Search: garlic mustard

Loquats are coming into season. Photo by Green Deane

Dehydrating loquats. They preserve well. Photo by Green Deane

I’ve been scrounging loquats this past week though the proper verb is “scrumping” (liberating fruit from others by picking it.)  They are just beginning to ripen, so there is an occasional sour one. Evidence we are not a hungry country… yet.)  Over the next few weeks they will sweeten and litter the ground. Loquats are among the fruits that are still quite tasty after dehydration (mulberries are not.)  Just as a plum becomes a prune, Loquat turn into something different but still quite edible. We should hold a contest for the most suitable name for a dried loquat… a Lune? Anyway, I cut them around the equator, take the seeds, then set them in the dehydrator. They take a day or two to dry. I store them in paper bags, some time in the refrigerator, sometimes not. A bounty of fruit is about to ripen, get your share and prepare for the future. Speaking of said…

$124 rib roast.

The summer before COVID a local supermarket had a Buy-One-Get-One-Free sale every week on large roasts of beef or pork. I stuffed my freezer with them. When COVID broke the BOGOs disappeared and have not returned. Indeed, if anything they have raised the price on roasts. See photo left, which is a 7.5 pound ribeye roast for only $123.84 (unless you join their shopping program, then it is $45.) My parents fed three humans, half a dozen cats, a multitude of dogs, five horses, chickens, ducks, rabbits and an occasional pet squirrel for less than $123 a month.  Needless to say there are no roasts still in my freezer.  It seems there was plenty of beef two years ago but not enough workers to process or transport it from point A to Z. Just like COVID the virus of war in eastern Europe could disrupt food supplies. Energy prices will surely go up and that effects the delivery and cost of everything. My grandparents went through the first flu epidemic, two world wars and the great depression in between. My mother was a teenager during the depression thus… The house I grew up in and where my mother lived for more than 60 years always had a stash of food and water. We didn’t have wars or hurricanes in Maine but often we were snowed in for several days following a nor’easter. Everybody laid in extra wood and food and expected to be housebound.  If you had a heart attack when the roads were closed — like our neighbor did — or gave birth you were on your own. Nothing moved, which was the same way in Florida was after Hurricane Frances. I’ve been through five hurricanes that made destructive landfall. What I learned from Franny was you can never have enough drinking water on hand (back home there was plenty of snow to melt.) Of course the question is what if the regional war on the other side of the world goes global? Closet supplies don’t last forever. 

The root of the winged yam. Photo by Green Deane

By far the biggest caloric payoff regarding plants locally is the Winged Yam, Dioscorea alata (the little-known relative of the invasive Air Potato.) It is our largest provider of calories in for calories out (which means finding it and digging it up.) After boiling like a potato it is used like a potato. It’s flavorful and nutritious with a silkier texture than a potato which can be granular. Think of it as a free bag of potatoes. They are easy to find from May to December. The vine dies back as the days grow short. It comes back up sometime in April. It’s relative, the one we don’t eat, tends to comes up first in March depending on the weather. Then the edible one in April. You can find the edible yams this time of year if you know where they grow.  You locate their dried, broken off vines hanging from low tree branches. That can give you a hint as to there they are below the vine. The top of the root is near the surface and is kind of like a tent stake at ground level fully driven in. If you clear the ground with your hands (wear gloves) you can find them even when out of season.  I have an article on finding caloric staples and one on wild flours. If you’re interested in eating bugs…  

You can eat roadkill deer even out of season. Photo by Green Deane

As you might presume I don’t have a hard time finding food. That said what I also cart home regularly is road kill, mostly possoms, squirrels, raccoons, armadillo and an occasional duck. Consider it recycling. I’ve passed up a couple of alligators ’cause they would not easily fit in my small Miata and because you need to have a permit to have alligator in your possession, even road kill. That is not the case with deer. (See state reply at bottom.)  If the deer is road kill — meaning it definitely died by accident not intentional hunting — you can take it home but the expectation is that you will first contact authorities. That way you have verified the road kill and won’t get in further trouble if a nosey good samaritan reports you.  What I can tell you about road kill is your nose with tell you if it is good or not. (As I am usually traveling in the early morning most of the run overs are quite fresh.) Squirrels clean better if soaked in water first, possums smell bad when cleaning but taste good cooked (I wear a swimmer’s nose plug while cleaning them.) Wear gloves and a mask while cleaning an armadillo — any one got a mask? — then parboil it before cooking with the meat. Be scrupulously clean when working with armadillos. Called Hoover Hogs they were a mainstay during the Depression. There has been one report of one person getting one case of leprosy from a live armadillo in Florida. Be clean. And you can get poison ivy from duck feathers or other wild animals. Only humans, some monkeys and guinea pigs get poison ivy. As I got poison ivy from a duck I do wear disposable gloves now when cleaning road kill.  And when inspecting road kill watch out for traffic. A woman died last November 6th at 2:30 a.m. in east Orlando when she stopped her car in the road to check on a deer that had been hit. Neither lived.    

And what of prescriptions?  I am not a doctor nor an herbalist but willow tips can stand in for aspirin, Biden alba leaves make an anti-inflammatory tea, Sida is good for congestion, wilted sweet clover can reduce clotting. Two generic books that address plants and their application to common illnesses are Medicinal Plants by Foster and Duke, and the Green Pharmacy by James Duke. Not local but handy to have in your library or backpack. A local herbalist would have the most relevant information for your plants and problems. James Duke was a botanist for the Department of Agriculture and an advocate of “natural” medicine. He died in December 2017, age 88.

Ringless Honey Mushrooms in late February.

Ringless Honey Mushrooms are well-known for flushing in the fall. Locally that is usually the first or second week in November, in the Carolinas that’s the end of August and early September. Then in some years, depending upon the weather, they will have a minor flush in April. It looks like they are early this year with this photo taken at the end of February. They are growing on the roots of trees blown down by Hurricane Frances in 2004. I also saw some two weeks ago in central Florida and West Palm Beach. It’s a controversial mushroom with some experts considering it choice, others not edible. Ringless Honey can cause some folks digestive upset. I have an article here and a video. 

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

Foraging Classes: Doing a make up class at John Chestnut this Saturday and then back to Mead Gardens this Sunday.

Saturday March 5th,  John Chestnut County Park: 2200 East Lake Road, Palm Harbor, FL 34685. Meet at the trail head of the Peggy Park Nature Walk, pavilion 1 parking lot. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Sunday March 6th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  Meet at the bathrooms. 9 a.m. to noon. 

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, such as the one to the left. 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: California Wild Mushroom Parties, A Good Reason To Eat Wild Garlic, Black Walnuts and Amaranth, Sea Salt and Plastic, Wild Mustard? Heavy Metals. Oriental Persimmons. What is it? Pine Cough Drops and Needles, Skullcap, Malodorous Plant? Another NJ Tree, Maypop? Roadside Plant, Unknown in Sudan, Please Help Identify, and Preserving Prickly Pear Bounty. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

This is my weekly newsletter #497. 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.

 02/27/2007
Thank you for contacting the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). When it comes to a road kill deer, there is no specific statue or administrative code to address it. FWC has historically allowed the driver of the vehicle that strikes the deer to keep the carcass regardless of season or possession of a hunting license. Usually such incidents are documented by either the FWC, a county sheriff, or the Florida Highway Patrol who provide an accident report for the vehicle’s insurance company.

Your question sounds like you are referring to a deer that has been struck and killed, but not by the vehicle YOU are driving. If you happen along a road kill carcass and would like to take the deer for the meat, that would also be legal. Provided that there is absolutely no question that the deer was indeed the victim of an automobile strike. The best course of action would be to contact the FWC wildlife hotline and explain the situation so that an incident could be created to document the case. This would ensure that if you were stopped by a law enforcement officer or reported by a member of the public for “possession of deer out of season” that you would be able to prove that you indeed had a road kill carcass.

The number you would need to call would be 1-800-404-FWCC (3922).

Osmanthus americanus and fruit, also called Devilwood. Photo by Green Deane

Mistakes can be fruitful. Several years ago I notice what appeared to be some kind of wild olive — Forestiera ligustrina, with round fruit — at Spruce Creek south of Port Orange. In fact there were several of them in one area. I didn’t study them, I just noticed they were there. (My personality is to not rush into new plants or mushrooms.) Then a few years later at Eagle Lake in Largo there was a planted “Florida Privet” — Forestiera segregata — heavy with  fruit. It looked similar to the first though everything overall was smaller. However “Forestiera” and wild olive was linked in my mind. 

