Search: cattail

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

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

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

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

Canna can grow in a wet garden or a pond.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eastern Gammagrass in blossom.

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

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

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

You get the USB, not the key.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

This is my weekly newsletter #537. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page. My website, EatTheWeeds.com, which is data secure, has over 1500 plants on it in some 428 articles. I wrote every one myself, no cut and paste. 

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Chickasaw Plums are starting to ripen. Photo by Green Deane

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

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

Neolentinus lepideus which until recently was Lentinus lepideus.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No plant produces more starch per acre than cattails.

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

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

Edible berries and the leaves repel insects.

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

You get the USB, not the key.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

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

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

                             To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.  

Gall on a Hawthorn. photo by Green Deane

Shall we get technical? Most foragers would look at this picture above and say that is a gall. beginners might think it’s a strange fruit .  Plant galls are defined as abnormal plant growths caused by a gall-maker; the gall-maker being certain insects, mites, fungi, and bacteria. Locally Persea Borbornia usually has a lot galls — one of the identifying characteristics — and one particular scrub oak gets galls that look like cranberries. 

Hawthorn in Lithia Florida, usually not seen south of Ocala.

This is a gall on a Hawthorn fruit and is a fungus, Gymnosporangium clavipes, which is responsible for the disease known as Cedar-Quince Rust. The “cedar” in the relationship is actually the eastern red cedar, which is really a juniper, Juniperous virginana.  This fungus must alternate between junipers and a member of the rose family, such as quince, hawthorn, crabapple, etc., to complete its life cycle.  It spends a year on plant in the two groups then a year on the other plant. 

 Hawthorns are an unusual group of trees and can live to 400 yeras old. No one really knows how many species there are two hundred or 1,200. It is safe to say they vary a lot so identifying which one you have can be quite frustrating. The fruit is edible but not the seeds, and the fruit and leaves dried as a tea can be used for high blood pressure. Herbalists say two teaspoons of leaves or seedless berries (or both) made into a tea twice a day is an effective beta blocker and lowers blood pressure.

Ascross the dirt road I grew up on was a large hawthorn with two-inch thorns. Different species of birds would nest in the tree at the same time, because the thorns dissuaded egg and chick predator. Unncessary tarring and widening of the road eliminated the tree. 

Range of the one-seeded Hawthorn

Historically hawthorns have been used to make hedgerows and “haw” means hedge. The fruit is a source of pectin. In fact one, Crataegus monogyna, the one-seed Hawthorn can be made into a no-cook jelly. Put the berries in a bowl and quickly crush them thoroughly with your hands. The resulting liquid should be about the consistency of pudding just before it sets. It should be that consistency naturally. If you’ve had a dry year add some water to get to that consistency. Work quickly. Squeeze the seeds out of the berries then quickly filter the thick slurry into a bowl. In about five minutes the liquid will jell. Flip it over onto a plate. It can be eaten as is or sliced or sun dried. It will be sweet and will last for many years. Remember just ripe berries have more pectin that over-ripe berries. To see a video on this go here.

Partridgeberry has two dimples where twin blossoms were. Photo by Green Deane

It is the season time for partridgeberries. While they can be found locally they are more a cooler climate species. I used to find them occasionally in Gainesville Fl but saw them often in western North  Carolina. Botanically Michlla repens, the species has been used for food and as a diureticc and for the pain associalted wiht menstrual cramps and child birth. M. repens is a vine that does not climb. It does make an excellent ground cover. The berry is favored by the ruffed grouse hence the name Partridgeberry.

Cattails tops in North Carolina. Photo by Green Deane

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

Turkey, duck and several different chicken eggs, Photo by Green Deane

Though demonized, forgiven, and demonized again eggs have always been a large  part of the human diet. A local farm store has sales that sometimes includes duck eggs which I grew up eating. We also had chickens (and pet squirrels, rabbits, dogs, cats and horses… my mother collected horses and I had to take care of them so much that in 1969 I volunteered for the Army and Vietnam to get away from horses and haying.) I was given three dozen duck eggs from my cousin while teaching in South Carolina a couple of weeks ago, Many Thanks.  A few years ago I noticed that most “survivalist” and or “prepper” sites and articles oddly did not mention eggs which were a prime seasonal food of our ancestors.. That prompted me to write a large article on eggs, birds to fish. You can read it here. 

