Citrus, like apples when left unattended by man, tend to revert to their natural state of being sour and acidic. A lot…

  • Wild Coffee But Not Kentucky  (5)

    Psychotria nervosa Florida Style
    Because I am constantly asked about it: Yes, you can eat the pulp off the seeds of the wild coffee, and yes, you can make a…

  • Wild Dilly, Wild Sapodilla

    Wild Dilly: Almost Chique
    If the Natal Plum and the Wild Dilly could sit down and have a conversation they would probably agree that having a famous…

  • Wild Fennel: One of the outstanding sensory experiences of hiking in Greece is smelling in the wild herbs one usually buys in little plastic containers.
  • Wild Flours  (8)
    A wild flour is different than a starchy root. The Spurge Nettle has a starchy root that tastes like pasta but it does not lend itself to being processed…
  • Wild Ginger: Wild Ginger is cantharophilic, sometimes myophilic or sapromyophilic.
  • Wild Lettuce, Woodland Lettuce

    Lactuca floridana: Let Us Eat Wild Lettuce

    Wild lettuce is not as tame as garden lettuce.

    Garden lettuce is one of those nearly flavorless nearly…

  • Wild Onion, Wild Garlic  (2)

    Allium canadense: The Stinking Rose
    Garlic and onions don’t like to set underground bulbs here in hot Florida. I got around it by growing wild onions,…

  • Wild Pineapple  (2)

    Bromelia pinguin: Wild Pineapple
    I took the picture directly above while out bicycling on a Christmas Day, 2008. But, didn’t identified the object de green…

  • Wild Rice  (4)
    Love and marriage, horse and carriage, Zizania and canoe… not exactly lyrical but you get the idea. If you want Wild Rice you have to go where the Wild…
  • Will Bisin Make GMOs Look Good?

    I have long criticized what I call chemists in the kitchen. They brought us such things as cancer-causing additives, artery-damaging trans-fats, insulin-skewing…

  • Willow Weep For Me  (1)

    Salix caroliniana: Nothing Would Be Finer
    The willow is not prime eats. It’s not even secondary eats. In fact, it is famine food, but, willow can also cure…

  • Winter Foraging:   The thermometer was near zero one day when I was on ice skates collecting frozen cranberries.
  • Winter Soul-stice

    On the shortest day of the year one should take a long look around. It’s the inventory time of year, a bit of soul searching. That requires a little looking…

  • Wisteria Criteria  (3)Wisteria, Wistaria
    There is a duality to Wisteria, starting with those who think it is an invasive weed and those who like to eat its sweet, fragrant…
  • Wood Oats

    Chasmanthium latifolium: Edible Wood Oats
    Most people discover Wood Oats by mistake. They’re traipsing through the forest, come across a plant, and wonder…

  • Yacon  (1)
    Is it a Polymnia or a Smallanthus? Botanists took some 70 years to make up their minds. Let’s call it Yacon like the natives.In publications before…
  • Yam A: The Alata  (6)

    The Dioscorea Dilemma: Which ones are edible, and what parts?

    One wouldn’t think wild yams would be hard to sort out. It only took me about a dozen…

  • Yam B: The Bulbifera  (9)

    The “Cheeky Yam, or Yam on the Lamb
    Yam B, Dioscorea bulbifera, is definitely second best to Yam A, Dioscorea alata. Why is Yam B, the D. bulbifera second…

  • Yam C: The Chinese

    Dioscorea Polystachya: Yam C
    Just like Rambo movies, there is Yam A, Yam B and, yes, a Yam C, the Chinese Wild Yam or the Cinnamon Vine yam, either way we…

  • Yaupon Holly, Ilex vomitoria  (10)
    History has many layers and shades. It’s not a straight timeline of great clarity but more like a meandering muddy river with much confluence, influence…
  • Yellow Pond Lilly: Raising A Wokas

    Picking Pond Lillies: Nuphar Luteum subsp. advena

    Once upon a time there was just one Nuphar luteum… and it was good.

    The yellow pond lilly…

  • Yew:  The Yew can kill you.
  • You Can Learn To Forage For Wild Edibles

    There is such a thing as a free lunch, or almost free: The edible wild plants around you.

    With a little specialized knowledge and a “guidance” system…

  • Your Choice for a New Vegetable  (2)

    If you could choose one wild plant to become a commercial product, what would it be?

    Many people have tried to make poke weed (Phytolacca americana) a green…

  • Yucca’s Not Yucky  (5)Yucca, Yuca: Which is Edible?
    When isn’t a yucca a yucca? When it is spelt with one “C” as in yuca.What’s the difference? A belly ache, maybe…
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