The Forestiera in Eagle Lake had small, pointed oval fruit. I could not find any references on edibility. It has a relative, however, F. neomexicana, the Desert Olive, whose fruit were “used like olives.”  This made me take a second closer look at the trees in Spruce Creek as the fruit were larger. My blindere was being stuck to the Forestiera genus and I didn’t look at other genera in the wild olive family. After studying the leaves and their arrangement the trees in Spruce Creek they were actually Osmanthus americanus, a different and edible wild olive called Devilwood.  

Osmanthus americanus fruit after brining. Photo by Green Deane

The main problem with these wild olives is they are bitter (so much so they were used only for making ink or a mixed with clay for body paint.  As I also had seen someone eat them I brined a few hoping to remove their bitterness. It worked. They do taste like olives but the layer of pulp is paper thin. I brined them in a 10% solution that I changed once a week for a month. I also kept them submerged in the brine as one does when one lacto-ferments. Even though the pay off is small, adding another edible to the list is good. And as there is plenty of salt I don’t think making them edible is a difficult chore. Besides edible fruit the blossoms can be used to flavor or scent tea. I think they are too skimpy to collect any oil from plus that might concentrate some unwanted lipid compounds. The other headache is while I have published sources that say the wild olives are edible the internet says no. Some natives reportedly used F. segretata berries as an emetic ( I doubt they brined them.) 

Rorippa palustris, Bog Yellow Cress

All mustards are edible, no matter where you are on earth, no matter what the species. And for several years I’ve seen a mustard that was like many others, not too distinguished but definitely in the mustard family. Several times I have wondered if it was a Sibara, a Erucastrum, or one of many the cresses that show up in our winter. This week a possible answer was provided while at Eagle Lake: A Cress, genus Rorippa, R. palustris, the Bog Yellow Cress and closely related to Sibara. There are ten Rorippa in Florida and four versions of the palustris (good luck sorting them out.) I haver found them near fresh water, not in it, but in places where rainwater can stand.

Aspargus densiflorus, are the fruit edible?

Perhaps it was a week for discovery. I have seen someone eat the red fruit of the ornamental Asparagus Fern prompting me to hit the library (I don’t hit the internet because most sites cut and paste copy each other. You can read the exact same entry on multiple sites. Books in the library tend to not copy each other.) There are, officially, six Asparagus in Florida: A. aethiopicus, A. densiflorus, A. officianlis, A. plumosus, A. setaceus, and A. sprengeri.   A. officinalis is the garden Asparagus so we know that is edible and has escaped from cultivation here and there. Other known edible species include A. aphyllus (cooked bitter shoots) and A. cochinchinensis (fruits and roots after the roots are preserved in sugar… bitter I suppose.) All of the species are in the lily family which makes them deadly to cats and perhaps toxic to dogs and horses, too.  Several sources agree the red Asparagus fruit is not too toxic and the sap can irritate the skin some. Several of the species are thorny and can cause dermatitis. There are many Asparagus mentioned in the Journal of Economic Botany but none of ours are covered. Francois Couplan, author of The Encyclopedia of Edible Plants of North America, says while the seeds in the red fruit can be used as a coffee substitute the red fruit” are rich in saponins and can cause digestive trouble and hemolysis.” (Hemolysis is rupturing red blood cells, a common problem with many wild peas and why they are either not edible or only used as a famine food, that is, for a short duration.) He writes the roots of several European species of asparagus are eaten raw or cooked.  Australia does not consider A. densiflorus toxic. I would not have explored the plant except I know someone who ate some fruit and did not appear to experience any acute issues. Maybe they are a trailside nibble. 

The large blossoms of the African Tulip Tree, a monotypic genus. Photo by Green Deane

Fourth on the discovery list this week was the African Tulip Tree, which was right next to the Coralwood Tree in Dreher Park, west Palm Beach. It was blossoming heavily thus drew notice. Like several species perhaps the edibility is slight but it is inside that realm. Cornucopia II says on page 49: “The flower buds contain a sweet, water liquid that is considered tonic. Winged seeds are said to be edible.* Pharmaceutical research on the species reports that “Spathodea campanulata is traditionally used in the treatment of various disorders. The bark pulp is used in oedemas, skin diseases like herpes and sores. In Gabon, the crushed bark and flowers have been applied to ulcers. The cold leaf infusion is used to treat urethral inflammation and bark decoction has been reported to be used to treat kidney disorders. In Senegal, the bruised leaves and flowers are used in wound treatment and ulcers. The flowers are employed as diuretic and anti-inflammatory, while the leaves are used against kidney disease, urethra inflammation and as an antidote against animal poisons. Also, the leaf decoction has been used for the treatment of gonorrhoea and women‘s pelvic disorders. In Ghana, the bark infusion is used for the treatment of dysentery and stomach ache.” And the flower buds can be used by kids like a water pistol: Just squeeze them.

Incidentally, the next entry in Cornucopia II after the African tulip Tree is the Pink Trumpet Tree, Tabebuia impetigonosa of which there are many locally. The inner bark is brewed into a tonic tea that was favored by Ghandi and Czar Nicholas II of Russia. *Curiously most of the plants I am interested in are in the first 170 pages of Cornucopia II. I rarely ever have a reason to look at anything in the next 705 pages. Thus my copy is falling apart at page 170.

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

Foraging Classes: Braving the cold weather of Jacksonville this weekend with a class on the northeast side of the city in Atlantic Beach. Then Sunday then back to a favorite location, Mead Garden in Winter Park.

Saturday February 26th, Tide Views Preserve, 1 Begonia Street, Atlantic Beach Fl 32233 (near Jacksonville Fl.) 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the parking lot. 

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

Saturday March 5th,  John Chestnut County Park: 2200 East Lake Road, Palm Harbor, FL 34685. Meet at the trail head of the Peggy Park Nature Walk, pavilion 1 parking lot. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Sunday March 6th, 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

Silverthorn berries ripen in about Valentine’s Day. Photo by Green Deane

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

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

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

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, such as the one to the left. 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: California Wild Mushroom Parties, A Good Reason To Eat Wild Garlic, Black Walnuts and Amaranth, Sea Salt and Plastic, Wild Mustard? Heavy Metals. Oriental Persimmons. What is it? Pine Cough Drops and Needles, Skullcap, Malodorous Plant? Another NJ Tree, Maypop? Roadside Plant, Unknown in Sudan, Please Help Identify, and Preserving Prickly Pear Bounty. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

This is my weekly newsletter #496. 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.

A sweet Goji berry and Ramalina, a lichen — also edible  — at Spruce Creek. Photo by Green Deane

Dandelions are edible but uncommon here. Photo by Green Deane

As you can see above there was one Goji berry still hanging on late Saturday. While called the Christmasberry it can be in fruit until April. We also saw drying fruit on a Foresteria and blueberries in blossom. They’ll ripen into berries about April. (April is the big month locally. Most the plants that fruit do so about April… the aforementioned and blackberries, cherries, wild onions, loquats et cetera.) Also worth mentioning were some plump Smilax berries we saw. They taste best when they look like raisins. I take black plump ones home then dehydrate them. At Eagle Lake Park in Largo the stinging nettles were more than a foot high, which is maximum height for our local variety, Urtica chamaedryoides. It has a horrible sting. The hollies are fruiting non-edibe berries and we saw a dandelion, rare for Florida. They like acidic soil and cool weather. Florida is a hot limestone plate. So we see them here and there mostly during the cooler months. 

Fumaria is not edible but is often found at the same time and place as Stork’s Bill and Cranesbill.

Also found this time of year are wild geraniums, usually Cranesbill or Stork’s Bill. (Why one is one word and the other two-words possessive is unknown.)  Botanically they are Geranium carolinianum and Erodium circutarium.  Neither is great foraging. In fact both are more medicinal than edible but they seem to get mention in a variety of foraging books. The problem is they can be extremely bitter. You might be able to toss a little bit of both in a salad or make a tea from the leaves but that’s about the extent of it. If you have what you think is a Cranesbill or a Stork’s Bill but it has more of a bottle brush blossom than five petal you might have the non-edible Fumaria, see photo left. It comes up this time of year and from a distance the leaves can remind one of the wild geraniums. They like to grow in the same location and have pink or white blossoms. I’ve never found a reference to this but some people have told me they also eat roots of the geraniums. To read more about the “bills”  go here. 

Brookweed in Spruce Creek Park.