Mexican Poppy, can also have a while blossom. Photo by Green Deane

No, it’s not edible. Depending on the weather I receive numerous emails wanting me to identify a yellow- or white-blossomedextremely prickly plant (left).  It’s almost always Argemone mexicana, the Mexican Poppy. Some years they bloom as early as Christmas or can still be blossoming in May. The species is found in dry areas in much of eastern North America avoiding some north mid-west states and northern New England. Highly toxic, the Mexican Poppy tastes bad and is so well-armed that accidental poisonings amongst man or beast are few. It is a plant that does not want to be eaten. However people have tried to use its seeds for cooking oil resulting in severe edema (water retention.) Herbalists, however, use the plant extensively (which brings up the importance of knowing what you’re doing.)  Toxicity reportedly occurs only when large quantities are ingested and the plant might have primitive uses in treating malaria. In one study it helped three quarters of the patients but did not completely get rid of the parasitic load. The most common places to see the very prickly plant is beside roads and railroad tracks.

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

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

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

We might have to dodge rain during foraging classes this weekend but that means less heat, always good. 

Saturday May 21st Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. to noon Meet at the pavilion near the dog park.

Sunday May 22nd, Colby-Alderman Park: 1099 Massachusetts Street, Cassadaga Fla. 32706, 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the bathrooms

Saturday May 28th  Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte. 9 a.m.  to0 noon. Meet at the parking lot at Bayshore and Ganyard.

Sunday May 29th Mead Gardens, 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  9 a.m. to noon Meet at the bathrooms.

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

You get the USB, not the key.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

Is commercial food catchng up with us? Here you see purslane being sold in a farm store near Olando.

Yellow -blossomed Purslane, raised on the farm.

This is my weekly newsletter #508. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page. My website, EatTheWeeds.com, which is data secure, has over 1500 plants on it in some 428 articles. I wrote every one myself, no cut and paste.

                             To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.  

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

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

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

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

Note the long stem on the middle leaf.

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

American lostus seeds are choice. Photo by Green Deane

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

Blackberries are ripening

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seeding Seablite. Photo by Green Deane

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

Blueberries, Roan Mt. North Carolina.

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

You get the USB, not the key.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

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

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

                             To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.  

Pyrachantha, the firethorn, is planted for beauty not consumption. Photo by Green Deane

Firethorn with seeds removed are edible. Photo by Green Deane

Pyracantha, Firethorns, are hard to ignore when in fruit. From a forager’s point of view they are carefully useable. Pyracantha are related to apples and like apples have some cyanide in their seeds (so we don’t eat the seeds.) The ripe fruit have a mealy texture and an apple-like taste. The most common use is to make a sauce or syrup. (You strain the seeds out either before or after cooking.) A native of southern Europe to the Caucasus Mountains, it’s been under cultivation in the “West” for close to 400 years.  The fruit is very high in ascorbic acid, that is, vitamin C. You can read about the species here. 

Sycamore sap flows like Maple sap. Photo by Green Deane

Sycamores are condemned because every year they drop a huge amount of large leaves. The wood itself is non-toxic and can be used for skewering hot dogs or making wooden forks or bowls or for smoking edibles. You can also collect and reduce the sap, but it takes a lot. Maple sap has just enough sweetness for one to taste straight from the tree. Sycamore sap does not. But if you can collect enough to boil down it tastes like butter scotch. That said you need far more Sycamore sap to get a syrup than maple sap. Actually several species can be tapped: Birch, Hickory and Ash. In fact Birch syrup is a commercial product and tastes similar to molasses.

Pony Foot is an under unappreciated edible. Photo by Green Deane

Pony Foot is easy to overlook. It’s a small, kidney-shaped ground cover and can taste mild to slightly bitter. It spreads by underground runners and was once intentionally planted as a ground cover for shady areas. Herbalists call them a “liver tonic.” I happended to notice some this week blossoming. They have a five-petal blossom with five sepals. I’m not sure why the plants were called Dichrondra which means two hearts. Reni- or Nephri— (meaning kidney shaped) would have been far better. Its leaves do alternate but they are far more kidney-shaped than heart-shaped. They are also have a slightly off-side funnel shape (a basal notch.) Usually dime-size I have seen them more than an inch across. A 1905 report suggested that Pony Foot extract with glycerine was good against bacteria associated with diphtheria. 

Elm leaves and buds are edible. Photo by Green Deane

This time of year, locally, Basswood and Elm leaves are tender and quite edible right off the tree. The inner back of both are edible as well and buds et cetera. I had experience with both while growing up. When the elm grows it twists whereas white pine and ash grow straight. This means much if you have to size them by hand. When you hit a piece of ash or pine with an ax it cleaves easily into two pieces (presuming you know how to swing an ax.)  Elm, however, like hatmatack, twists as it grow. It does not cleave: It grabs the ax and does not let go. You have to have wedges and sledge hammers to size up elm. One of my jobs as a teenager in a house with two wood stoves and free elm was to size up the wood. My other job was round-the-clock care of five horses. Basswood — also called the linden tree, is the basis of one memory I have of my step father. You can read about it here. Basswood was used to make pipe stems (after we made the pipe bowl from applewood.) I still have one of the pipe bowls we made some 60 years ago.

Mulberries are pink now turning dark purple. Photo by Green Deane

A few newsletters ago it was mentioned the Mulberries were in blossom. This week we ate our first Mulberries of the season. Looking like over-grown blackberries but completely sweet you eat all of them except the short stem… or you can eat that, too. In fact, I just nibble them off the tree. Like many fruit trees they are highly seasonal, producing for perhaps a month though with a bit of travel you can extend the season. You have to work with its schedule not yours. The Mulberry is also considered a trash tree locally because it drops a lot of purple-black berries on oh-so-clean sidewalks and manicured lawns. In fact, they’ve even bred a fruitless kind… have your mulberry but don’t eat it, too… Don’t forget the young leaves are edible cooked. To read more about the Mulberry go here.  To see my video on Mulberries, click here. 

Burnweed/Fireweed in blossom in front of cattails. Photo by Green Deane

Burnweed/fireweed has a flavor most chefs love. With an impossible scientific name and strong aroma Burnweed is often overlooked by the foraging community. Conversely the aroma is also a good identifying characteristic. As with several things in life tastes vary and many people enjoy the Burnweed raw or cooked, several do not. Closely related to Red Flowered Ragweed, the Burnweed locally favors the late winter or early spring. Currently you can find Burnweed from a few inches high to a couple of feet. While they do not grow in colonies often several will grow near each other. Soon the older ones will put on yellow blossoms that barely open, another identifying characteristic. Of course in greens young and tender is usually preferable and this is particularly true with the Burnweed which grows rank as it ages. To read about Burnweed go here.

Pawpaws (or papaws per Random House) can be among the most difficult wild fruits to find. They like to hide and woodland creatures like to eat them making it difficult for us. The easiest way to locate pawpaws is find them when they’re blossoming and they are blossoming locally now.

Unripe papaws

The most common place to spy pawpaws is and around pastures. Grazing livestock don’t eat the plants, blossoms or fruit. Look for bushy shrubs around five feet tall with magnolia-like cream-colored blossoms, or much smaller foot-size shrubs with dark ruby blossoms.

I can remember the first time I found a pawpaw. It was along a walking trail in Longwood, FL. At first I thought I had found a lumpy green pear but it was an unripe pawpaw. Interestingly pawpaws change greatly from hot Florida to the Smoky Mountain area. There, pawpaws are medium trees.

There are two caveats: A chemical in pawpaws is still used to control head lice. And some people have a severe allergic reaction when eating the fruit which is the prime reason they have not become a commercial fruit. That is, it’s not a significant health threat to the population at large but it is enough to give the lawyers fits. To read more about pawpaws, or papaws, click here.

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

Foraging Classes: With unexpected good timing we will be in southwest Florida Saturday when a cold front is to pass through and in east Orlando Sunday.

Saturday March 12th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the parking lot at Ganyard and Bayshore

Sunday March 13th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL., 9 a.m. to noon. Meet next to the tennis courts. 