You probably heard the old saying:  “A man with a hammer sees nails everywhere.” That is relevant to foraging. Once you learn what a particular plant looks like you will see it more often. That’s what’s happened with me and Samolus valerandi. Brookweed.  I first noticed in Jacksonville a couple of years ago. Then perhaps half a year later in Sarasota. A year after that I noticed it in Palm Harbor and Sunday in Port Orange. It likes to be near fresh water, can tolerate some brackish water and is a small plant with a naked flower/seed spike. Fortunately its flowering arrangement makes it easy to identify. Not much is written about the species, few published books cover it. Mild young leaves are edible raw and are high in vitamin C. That was important when scurvy was a common problem (which is making a comeback in some cities.) Persimmon leaves also have high amounts of vitamin C as dose Firebush berries.  Brookweed has a bit more history of use in Europe. Usually young and tender leaves are what’s eaten, older leaves turn bitter. You can read about Brookweed here. 

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

Foraging Classes: My out-of-town class this weekend is West Palm Beach, always an interesting sub-tropical walk. Looks like the weather will be good that class and for the Sunday’s class in east Orlando, 

Saturday February 19th,  Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. 9 a.m. to noon, meet just north of the science center. 

Sunday February 20th,  Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the pavilion next to (east of) the tennis courts.

Saturday February 26th, Tide Views Preserve, 1 Begonia Street, Atlantic Beach Fl 32233 (near Jacksonville Fl.) 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the parking lot. 

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

Saturday March 5th,  John Chestnut County Park: 2200 East Lake Road, Palm Harbor, FL 34685. Meet at the trail head of the Peggy Park Nature Walk, pavilion 1 parking lot. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Sunday March 6th, 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

The Blewit’s violet color quickly fades. Photo by Green Deane

It was with great joy that I found this “choice” wild mushroom eight years ago at Boulware Springs. It’s a Blewit, or Lepista nuda. At first glance it looked like the plastic top of some discarded can under a vine but upon investigation it was a large, beautiful mushroom. At the time I took it to the EarthSkills gathering which then was in Hawthorn Florida, some 20 miles south of Gainesville. I taught on site the day before and there were several mushroom experts in attendance. That was my first mistake. I thought I was safe there. Was I wrong. Have you ever been mugged for a mushroom? There were many offers to take it off my hands but it went home with me and into me. After years of finding non- or barely-edible mushrooms it was my turn to discover a choice one. I revisit that location every year in mid-February, Blewit’s best season locally, and the coldest. Boulware Springs is also where I find Black Trumpet mushrooms beside trails under hickories when chanterelles are also out. 

Wild Garlic will be cloving soon.

In Largo Sunday we visited my favorite place for Wild Garlic. A native that is about nine inches high now but will be blossoming in a few weeks. What makes this Allium curious is that it puts a bulb on at the bottom end — like a pearl onion — and garlic cloves at the top end. This particular species is very pungent. It’s great for cooking or as a trailside nibble as long as you don’t mind strong garlic breath. Before it blossoms the entire plant can be used to make a very nice soup. Oddly there’s no extant record of southeastern natives using the plant and only three peoples had names for it, the Alabama, Chickasaw, and Muskogee. I call it good. I also spread the cloves around in damp spots. They start growing in late December or early January.

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out and replaced by a 171-video USB. 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 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. 

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, such as the one to the left. 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: California Wild Mushroom Parties, A Good Reason To Eat Wild Garlic, Black Walnuts and Amaranth, Sea Salt and Plastic, Wild Mustard? Heavy Metals. Oriental Persimmons. What is it? Pine Cough Drops and Needles, Skullcap, Malodorous Plant? Another NJ Tree, Maypop? Roadside Plant, Unknown in Sudan, Please Help Identify, and Preserving Prickly Pear Bounty. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

Spurge nettle root, photo by Green Deane

A young mother wrote to me asking how to get rid of the spurge nettle, Cnidoscolus stimulosus. She said she had a couple of acres and the plants were all over the place, bothering her children and her dog.  I wrote back saying “lucky you. The roots are quite delicious, eat them.” She wrote back saying that I did not understand her. She wasn’t interested in eating them: She wants to get rid of them. I replied that I had two good students living very near her who would love to visit her property on a regular basis and dig them up. I added that she could mow the area constantly and in a few years the roots will become exhausted and the plants will die off.

The exchange led me to wonder what was missing? Or better still, what is, as they used to say, the operant factor? That factor is for most people food comes from a quick stop shop or a grocery store. most people don’t cook any more let alone forage or raise food.  In that way of thinking food does not come out of the ground in your suburban back yard. Even gardeners are viewed as a throwback and a tad eccentric. Here is someone who has a replenishing pantry of a staple crop that must be gotten rid of. Those spurge nettle roots easily could represent hundreds of pounds of wholesome, tasty,  food most of the year that does not have to be purchased or stored. Perhaps it’s time to consider a different approach: Train the dog and kids to stay away from the plants,the stinging plant is doing its best but it’s not enough.  To read about the spurge nettle go here.

On a personal note: I am still trying to find a place to rent or buy in southwest Florida. I have a line on something in central Florida but I’d like to have an alternative. Can be a fixer-upper 50 miles from the coast as long as it is zoned agricultural. If you know of place or anyone please contact me: GreenDeane@gmail.com

This is my weekly newsletter #495. 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.

BROOKSVILLE FL: How do you find plum tress? This time of year it is easy. They are heavy with blossoms and no or few leaves. Photo by Green Deane

Beginning the brining.

There are can be many reasons why an edible wild plant is not eaten. Often they were replaced by a better cultivated crop, or they were eaten in other parts of the world but not locally. Sometimes one group ate it but their rivals did not, or one group only the seeds and another group only the roots. And sometimes the information was not shared leaving the plant in modern foraging limbo. Foresteria are in the olive family. As far as I know locals only used the fruit of one, F legustrina,  and then to make ink. The fruit is bitter, but so, too, is the common olive without brining. Two Foresteria, F. neo-mexicana and F. pubescens var. pubescens, were eaten raw. Thus I did an experimental brining F. legustrina fruit (the southern privit. A close relative I’d also like to try is F. segregata, often used in landscaping. It has a lot of small fruit in clusters along the stems.) 

After brining a month.

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

Bunya Bunya tree east Tarpon Springs, Fl.

One of the more sought after trees for the forager is the Bunya Bunya. Like it’s relatives it is an easy tree to spot: Tall, oddly shaped, and dropping edible 20 pound pine cones. There is no one place to find them though parks are a good place to start. Someone had to plant them half a century ago or more. They do fruit here in Florida, about every three years around August. A friend of mine planted one in his back yard in the 60’s and there are some scattered here and there in greater Orlando (they also like the gulf coast and Pacific shore along western United States.) This particular tree is just west of 3280 Keystone Rd, Tarpon Springs, FL 34688, which is East Lake Fire Rescue Station 58. That might tell us two things: One is if you are harvesting cones someone from the fire station might ask what you are doing (answer: keeping a non-native species from becoming invasive) and, they also might have noticed when the tree last dropped cones. They start fruiting around 15 years old. You can read my article about them here, and a video here. 

They look flimsy but they are tender and tasty: Drake Elm Leaves. Photo by Green Deane

Young and tender describes them best: Elm leaves we nibbled during our foraging class in Sunday. As far as I know all elm leaves are edible except one that grows in Manchuria, Ulmus propinqua. As the Dutch Elm Disease wiped out most elms in North American the most common elms now are the planted Lacebark Elm and it’s cousin the Siberian Elm. Florida’s elms escaped the disease and can be found often in river plains and other damp locations. The leaves have calcium, manganese, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, zinc, beta-carotene, vitamin C, and some B vitamins. They also have harder things to say such as D-galactose acid, D-galacturonic acid, L-rhamnose acid, Oleic acid, Palmitic acid, Polyphenols, Tannin, and oligomeric procyanidins (the latter have antiseptic and anti-allergic action.) For more information on elms go here or for a video here. 

Blossoms of the Eastern Red Bud. Photo by Green Deane

Most trees in the Pea Family are toxic but not all of them. One of the edible ones is blossoming now: The Eastern Redbud. The lanky tree is very easy to spot this time of year because it has small pink blossoms and few leaves. Those small flowers — about the size of your fingernail — are important because there’s an ornamental tree with pink flowers also blossoming now that is not edible, the Pink Tabebuia. The Pink Tabebuia, however, has large blossoms about the same size as an Azalea blossom. The Eastern Redbud provides quite a few edibles: Tiny blossoms, young leaves, and pea pods. The Pink Tabebuia, T. heterophylla, does not have edible parts nor does two of its relatives, the Yellow Tabebuia, T. chrysotricha, and the Silver Trumpet Tree, T. caraiba. However, a fourth one in Florida, T. impetiginosa, or Purple Trumpet Tree, has seen its inner bark used as an herbal tea. Among those who have sipped and liked the tea are Ghandi and Czar Nicholas II of Russia. You can read more about the Eastern Red Bud here, video here. 