Saturday March 19th, Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St.,  Gainesville, FL, 9 a.m. to noon.  Meet at the pavilion. 

Sunday March 20th, Colby-Alderman Park: 1099 Massachusetts Street, Cassadaga. Fla. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the bathrooms.

Saturday March 26th,  George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, FL, 34981. 9 a.m. to noon. This location does not have official bathrooms or drinking water. 

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

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

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

You get the USB, not the key.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

This is my weekly newsletter #498. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page. My website, EatTheWeeds.com, which is data secure, has over 1500 plants on it in some 428 articles. I wrote every one myself, no cut and paste. 

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Blackberries along the bike trail. Photo by Green Deane

Train or trail, you can get there either way.

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

Seeding Seablite. Photo by Green Deane

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

Foraging classes: On the east coast of Florida this weekend. Should have good weather.

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

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

Saturday, May 29th, Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St.,  Gainesville, FL 32641. Meet at the picnic tables next to the pump house. 9 a.m. to noon.

Sunday, May 30th, Tide Views Preserve, 1 Begonia Street, Atlantic Beach Fl 32233 (near Jacksonville Fl.) 9 to noon. Meet at the parking lot. 

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

Sea Purslane and Purslane are not the same species, they are not related, and they prefer different environments. But, there is a general resemblance between the two; it just depends on how closely you look. Both are edible, look like succulents, grow in a similar pattern, and are close in coloring. But one prefers rich garden soil and the other tolerates salty areas. That said Sea Purslane will grow in your garden it just competes well in briny locations. It is one of those odds oversights that Sea Purslane is not protected like Sea Oats. Like edible Sea Oaks Sea Purslane helps build and maintain beach dunes.

Sea Purslane building its own mound and mini-environment. Photo by Green Deane

On the brackish inland water way you will find Sea Purslane almost anyplace near the water, mixed in with other salt-tolerant vegetation. But on the sea side it is one of the few edibles you will find directly on the beach, year round. Sea Purslane’s niche is that its fleshy leaves causes the sand-carrying wind to slow down. That make the wind drop the sand it was carrying. This makes little dunes and in time  little dunes grow into big dunes. The Sea Purslane also keep growing to cover its own dune which helps to keep in moisture and reduce the sand temperature in the summer. In many areas of Asia Sea Purslane is a commercial vegetable. It’s also very easy to propagate. Just stick a stem in moist soil. To read more about Sea Purslane go here.

Sargassum: Edible but not the best of tastes.

It is said that if a botany professor does not like a particular graduate student an impossible assignment is given: List all of the Hawthorne species. There is no agreement if there are dozens of Hawthorne species or thousands. Blueberries are not quite as bad but it’s another family that can be difficult to sort out: Are there dozens or hundreds? Grapes can be tough, too. My candidate for confusion is seaweed. Even with good descriptions each species can vary a lot making identification difficult. This seaweed was seen on Venice Beach. My first problem is deciding if it is a brown seaweed or a red seaweed. I went with brown but that could be wrong. It seems reasonable to call it a Sargassum and yet there are two forms and many species. Some create a floating mat, the so called free-form. Others attach to something. This was clinging to a bit of seashell. At first I thought  “Attached Sargassium” aka Sargassium hystrix. But that bothers me because “hystrix” means “bristly” or “spiny.” I could not see or feel anything on this seaweed that could be called “bristly” or “spiny” yet it looks otherwise about right. The leaves are not toothy, the bladders do not have long stems or a hook on the end like other Sargassums. And it does have irregular dark spots on the leaves. To complicate the matter most S. hystrix have white veins and others do not such as S. hystrix var. buxifolium.  I’m definitely in over my seaweed head. To read more about Sargassums go here.

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

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

This is weekly newsletter #457. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

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

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

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

Dollarweed has its stem in the middle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lactarius indigo mushrooms are difficult to misidentify.

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

No plant produces more starch per acre than cattails.