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

Foraging classes: Crossing the state this weekend for foraging classes, Spruce Creek in Port Orange south of Daytona Beach and Eagle Lake Park in Largo, north of St. Pete. 

Saturday February 12th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, 9 a.m. to noon, meet at the pavilion.

Sunday February 13th,  Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park. 

Saturday February 19th,  Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. 9 a.m. to noon, meet just north of the science center. 

Sunday February 20th,  Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the pavilion next to (east of) the tennis courts.

Saturday February 26th, Tide Views Preserve, 1 Begonia Street, Atlantic Beach Fl 32233 (near Jacksonville Fl.) 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the parking lot. 

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

Saturday March 5th,  John Chestnut County Park: 2200 East Lake Road, Palm Harbor, FL 34685. Meet at the trail head of the Peggy Park Nature Walk, pavilion 1 parking lot. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Sunday March 6th, 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 

Coquina are tasty but quite small.

Sometime instead finding answers they find you. As you know there are several articles on the EatTheWeeds website that are about edibles covered by the subtitle: And other things, too. That subtitle was intentionally added when the site went up some 20 years ago. There are a lot of things in the world to eat. Before Andrew Zimmern was traipsing around the globe for the Travel Channel eating untraditional food EatTheWeeds was writing about them. As one might expect that has caused a good amount of disagreeing mail. Many people keep as pets creatures that other people eat. Thus far, however, no one has complained about Coquina, a coastal clam that’s about the size of your fingernail. The tiny clams make an absolutely delicious green broth that I like to add — I know it’s sacrilege —  instant potatoes and butter to. One of the down sides is that the clams are so small getting the meat out of the shell is microscopic work. That is so frustrating as most of it is tossed away. However in Australia they figured out a commercial way of separating meat and shell. How that was done was something of a mystery until a post on the Green Deane Forum provided an answer. The cooked shells are vigorously stired. After that it is a matter of straining the shells from the meat. I’ve got to try that. You can read about Coquina here, and the crunchy Mole Crabs, here. A video on both of them is here. 

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out and replaced by a 171-video USB. 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 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. 

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, such as the one to the left. 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: California Wild Mushroom Parties, A Good Reason To Eat Wild Garlic, Black Walnuts and Amaranth, Sea Salt and Plastic, Wild Mustard? Heavy Metals. Oriental Persimmons. What is it? Pine Cough Drops and Needles, Skullcap, Malodorous Plant? Another NJ Tree, Maypop? Roadside Plant, Unknown in Sudan, Please Help Identify, and Preserving Prickly Pear Bounty. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

Florida lettuce blossom.

I got distracted and did not give a thorough answer: Did I know where to find wild garlic? Yes and if you know what it looks like and where it likes to grow you can find it now. However it is more showy in April and easier to find. Then a refinement of the inquiry changed the plant to “wild opium lettuce.” That species — Lactuca virosa — is an internet darling that is common in Europe and rare in the Americas. In the U.S. I think it is reported in only six counties: Two in Alabama, two near Washington D.C. and two about San Francisco. The bad news is research as far back as the 1930’s showed it is not an opium substitute having only minor effects. It is so good as an opium substitute that it is not illegal anywhere. Ponder that. Unfortunately the book that was being referenced misnamed the plant as well mentioning one that does grow here. There are four lettuces locally, all edible, none recreational. You can read about them here. 

This is my weekly newsletter #494. 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. Every typo and misspelling is totally mine.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Ice Plant is native to South Africa.

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

Enteromorpha some times called Ulva. Photo by Green Deane

The tide was quite low at Port Charlotte so we got to see some sea lettuce, Ulva lactuca, (bottom right) looking like green plastic wrap. Sold commercially it’s one of the more tasty local sea weeds (or as they are called now sea vegetables.) Sea Lettuce is more commonly found after a steady onshore sea breeze. Free floating it starts out attached to a shell or rock. If you find lots of a sea lettuce-like plant  but it’s stringy, not wrapper-like, that is the  Enteromorpha version (photo left). The second thing you might notice about the Enterophrphas besides looking stringy is they are a similar bright light green as the Ulva. Some taxonomists have given up and call them all Ulva or all Enteromorpha. Enteromorpha in Dead Latin mangled from Greek literally means intestine-shaped, Ulva means sedge in Dead Latine or wolf in Gaelic (sometimes a girl’s name.) Both groups are also called Green Nori.  What is native, what is not,  and what are their ranges is officially “unclear.” They can also be found inland at salty springs and also the Great Lakes. As far as I know all Ulva and Enterophorpha are edible. The various Enteromorpha species are E. intestinalis, E. clathrata, E. flexuosa, E. compressa, E. linza, and E. prolifera. Like Ulva, they are edible raw, cooked or preserved. In fact a restaurant at Port Canaveral used to see a Sea Lettuce salad. 

Sea Lettuce is perhaps the best of our local seaweeds.

Since most seaweed is edible, and nutritious, why isn’t it consumed more often? Taste and texture. I’ve collected Sargassum and prepared it many ways. Semi-drying and frying isn’t too bad but Bladderwrack is better, Sea Lettuce better still. Sea Lettuce is about the best in the Americas. Not surprisingly most land animals including birds don’t like seaweed. However, it does make good mulch and fertilizer. So while one may not use it directly in the diet it can still help sustain you with uses in the garden. During Victorian times it was highly used in English agriculture. Here are some of my articles on seaweed: Bladderwrack,  Caulpera,  Codium,   Gracilaria,   Sargassum,  Sea Lettuce, and Tape Seagrass.

Foragers benefit from bad ideas. One of those is taking plants from one place on earth to another. We harvest and eat a lot of local plants that came from somewhere else. One of them is so far from home that it fruits in February.

Silverthorn berries are ripening now.

The Silverthorn is native to Southeast Asia. It came to North America as an ornamental about 200 years ago. Early botanists were sure it would not become an invasive pest because they said the fruit were not nutritious for birds. Thus, the birds would not eat them and spread the seeds around. The problem is no one told the birds that (and if birds did not spread the seeds around in Asia, what did?)  In some areas the Silverthorn is an invasive species and forbidden. In other areas it is still sold as an ornamental. We call it tasty and we has some almost ripe ones Sunday in Sarasota.

Silverthorn fruits ripen about Valentine’s Day, give or take a week or two.  The bush hides the blossoms and they are a bit strange looking, if not futuristic. The four-petaled speckled blossom turns into a red jelly bean-like fruit with gold and silver speckles. They are bitter and or sour until ripe. The shelled seed is also edible. Altogether the fruit is high in vitamin C, lycopene, and Omega 3 fatty acids. And that is a tasty treat in the middle of winter even up into north Georgia. To read more about the Silverthorn go here.

Unidentified shrub with what appears fruit turned into galls. Photo by Green Deane

There are at the least two ways to look at plants: As a whole comprising of parts, or, parts that comprise a whole. This is not a riddle or a paradox. Beginners tend to see whole plants not their parts and experienced foragers tend to see parts that either do or do not make the whole. Beginners will make such mistakes as identifying Florida Pursley for Chickweed because they have a similar shape even though they are very different in size and hairiness. Similar confusion happen with Oakleaf Flea Bane and Plantagos — both have stem threads — Elderberries and Water Hemlock because of similar leaves and blossoms and environment preference. Experience foragers see a whole comprised of parts and it all works or it does not. If a plant were a jigsaw puzzle beginners see the general shape and notice there is a picture. Experience folks see the pieces, the picture in detail and the shape that then make a whole. When you’re used to looking at plants it can sometimes look right but something is naggingly wrong (usually one of the parts, so always be sensitive to that little doubt.) This shrub to th right — still unidentified by me — resembles a Marlberry but… the arrangement and low amount of fruit is wrong (according to Marlberries I have seen.) And the taste of the black fruit was surprisingly palatable whereas marlberries are usually barely edible. The whole of the shrub is suggests Marlberry, the parts do not. Also the fruit seems to become galled and the seed disappears. So it’s still on the “I don’t know list” though it is nursery-raised and I would thus presume probably a native as it was intentionally planted in a park. I’d suggest a Foresteria but it’s fruit is bitter and this is sweet. In foraging “close” is not good enough. 