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

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

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

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

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Burnweed/Fireweed in blossom in front of cattails. Photo by Green Deane

Fireweed/Burnweed has a flavor chefs love. With an impossible scientific name and strong aroma Fireweed is often over looked by the foraging community. Conversely the aroma is also a good identifying characteristic. As with several things in life tastes vary and many people enjoy the Fireweed raw or cooked. Closely related to the Dandelion, the Fireweed locally favors the late winter or early spring. Currently you can find Fireweed from a few inches high to a couple of feet. While they do not grow in colonies often several will grow near each other. Soon the older ones will put on green-yellow blossoms that barely open, another identifying characteristic. Of course in greens young and tender is usually preferable and this is particularly true with the Fireweed which grows rank as it ages. To read about fireweed go here.

Fruit of the Latex Strangler Vine. Photo by Green Deane

Another recent find was Latex Strangler Vine. At one time a bane of the citrus industry the lengthy vine grows edible fruit that is high in vitamin C.  It’s called “Strangler” because it can cover a citrus tree shading it out and killing it. The specie was “found” twice in Florida some twenty-five years apart in the last century. The state unsuccessfully spent millions trying to get rid of it  Look for it on fences and around current or old citrus groves. Decades ago when the weather was warmer the vine was common wherever there was citrus. Cooler weather has frozen it and citrus out on the north end of the state. I have seen Latex Strangler Vine in Ocala and near Gainesville but that’s the limit. In both cases the plants were under Live Oaks and in unmowed areas. It is quite common mid-state and south. The blossoms are edible off the vine. The raw leaves can also be eaten but are usually dipped in oil first. My article on the species is here. I also have a video on the species here. 

Classes are held rain or shine or cold. (Hurricanes are an exception.)

Foraging classes: Two favorite class locations are  on tap this weekend end, Mead Garden in Winter Park and Red Bug Slough in Sarasota. 

Saturday, March 6th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Sunday, March 7th, Mead Gardens, 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789. 9 a.m. to noon. The entrance is on the west side off Denning  not the east side off Pennsylvania. Some GPS maps are wrong. Meet near the bathrooms.  

Sunday, March 14th, Wickham Park, 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park.

Saturday, March 20th, George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, FL, 34981. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet in the parking lot. 

Sunday, March 21st, Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St.,  Gainesville, FL 32641. 9 a.m to noon, meet at the pavilion by the pump house. 

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

Clover prefers low nitrogen soil.

Clover is one of those wild edibles that is both overstated and understated. The overstatement is from writers who offer it as a great human food full of this and that to keep us healthy. The understated part is that it can harbor a fungus that inhibits clotting and somewhere around a half-a-cup of raw leaves can make you throw up. Individual experience, of course, can vary and there are several different species of clover with different characteristics. Pictured here is a nice little White Clover which is blossoming now mostly in lawns and athletic fields. A few leaves can be eaten raw. They are high in protein for a leaf. The blossom fresh or quickly dried can be used for tea. There is also Crimson, Red, Sweet and even Tick Clover.

Bacopa monnieri can have four or five petals.

Before I forget it’s time to write about Bacopa again. Actually there are six Bacopas locally, two common: Water Hyssop and Lemon Bacopa. They are quite different and perhaps it takes a trained botanical eye to appreciate their similarities which strike me as few. Perhaps their greatest difference is texture. Lemon Bacopa is soft, fuzzy, and crushes easily. It smells like limes not lemons. Water Hyssop is tough and shiny, resilient. Lemon Bacopa is aromatic and fruity in flavor, Water Hyssop is just pain bitter. Water Hyssop definitely can help with memory issues, Lemon Bacopa is more iffy on that score. One does not find Lemon Bacopa too often whereas Water Hyssop is nearly everywhere the soil is wet and sunny. (There are actually five Bacopas that look like the bitter one we want but four of them are rare. The one we want, Bacopa monnieri, by far the most common, has a single crease on the back of the leaf.) I have found Lemon Bacopa only three times; two of them in the wet ruts of woods roads. There is also a lake near me that has a little growing near a boat ramp when the water level is just right. As my article speaks more towards Lemon Bacopa I will adress Water Hyssop here. It basically stimulates the brain to make new neuronal connections, specifically in the hippocampus. It is anti-inflammatory and interacts with the dopamine and serotenergic systems. As you might expect growing new memory cells enough to notice takes time. So Bacopa has to be taken daily for at least three months. I have had several people tell me it has made significant difference in their lives. It does not work on all causes of memory problems but if it does work it does so dramatically. You can read about both Bacopas here. 