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

Foraging Classes: Classes this week are in Winter Park, north of Orlando, and John Chestnut Park, not far from Tarpon Springs  

Saturday February 5th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  Meet at the bathrooms. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Sunday February 6th,  John Chestnut County Park: 2200 East Lake Road, Palm Harbor, FL 34685. Meet at the trail head of the Peggy Park Nature Walk, pavilion 1 parking lot. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Saturday February 12th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, 9 a.m. to noon, meet at the pavilion.

Sunday February 13th,  Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park. 

Saturday February 19th,  Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. 9 a.m. to noon, meet just north of the science center. 

Sunday February 20th,  Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the pavilion next to (east of) the tennis courts.

Saturday February 26th, Tide Views Preserve, 1 Begonia Street, Atlantic Beach Fl 32233 (near Jacksonville Fl.) 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the parking lot. 

Sunday February 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

If you look across local lakes now you will see garnet red splotches on the horizon. Those are maples putting on new leaves. Are maple leaves edible? Yes and seeds, too. Are they prime foraging food? Opinions vary. The delicate samaras (see right) happen to be red but they can also be green. Later the auto-rotating wings will turn brown. Locally the trees are so heavy with seeds they appear red from a distance. As for eating them what you need to do is taste them first. If they are not bitter you can tear off the wings and eat them raw though some folks eat the soft wings as well. If they are bitter they need to be cooked in boiling water, cooled, then tasted. They should be less bitter. You may have to boil them again. Non-bitter seeds can also be roasted or sun-dried. Some Native Americans sprouted the seeds for a treat. I do not know of any toxic maple seeds to humans but red maple (Acer rubrum) leaves and seeds are toxic to horses. That said I do recall we had two red maple intentionally planted in the barnyard. My step-father liked the looks of them. Our horses — definitely leaves eaters — left them alone. To read more about maples go here.

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out and replaced by a 171-video USB. 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 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. 

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, such as the one to the left. 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: California Wild Mushroom Parties, A Good Reason To Eat Wild Garlic, Black Walnuts and Amaranth, Sea Salt and Plastic, Wild Mustard? Heavy Metals. Oriental Persimmons. What is it? Pine Cough Drops and Needles, Skullcap, Malodorous Plant? Another NJ Tree, Maypop? Roadside Plant, Unknown in Sudan, Please Help Identify, and Preserving Prickly Pear Bounty. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

Jabuticaba fruit grows on the trunk and limbs of the tree.

In its native Brazil the Jabuticaba is by far the most popular fruit. The Dutch knew about it in 1658. Jabuticaba made it to California by 1904. It’s a common ornamental and there are many “cultivars:” Sabara, Paulista, Rajada, Branca, Ponhema, Rujada, Roxa, Sao Paulo, Coroa, Murta, and Mineira. Per 100 grams Plinia cauliflora fruit has 45.7 calories, 0.11 grams of protein, 0.08 grams of fiber, 0.01 grams of fat and 12.58 gams of carbohydrates. Vitamin A is absent but it has 22.7 mg of vitamin C which is about a third of your daily need. The B vitamins are B1 (thiamin) 0.02 mg, B2 (riboflavin) 0;02 mg, and B3 (niacin) 0.21 mg. Two minerals are reported: Calcium 6.3 mg and phosphorus 9.2 mg. It is also called Myrciaria cauliflora.

It’s a short tree planted in warm areas of North American and a common ornamental in Florida and the Gulf Coast. One is reported to sustain an 18F freeze and continued to thrive and fruit. Jabuticaba means “like turtle fat” referring to the fruit pulp, or, it means “tortoise place.” Take your pick. Myrciaria is from the Greek myrike (μυρίκη) which was the  Greek name for the “tamarisk” a tree that is aromatic. In English it becomes Myrtle. Cauliflora means cauliflower-like. Plinia is Dead Latin for filled, full, rich, whole, perfect, well-equipped. You might remember from history Pliny the Elder and Younger. 

This is my weekly newsletter #493. 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.

Dwarf Plantain, one of several Plantagos found locally. Photo by Green Deane

Plantago rugulii is a large local plantago. Photo by Green Deane

There are Plantains that look like tough bananas and there are Plantains that are low and leafy plants. They are not related. Just two different groups with the same common name. Low-growing Plantains can be native or non-native. The one pictured above is native, the Dwarf Plantain. As a genus the plants are well-known. The leaves are edible raw when young. As they age they become more bitter and stringy. Cooking makes them palatable up to a point. Then they move into the astringent medical realm. As such they are used on bites, stings and to help puncture wounds heal. The seeds are edible once produced and are the source of the commercial dietary fiber, psyllium. When finely ground and flavored the seeds are sold under the brand name Metamucil. There are numerous species of Plantagos (Plantains) with at least four common locally, P. virginiana, P. major, P. lanceolata and P. rugelii the latter which strongly resembles P. major. They are all used the same way. (P. rugelii is pink at the base of the stem.)

Oakleaf Flea Bane, not edible but good for pets’ beds.

One problem beginning foragers have is confusing young Oakleaf Fleabane leaves for Dwarf Plantain leaves (they are both rosette-ish, low-growing green leaves, hairy with fibrous threads in the stem.) But the Dwarf Plantain is essentially a long skinny hairy leaf with a few teeth. The Oakleaf Fleabane is much fatter, has lobes, and does resemble oak leaves found on more northern species. Of course when they blossom their difference is quite obsvious. Generally considered not edible I know a few people who have tried in once mistaking it for a Plantago. Fleabane leaves were put in pets beds to drive away fleas. You can read about the Plantains here and I have a video here.

Juniper Berries change from green to blue with a powdery blush. Photo by Green Deane.

One wouldn’t think that living in a small rental house or apartment interferes with foraging but it can. The size of the kitchen can restrain the size of the oven which can limit the size of pots and pans one can use. Thus my loaf is round. The yeast and bacteria for this sourdough came from Juniper Berries which are really cones. Some were collected in West Palm Beach, others near Daytona Beach. Sourdough bread depends on wild yeast and lacto-bacteria. They are in all flour but different species. In theory one feeds the “starter” and the favorable yeast and bacteria outcompete unfavorable yeasts and bacteria becoming dominant.

Sourdough bread started with Juniper Berries for the necessary yeast and bacteria.

Sourdough takes longer to make than regular bread because the yeast has not been bred to make a lot of rising gas quickly. The same issue comes up when the question is can one use bread yeast to make wine. Yes but… Bread yeast is bred to make a lot of gas and very little alcohol whereas wine yeast is bred to make alcohol and not a lot of gas. Wild yeast, like wild vinegar bacteria, can also throw a variety of flavors. Soudough is sour in the same way pickles, yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi and kombucha are tart from lactic acid. It takes longer to develop the flavor of sourdough and it works well in cooler temperatures whereas bread yeast likes to be kept warm. The wild yeast can also tolerate the higher acid environment created by the bacteria. Why make sourdough? The bacteria reduces the carb load, alters the gluten, increases B vitamin use, and reduces phytates by some 70%. Phytates are the largest group of anti-nutrients in regular bread. Thus compare to regular bread sourdough allows more mineral absorption from the bread. It also increases prebiotic and probiotic-like properties. I took a couple of tablespoons of old blue Juniper “berries” and put them in non-chlorinated sugar water for a day then used that water when making my starter. (If you let tap water sit for a day it loses its chlorine.)

Soaking Foresteria fruit. Photo by Green Deane

The Foresteria experiment continues. We are halfway through the brining period (basically to reduce the bitter tannins in the fruit.) I know consuming a couple of berries off the tree does not cause acute toxicity (meaning immediate) but I have no idea about possible long term effects. I have eyed Foresteria berries for years knowing they are in the Olive family. One species, F. neomexicana, New Mexico Privit, Desert Olive, was eaten as were the fruit of F. pubescens. They are all bitter which is why curing them like olives occurred to me. They are soaking in a 10% brine solution with the solution being changed every week for a month. As with any brining the fruit are kept covered by the solution by a glass plug which conveniently fits into a used Dunkin Donut ice coffee cup.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, age 48 in 1855.

If Longfellow had lived elsewhere — say Europe — he might have penned in his famous poem: “Under the shedding Sycamore tree the village smithy stands.” As it was Longfellow wrote about the mighty American chestnut which sadly because of a blight is nearly no more. And while mentioning Longfellow take a look at his picture on the left. Most of the photos of him show an old bearded man. This was taken when he was much younger, in 1855, when photography was young, too. And unlike other pictures from the time he’s not posing like a stature. It’s more natural and gives us a glimpse of the man and personality. There’s a bit of destiny in Longfellow’s eyes. Maybe he sensed photographs would replace paintings and he wanted to look across time at us, or, us him. What did he do right after the photo was taken? Go out to dinner because he was already dressed up? Or tell the photographer he’s pay him for the (then) expensive photo next week when one of his new poems sold? When I see old photos like this I wonder what the next moment was like, when they broke pose and went on with living. Photos are frozen slivers of time.

Unlike Longfellow’s chestnut tree the Sycamore gets a bad rap because of what you see in the picture right, leaves…. lots of large leaves in (my) yard. To me it’s attractive fall colors and in time more stuff for the compost pile. But, it’s the bane of many homeowners who want carefree landscaping. Sycamores, however, are forager friendly. The sap is drinkable and one could make a syrup out of it if one wanted to spend the time and energy. The sap tastes like slightly sweet water, and it is already filtered by the tree so also quite safe to drink. If you boil it down like maple sap it tastes like butterscotch.  The wood is inert so it can be used in a variety of ways with food or cooking, from skewers over the campfire to primitive forks et cetera.  To read more about the maligned Sycamore go here.

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

Foraging Classes: Last Saturday in Gainesville we dug up five winged yam roots. Sunday in Melbourne we found some groundnuts and enjoyed some sumac berries This weekend both classes are near the west coast, Port Charlotte Saturday, Sarasota Sunday.  Maybe the bitter cold won’t get that far south. 

Saturday January 29th,  Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte, meet at the parking lot at Bayshore and Ganyard, 9 a.m. to noon.

Sunday January 30th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the playground. 

Saturday February 5th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  Meet at the bathrooms. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Sunday February 6th,  John Chestnut County Park: 2200 East Lake Road, Palm Harbor, FL 34685. Meet at the trail head of the Peggy Park Nature Walk, pavilion 1 parking lot. 9 a.m. to noon. 

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

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out and replaced by a 171-video USB. 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 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. 

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, such as the one to the left. 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: California Wild Mushroom Parties, A Good Reason To Eat Wild Garlic, Black Walnuts and Amaranth, Sea Salt and Plastic, Wild Mustard? Heavy Metals. Oriental Persimmons. What is it? Pine Cough Drops and Needles, Skullcap, Malodorous Plant? Another NJ Tree, Maypop? Roadside Plant, Unknown in Sudan, Please Help Identify, and Preserving Prickly Pear Bounty. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

The Black Nightshade has edible ripe berries. Photo by Green Deane.

I had a friend who thought of himself as an outdoorsman thus beyond needing to study edible plants. Many years ago he called me one day asking “how do I get the seeds out of the pigweed berries.”  I knew there was a problem immediately. Our local “pigweed” does not have berries but our local nightshade does. Our “pigweed” is an Amaranth and has seed spikes. About the size of fingers or more they are covered with tiny flowers that produce a multitude eye-of-the needle seeds, tan to black.  No berries involved at all. Conversely the nightshade produces a cluster of black shiny berries on one small stalk (photo to right.) It does have a lot of seeds inside the berries. So I thought I had better ask him why he wanted the seeds before I told him him the Amaranth didn’t have berries but the nightshade did. He wanted to grow some in his yard. They had been steaming the leaves and eating them like spinach! When I got done explaining he said “then that’s why we’ve all been getting headaches after eating the leaves.” Indeed. The leaves of this particular nightshade are edible but they must be boiled in one or two changes of water, not steamed.

Golden Dewdrop is not edible but might have herbal applications. Photo by Green Deane

The plant to left is toxic and has several botanical names though a common on describes it well, Golden Dewdrop. Botanically it is Duranta repens, D. plumieri and D. erecta. We saw the species during our foraging class in Gainesville Saturday. It’s been called a vine-like shrub, some varieties are spiny. The non-edible fruit is bitter. Julia Morton, the grand botany professor of the University of Miami, wrote the fruit has killed children in Queensland, Australia, and sickened a Hialeah Florida girl in May 1966. She was hospitalized in a state of confusion and drowsiness but fully recovered the next day.  An Australian government website about children’s health says “If eaten, the fruit can cause gastro-intestinal irritation, vomiting and diarrhea.” One research paper reports extracts of dried D. erecta leaves was effective at killing roundworms. The same research found Lantana leaf extract was also effective. A second study says Duranta leaf extract might be “a promising source of herbal medicine for the management of benign prostatic hyperplasia.”

And I have added a new article to the website, Soapberry. 

This is my weekly newsletter #492. 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.

All Violets in the genus Viola are edible. Photo by Green Deane

A wild edible that’s easy to identify is the wild violet. We ate some this past week in my foraging class.  It’s cultivated brethren is the pansy. There are a huge variety of violets in North America ranging from Field Pansies to those that like to grow down hill from the septic tank, Johnny Jump-ups. Whether wild or cultivated violets are attractive, personable blossoms, usually on the sweet, viscous side. There are a few 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. And do not eat the root, it is toxic. Another precaution is a bit more esoteric: Yellow blossoms tend to have a laxative effect. Also make sure your “violet” is in the genus viola. Several plants called “violet” are not true violets and not edible.You can read about violets here. I have a video about them here.

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

It’s time for a warning about Butterweed. We found several examples of this toxic plant during our foraging class last Sunday. 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 within hours. It is not on par with some toxic 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 Butterweed can — from a distance — resemble wild mustard or wild radish and like those species favors cooler weather.

Butterweed’s blossom does not resemble a mustard. Photo by Green Deane

On closer inspection it clearly is not a mustard. The blossoms are like yellow daisies, not a four-petaled cross or H like mustards, and the leaves are not sandpappery but smooth nor does it taste peppery or mustardly. Growing in wet spots, Butterweed delivers its load of alkaloid pyrrolizidines without warning. Most alkaloids are bitter. Butterweed leaves are deceptively very mild in flavor and have a pleasing texture. Mustards do not. They are usually scruffy.  Butterweed is in the Aster family which is 1) huge with some 23,000 members, and 2) plants in that family usually are not toxic. It is one of the exceptions and when it is very young it can also resemble edible Hairy Bitter Cress and likes the same environment. However, Butterweed does not have any noticeable flavor, Bittercress does as do the other mustards.  You can read more about pyrrolizidines here. 

Stinkhorn Mushroom. Photo by Green Deane

Populating my mushroom pages now are stinkhorns, the most of them being a gazebo-shaped one called Clathrus columnatus. The other is Phallus ravenelii … you can guess what that looks like. They both smell like a dead body.  When young — the egg stage — they smell quite tasty but when past the juvenile stage smell like carrion (to attract the carrion fly to spread its spores around.) Opinions vary whether Clathrus columnatus is edible in the “egg” stage. I don’t conveniently see them that often in the “egg” stage to give them a try. Phallus ravenelii is definitely edible in the egg stage and has a flavor similar to radish. If you are near mulch and you smell dead flesh it is probably a stinkhorn not a carcass. 

Wild Mustard and Wild Radish look very similar. Photo by Green Deane

Weed Seeds: You can plant many weed seeds to get a crop of edible weeds closer to home, if not in your own yard (now you know why my putting-green neighbors loathe me.) Weeds are designed to take care of themselves and do quite well even when ignored. I have planted wild radish, peppergrass, chickeweed, Bidens alba, purslane and crowsfoot grass on my “lawn” and they have done quite well. Many weeds can be planted in your garden. Chinopodiums and amaranth are two that need very little encouraging. Plant them a row, barely cover the seeds with soil and you will have a mess o’ greens. Mustards are a bit pickier to grow. Their seeds, such as peppergrass, should be stored in a dry area for about four months between 50 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit for optimum germination.  A cellar stairs is just about perfect for that, or outdoors in a Florida winter. Other seeds need special treatment.

Pokeweed seeds before soaking in battery acid

Pokeweed seeds are a good example. Their germination rate is very low, around 6 percent, if not treated. What’s treated? Replicating a bird’s gut. Soaking the seeds in battery acid for five minutes increases the germination rate into the 90s. You can buy the battery acid at auto stores. One container will last you decades. Once treated, plant successive rows of pokeweed seeds and have a lot of pokeweed from your garden. You can harvest the shoots or let them turn into big roots that will send up shoots annually.

No other root has the growth pattern of the Groundnut east of the Rockies. Photo by Green Deane

If you’re more inclined to grow roots consider the groundnut. Just take tuber home, put it in the garden and wait, two years unfortunately but they will produce and produce well. Twenty years ago agriculturists at the University of Louisiana were trying hard to make the groundnut a commercial crop. Unfortunately when the professor in charge of the program retired so did much of that program. You can, however, find cultivars of the species for sale on the internet. Groundnuts can also be grown from seeds, but the process is more involved. Video here. 