Violet Photo by Green Deane

There’s a huge variety of violets in North America ranging from Wood Violets to those that like to grow down hill from the septic tank. Its cultivated brethren is the pansy. Whether wild or cultivated violets are attractive, personable blossoms, usually on the sweet, viscous side. There are a couple of precautions, however. The first is to make sure the soil they are in — either a pot or bed — is wholesome and that the water they are getting is good. If they come from a garden center they might have pesticides on them. The other precaution is a bit more esoteric: Yellow blossoms tend to have a laxative effect. We saw these violets during out foraging class in Jacksonville this past weekend. You can read about violets here. I have a video about them here.

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

Unprocessed cashews are not edible.

One of the more strange trees is the cashew. The species is closely related to poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac, edible sumac, mangos, and pistachios. The cashew itself is an exceptionally toxic tree. The cashew “seed” is actually an enclosed nut inside an enclosed shell. It is surrounded by a toxic sap. The sap is dangerous. The process of making the seed edible is dangerous. While the end product is a tasty nut it is among the least nutritious of tree seeds. Oddly the cashew “apple” is quite edible.  Before Hurricane Irma we saw them in West Palm Beach. The storm took them out. You can read more about the cashew here.

This is weekly newsletter #447, If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Loquats are starting to ripen. Photo by Green Deane

Loquats actually have a small amount of arsenic in them. Photo by Green Deane

While driving around have you seen a tree with large, dark green leaves and yellow fruit? It’s probably a Loquat which are heavy with fruit now. This past Week I picked 10 pounds of Loquats in less than an hour. That’s calorie positive. Rather than eating them outright I deseeded then dehydrated them. Like plums changed to prunes the fruit changes character but it is still tasty. I have also learned over the years at adding sulfur before drying does not stop the fruit from browning. You can dehydrate tart and sweet Loquats but you should avoid all green Loquats. Unripe fruit can be toxic especially for children. As long as the fruit is yellow to gold they are good. If you can detect any green hues the fruit is not ripe.

Year-old loquat wine. Photo by Green Deane

Loquats are not native but they have naturalized themselves and can be found throughout the region. How you eat the ripe fruit is something of a debate. I just break off the stem that holds them to the tree then eat, spitting out the seeds. You should try to not eat any seeds. An occasional seed is of no great harm but they generally are not considered edible though I have heard of folks roasting them then eating them. I do not recommend that. Some people also peel the fruit but I don’t. To dry them all I do is cut around the equator of a each fruit, take out the seeds (used later to make into Loquat Grappa.) Then dehydrate the fruit at about 130 F.  I also made loquat wine last year during COVID april. It tastes similar to a drysemi-sweet sherry. You can read more about Loquats here.

Wild Garlic/Onion puts cloves on top of the stalks. Photo by Green Deane

Now is the time to start looking for wild garlic/onions. There are seasonal weather influences. Near Gainesville by this time of year I would expect to find wild garlic with cloves. But because of low rainfall both wild garlic and chickweed were behind season. Because of seasonal variations you can find wild garlic locally from now to April or so. What is unusual about Allium canadensis is that it has an onion-like bulb, a strong garlic-scented stem, and grows garlic cloves on top of the plant. To read more about wild garlic go here.

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

Foraging Classes: Heading to a favorited site in southwest Florida this weekend, Port Charlotte at Bayshore Park along the Peace River. 

Sunday February 28th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte. 9 a.m. to noon, meet in the parking lot at Ganyard and Bayshore. 

Saturday, March 6th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Sunday, March 7th, Mead Gardens, 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789. 9 a.m. to noon. The entrance is on the west side off Denning  not the east side off Pennsylvania. Some GPS maps are wrong. Meet near the bathrooms.  

Sunday, March 14th, Wickham Park, 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park. It wasn’t chickweed as far as the eye could see, but almost. The location: Little Orange Creek Nature Park, Hawthorne, Florida. The event: The Florida Earthskills 2015 gathering. I taught two wild edible plant classes there then a separate class in Gainesville.

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

Chickweed, Stellaria media, has five deeply incised petals. Photo by Green Deane

As for seasonal edibles they are abundant: Chickweed, Pellitory, Cleavers, Wild Radishes, Wild Garlic/Onions, Hensbit, Nettles, Maypops, Oxalis, Sweet Clover, even some frost-brave Poke Weed. And can find Blackberries in bloom as well as the Eastern Redbud. Just because there might be some frost on the palm don’t think there isn’t any food foraging this time of year. It is prime season for many species that are spring and summer plants up north. They find our winters just right and the summers too hot. In Central Florida one does not find an acre of chickweed, but 150 some miles to the north it was quite abundant. Chickweed is highly seasonal and is easy to identify. The main elements we are looking for are a line of hair on the stem that changes sides at every leaf node, a stretchy inner core, five white petals that look like 10 because the are deeply incised, and it tastes like corn silk. If you want to read more about chickweed you can go here.

My step-father, me and our dog “sister” 1958. Photo by Mae L. Jordan.

My step-father built the house we lived in and the horse and hay barns next door. As the building season is short in Maine this took several years. Thus the front yard was totally ignored until my mother demanded one spring that something intentional grow there. She had grass in mind. So my step-father took several wheelbarrows of chaff from the bottom of the hay barn and spread it on what would be the lawn. Within a few weeks it grew a huge crop of Wild Mustard. The second flush was Lamb’s Quarters, also called Fat Hen.

Lamb’s Quarters is mild like spinach. Photo by Green Deane

One day not long after that a neighbor was visiting, a chicken farmer named William Gowen. As he left to walk home he ask my father if he could have a few Lamb’s Quarters. My step-father said he could. Mr. Gowen pulled up about eight five-foot high plants, hefted them over a shoulder, and happily carried them home to eat. Until then I had no idea they were edible. As Mr. Gowen was also a good gardener I am sure any Lamb’s Quarter that dared to grow in his garden also became dinner. I was reminded of him while on the way to my foraging class Sunday. Along the way I saw a lot of Lambs Quarters in several citrus groves. The name  Lamb’s Quarters has nothing to do with lambs. It was a leafy green eaten some 1300 years ago on Lammas Quarter day (August 1st) in England (some say Scotland.) Lammas came from Loaf Mass, as the day was of religious significance. A loaf from newly harvested grain was made and taken to church and blessed. It is called Fat Hen because it supposedly was good to fatten hens. “Pigweed” is a common name for many different plants.

Toxic young Butterweed can make one think of mustards. Photo By Green Deane

It’s time for another warning about Butterweed. It’s a toxic plant this time of year that’s been out for a while but seems to be flushing now. I learned it as Senecio glabellus but now some are calling it Packera glabella. This plant can put you in the hospital with serious liver damage. It is not on par with deadly mushroom but it’s down the same sickening road. There was a case in Southwest Florida just a few years ago. From a forager’s point of view it can — from a distance — resemble wild mustard or wild radish. On closer inspection it clearly is not a mustard. The blossoms are not a yellow cross and the leaves are not sandpappery. Growing in wet spots, Butterweed delivers its load of alkaloid pyrrolizidines without warning. Most alkaloids are bitter. Butterweed leaves are very mild in flavor and have a pleasing texture. Mustards do not. It’s in the Aster family which is 1) huge with some 22,000 members, and 2) plants in that family usually are not toxic.  You can read more about pyrrolizidines here. 

Bulrushes have edible roots. Photo by Green Deane

An often overlooked wild edible is Bulrush, which we saw this past weekend. This tall sedge gets second billing to the another common watery inhabitant, cattails. While there are several species of Bulrush locally the two one sees most often are Scirpus californicus and S. validus. Used like cattails, the easiest way to tell the species of Bulbrushes apart is to look at the seed tufts location and color of the seeds which introduces an important point: The experts tell us there are no toxic sedge seeds thus if you have a sedge you have a source of edible seeds. On these species the seeds are small but are easy to harvest (if you have a boat or a canoe.) To read more about Bulrushes and to identify sedges in general go here. 

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

This is weekly newsletter #446, If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Chickweed mixed in with Dollarweed, or, potassium, vitamin E and B12 for free. 

Dollarweed and Chickweed. Photo by Green Deane