Seablite growing near the beach. Photo by Green Deane

My latest planted weed is Seablite, Suaeda linearis, which should be a commercial crop. When I’m asked what wild plant should be cultivated Seablite is always the answer. It has a nice flavor and texture, is bug and disease resistant, has a high germination rate, and is salt tolerant meaning it can be watered with brackish water (a good crop for all those unusable salt marshes.) It is also a seasonal crop and related to Amaranth.

Seablite Seedling. Photo by Green Deane

While it has sprouted in my pots it will be a couple of months before one can easily find it in the wild. A 100-gram sample of a close relative, S. maritima was 83% water, 6.21% fiber (4.78 insoluble, 1.43 soluble) 3.46% protein, 2.18% carbohydrates, and 0.15% fat. The vitamin C amount was small,15.69 mcg but its 3.54 mg of beta-carotene meets half your daily need. Most amazing, however, was Seablite’s calcium content. It was a huge, 2471 mg, almost two and a half times your daily need. 

It’s common to find ten-pound D. alata roots. Photo by Green Deane

Finding edible plants this time of year brought the Winged Yam and the Omicron variation of COVID to mind. In my foraging class last Sunday — in the rain — we dug up five edible Winged Yam roots, Dioscorea alata. Cook them like a potato then eat. They taste like a potato and have a similar nutritional profile but to the pallet they are a little more silky in texture than a potato which can be granular. They are not impossible to find this time of year but they are dying back making them hard to locate. More to the point they die back from the ground up so while one can still find the green vine up the tree where it went into the ground to dig up the root is more elusive. What connection does this have to COVID? They are predicting an Omicon Blizzard in the next three to four weeks with so many people ill goods and services might be interrupted including food. Locally that means Hurricane Mode or where I grew up, Blizzard Mode. It’s unfortunate that this is almost the most difficult time of year to find the Winged Yam (It will be worse in a month, at least now one can find the general location where they are growing from the still-green vines. Finding some now and marking where the roots are could make things easier in the future.)  You cal also plant the alata air potatoes for a future crop. 

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

Foraging Classes: It might be chilly for classes this weekend but we will still go foraging. Saturday is in Gainesville, Sunday Melbourne. 

Saturday January 22nd, 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 January 23rd, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335. Meet at the “dog park.” 9 a.m. to noon. 

Saturday January 29th,  Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte, meet at the parking lot at Bayshore and Ganyard, 9 a.m. to noon.

Sunday January 30th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the playground. 

Sunday February 6th,  John Chestnut County Park: 2200 East Lake Road, Palm Harbor, FL 34685. Meet at the trail head of the Peggy Park Nature Walk, pavilion 1 parking lot. 9 a.m. to noon. 

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

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out and replaced by a 171-video USB. 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 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. 

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, such as the one to the left. 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: California Wild Mushroom Parties, A Good Reason To Eat Wild Garlic, Black Walnuts and Amaranth, Sea Salt and Plastic, Wild Mustard? Heavy Metals. Oriental Persimmons. What is it? Pine Cough Drops and Needles, Skullcap, Malodorous Plant? Another NJ Tree, Maypop? Roadside Plant, Unknown in Sudan, Please Help Identify, and Preserving Prickly Pear Bounty. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

This is my weekly newsletter #491. 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, 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.

Foresteria fruit brining. Photo by Green Deane

Tropical Sage, Salvia coccinea. Photo by Green Deane

There is little room in foraging for experimentation. It can be deadly as we have previously reported with a hiker dying in South Carolina last October from eating Sesbania. It is well-known that all but perhaps one Sesbania are toxic. The wild pea/legume family is a dangerous one. Some 13 years ago I tasted a very tiny piece of a peppery Salvia coccinea blossom, right, and was sick for three weeks, painfully so. Within 40 minutes I was extremely dizzy and had severe stomach pain. Not an experience I want to repeat and why I do not teach “field testing.” In an emergency I would rather cope with hunger than hunger and a debilitating illness. That said I do have three or four musings. 

The red fruit of Asparagus cochinchinensis might be edible.

One is whether we can smoke food with camphor wood, as we have a lot of it locally. Camphor shavings is used to make a smoked schezwan duck dish. Camphor is in the same genus as cinnamon and was once used as a spice. I wonder if anyone smokes food with cinnamon wood? Then there is ornamental asparagus. The headache is which asparagus? Cornucopia II lists one with an edible root and possibly edible berries, Asparagus cochinchinensis, see left. I’ve seen someone eat red asparagus berries and are still living so it needs some investigation. The same can be said for Two-Leaf Nightshade, Solanum diphyllum. I have seen folks eat it and I survived trying one sweet, yellow-ripe berry. I’ve also eaten the pulp off one Ardisia crenata berry (but not the seed.) It tasted like a raw pea.  This all brings me to the genus Foresteria, top of the page. 

I’ve been eyeing Foresterias for several years, wild and ornamental. Foresteria are in the olive family. As far as I know locals only used the fruit of one and then for ink. The fruit is bitter, but so too is the common olive without brining. And one Foresteria, F. neo-mexicana, is used like olives. Thus I am doing an experimental brine of F. legustrina fruit. I see it regularly in Port Orange. That means soaking the fruit in salted water (10% solution) for a month and changing it every week. Salt is often used to reduce tannins and is part of the process of turning Java Plums into wine. 

Western Tansy Mustard in bloom.

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 Gamagrass is starting to blossom. Photo by Green Deane

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.

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

The coolest weather of the year to date is scheduled for this weekend so dress warmly for the foraging classes, one in Port Charlotte and the other at Meade Garden in Winter Park. 

Saturday January 15th, BECAUSE OF ILLNESS THIS CLASS WILL BE RESCHEDULED.Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte, meet at the parking lot at Bayshore and Ganyard, 9 a.m. to noon.

Sunday January 16th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  Meet at the bathrooms, 9 a.m. to noon. The entrance is on South Denning. Some GPS directions get it wrong and put it on S. Pennsylvania. 

Saturday January 22nd, 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 January 23rd, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335. Meet at the “dog park.” 9 a.m. to noon. 

Sunday February 6th,  John Chestnut County Park: 2200 East Lake Road, Palm Harbor, FL 34685. Meet at the trail head of the Peggy Park Nature Walk, pavilion 1 parking lot. 9 a.m. to noon. 

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

What is a tea? It can be everything from a comforting drink to medicine. Indeed, some teas made from spices can be good for your health. Turmeric or rosemary tea come to mind. There are certainly dozens of wild plants that can be used for tea. In fact we even have a species and varieties locally that is full of caffeine and antioxidants, the Yaupon Holly. But teas can be more than teas. As I teach in my classes teas can often be marinades and the material that is used to make the tea can also be used for flavoring when cooking vegetables or meats. They will flavor a squash as easily as a fish.

Pine needle tea has Vitamin C and shikimic acid. Photo by Green Deane

Besides caffeinated Yaupon Holly the non-caffeine Southern Wax Myrtle has been used a long time for tea though I think to be on the safe side it should be avoided by those who are pregnant. Local natives also smoked the leaves to keep insects at bay. Magnolia leaves have been used for tea and the goldenrod. There’s one species of goldenrod that has a slight anise flavor and is the best of them all. An old stand by, of course, are pine needles for tea. Choose green needles and seep them (not boil, that drives off the Vitamin C.) They also have shikimic acid, which is the main (refined)  ingredient in Tamiflu. Camphor seedlings also have shikimic acid as does Sweet Gum Bark and Sassafras. There’s tea, marinades and medicineall  around us if we know how and where to look.

Silverthorn berries ripen in February. Photo by Green Deane.

In many parts of the world January or February is the depth of winter, the coldest, snowiest, most miserable time of year. But from Georgia south, it’s blossoming and fruiting time for the Silverthorn. Rummaging through a hedge of Silvethorn recently we found a few fruit pretending to be ripe. Most of them were still bitterly tart but some were almost ripe, a hint of sweet things to come. Silverthorn was originally planted as an ornamental from the Carolinas south and west. Birds, who know food when they see it, have helped to naturalized it throughout the South. The distinctive fruit reportedly has the highest amount by percentage of the antioxidant lycopene. The slightly bitter, edible seed has omega-3 fatty acids. Locally we look for totally ripe red fruit around Valentine’s Day. To read more about the Silverthorn go here.

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out and replaced by a 170-video USB. 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 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. 

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, such as the one to the left. 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: California Wild Mushroom Parties, A Good Reason To Eat Wild Garlic, Black Walnuts and Amaranth, Sea Salt and Plastic, Wild Mustard? Heavy Metals. Oriental Persimmons. What is it? Pine Cough Drops and Needles, Skullcap, Malodorous Plant? Another NJ Tree, Maypop? Roadside Plant, Unknown in Sudan, Please Help Identify, and Preserving Prickly Pear Bounty. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

his is my weekly newsletter #490. 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, 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.

In time Henbit can get a foot high.  Photo by Green Deane

When lawns aren’t mowed food grows. The weather’s been good and our winter plants are happy. In foraging classes these last two weeks weve seen Sheep’s Sorrel, Oxalis, Pellitory,  Black Medic, Wild Geraniums, Horsemint,  Chickweed  and Henbit. The latter was a favored spring time green with Native Americans because it’s mild rather than peppery. and while in the mint family it is not minty. It’s edible raw or cooked. An edible relative, “Dead Nettle” looks very similar but is more purple.  Henbit is called “Henbit” because chickens like it. It’s usually found in sunny, non-arid places. To read more about Henbit go here.  Surprisingly what we haven’t seen yet is Stinging Nettle.  Perhaps the nights have not been cool enough. Fast growing it’s usually around for a couple of months or so. 

Swinecress is an easy to identify winter mustards.

During the classes seasonal mustards were also on display. Poor Man’s Pepper Grass is everywhere. Hairy Bittercress was found nearby as was Swine Cress (article here, new video here.) Also well-represented this past week was Shepherd’s Purse, Capsella bursa-pastoris, a much milder relative of Poor Man’s Pepper Grass. They have similar blossoms but differently shaped leaves and seed pods. The Shepherd’s pods look more like hearts than “purses.” One interesting aspect about Shepherd’s Purse is that I personally have never seen it growing south of the Ocala area. It’s found in 18 northern counties of Florida, one west central Florida county, Hillsborough, one southern Florida county, Dade, and throughout North America. It’s just kind of sparse in the lower half of the state. Also not see yet this season is Western Tansy Mustard. You find it in dry, sandy places like corrals. 

Wild Radish and Mustard are in blossom now. Photo by Green Deane

Driving back on the Beach Line” from our Lori Wilson Park meet up we saw miles of wild mustard growing roadside, like a light yellow hedge. Mustards like chilly weather, or at least locally they do. You can see Wild Mustards and Wild Radish not only along roadsides now but in various fields from farm land to ignored citrus groves. The two species are used interchangeably and look similar. However Wild Radishes tend to be serpentine rather than straight and tall like Wild Mustard. They also have lumpy seed pods, or, more lumpy than mustard seed pods. Usually you will find a stand of one or the other. I don’t recall finding both in the same patch. Blossom colors can range from yellow to white with streaks of purple. But the leaves always have the biggest lobe on the end farthest from the plant. Look for them in sunny areas with fertile soil. Not native they came from Eurasia in the 1700s. And note the seeds can remain viable in the soil for up to 60 years. To read more Wild Radish go here, and for Wild Mustard, here.

Our native plantain, Plantago P. virginiana. Photo by Green Deane

There are Plantains that look like tough bananas and there are Plantains that are low and leafy plants. They are not related. Just two different groups with the same common name. Low-growing Plantains can be native or non-native. The one pictured right is native, the Dwarf Plantain. As a genus the plants are well-known. The leaves are edible raw when young. As they age they become more bitter and stringy. Cooking makes them palatable up to a point. Then they move into the astringent medical realm. As such they are used on bites, stings and to help puncture wounds heal. The seeds are edible once produced and are the source of the commercial dietary fiber, psyllium. When finely ground the seeds are sold under the brand name Metamucil. There are numerous species of Plantagos (Plantains) with at least five common locally, P. virginiana, P. major, P. lanceolata and P. rugelii the latter which strongly resembles P. major. (P. rugelii is pink at the base of the stem, P. major is not.) They are all used the same way.  One problem beginning foragers have is confusing young Oakleaf Fleabane leaves for Dwarf Plantain leaves (they are both rosette-ish, low-growing green leaves, hairy with fibrous threads in the stem.) But the Dwarf Plantain is essentially a long skinny hairy leaf with a few teeth. The Oakleaf Fleabane is much fatter, has lobes, and does resemble oak leaves found on northern oaks. You can read about the Plantains here and I have a video here.  

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

Foraging Classes: Sticking to the east coast this weekend with classes in West Palm Beach and Port Orange which is near Daytona Beach. 

Saturday January 8th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. 9 a.m to noon, meet just north of the science center. 

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

Saturday January 15th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte, meet at the parking lot at Bayshore and Ganyard, 9 a.m. to noon.

Sunday January 16th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  Meet at the bathrooms, 9 a.m. to noon. The entrance is on South Denning. Some GPS directions get it wrong and put it on S. Pennsylvania. 

Sunday February 6th,  John Chestnut County Park: 2200 East Lake Road, Palm Harbor, FL 34685. Meet at the trail head of the Peggy Park Nature Walk, pavilion 1 parking lot. 9 a.m. to noon. 

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

The weather was pleasant and the turnout large for our visit to Lori Wilson Park in Cocoa Beach last weekend. I arrived at the park about 8 a.m. and wandered around looking at plants for the 10 a.m. walk. How unusual is that behavior, looking at plants in a park? Someone called the police and said I was hiding in the bushes and carrying a rifle (all I had was a phone, not even a walking stick.) Anyway… seven officers showed up, driving across the lawn no less. I didn’t know the Town of Cocoa Beach had that many officers and on a Sunday morning no less. After no rifle was found I got a lecture about staying on the paths. 

Florida native Snowberries/Snowbells. Photo by Green Deane

The second surprise of the day were two fruiting Natal Plums, one with easy access. If the officers had arrived then my defense would have been I was removing seeds of an invasive species from a protected native habitat. As it was we had a good taste of fruit, which is actually a commercial crop. The day also had a third surprise, Snowberries/Snowbells. It was only the second time in decades I had seen them and their name embarrassingly eluded me. Snowberries are Chiococca alba, which in Greek means Snow Berries White. Oddly it’s a Florida native in the coffee family (no it is not edible, and has been used to make folks throw up.) I last saw them on Marco Island (southwest Florida.) Most references say they are found only in south Florida other say they are found around most of the state’s coast then west to Texas then southward. As they are snow white they could make an attractive plant in the right location. 

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out and replaced by a 170-video USB. 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 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. 

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, such as the one to the left. 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: California Wild Mushroom Parties, A Good Reason To Eat Wild Garlic, Black Walnuts and Amaranth, Sea Salt and Plastic, Wild Mustard? Heavy Metals. Oriental Persimmons. What is it? Pine Cough Drops and Needles, Skullcap, Malodorous Plant? Another NJ Tree, Maypop? Roadside Plant, Unknown in Sudan, Please Help Identify, and Preserving Prickly Pear Bounty. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

Creeping Indigo is toxic to many foraging animals. Photo by Top Tropicals.com

Veterinarians annually issue a warning this time of year about a plant that is makes horses sick, Creeping Indigo, Indigofera spicata. Cold weather causes this pea relative to blossom pink, making it a little easier to see. Unfortunately it is a plant favored by horses with at least one dying and others sickened.  (This highlights that relying on instinctual means to avoid toxic plants is not too reliable for animals or man.) As with many toxic and invasive species Creeping Indigo was intentionally brought to Florida in 1925. The University of Florida imported it from Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) for agricultural experiments. When it killed one of two rabbits the testing stopped but the weed stayed (the second rabbit recovered after the Creeping Indigo was removed from its diet.)  Within eight years Creeping Indigo was raising concerns about poisoning farm animals.

That’s Green Deane as a sprout on “Ginger.” Home included five horses, rabbits, chickens, ducks, a multitude of dogs and cats and an occasional pet squirrel.

Besides horses, it is also toxic to cattle, sheep, goats, guinea pigs, the aforementioned rabbits, and birds. Pigs won’t eat it which calls into question reports that it does not bother pigs. Someone might be assuming that since pigs aren’t being reported sick from eating Creeping Indigo they aren’t bothered by it whereas it could equally be that because pigs avoid it there are no reports porcine poisoning. The prime toxin in Indigofera spicata is indospicine which “inhibits the incorporation of arginine and other amino acids in liver cells result in liver insufficiency.”

This is my weekly newsletter #489. 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, which is data secure, has over 1500 plants on it in some 428 articles. I wrote every one myself, no cut and paste. 

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