Search: plantain

Chickweed is happy now. Bright green foliage in gray lawns. Photo by Green Deane

Our tasty winter green chickweed  is in its glory; lush, full, blossoming, happy to be alive. With such healthy plants it was easy to find the identifying characteristics: stretchy inner core, a single line of hair on the main stem that switches 90 degrees at the nodes, a five-petal blossom that looks like 10 petals, and uncooked chickweed tastes like raw corn. We saw a lot of it in Ocala Sunday. 

Henbit, one of the few “sweet” springtime greens. Photo by Green Deane

When lawns aren’t mowed food grows. The weather is perfect and winter plants a plenty.  We saw the large acorns of the Chestnut Oak, by far the largest locally. In abundance during our foraging classes were Sheep’s Sorrel, Oxalis, Latex Stranger Vine, Pellitory,  Black Medic, Wild Geraniums, Horsemint and Henbit. The latter was a favored spring time green with Native Americans because it’s mild rather than peppery. While in the mint family it is not minty. It’s edible raw or cooked. An edible relative, “Dead Nettle” looks similar but is more purple.  Henbit is called “Henbit” because chickens like it. It’s usually found in sunny, non-dry places. To read more about Henbit go here.  Surprisingly what we didn’t see in Stinging Nettle. 

Shepherd’s Purse Photo by Green Deane

During the class the seasonal mustards were also on display. Poor Man’s Pepper Grass was everywhere. But we also saw mild Western Tansy Mustard. Hairy Bittercress was found nearby as was a plain old mustard. 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 — photo left — 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. 

Our native Plantgo is in season.

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. They are all used the same way. (P. rugelii is pink at the base of the stem.) 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. You can read about the Plantains here and I have a video here.    

Wild Radish are reaching peak season.

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.

Calliandra Haematocephala is toxic.

A toxic powder puff shrub we see this time of year is  a native of Malaysia. It’s a small tree that was in the pea family but has been moved to the Mimosa group. It is not edible in any way. It’s just pretty, which has its own value. The name is slightly interesting in that it is all Living Greek mangled by new Dead Latin. Calliandra is a combination of Kallos (beautiful) and Andros (man) but is to mean — when poetically translated — “pretty stamen” (the male part of the flower which creates the powder puff.) Haematocephala means “blood head” or in this case “red head.” Thus pretty stamen red head. You could even stretch it to “pretty redheaded man.” The common name is Red Powder Puff. 

Classes are held rain or shine.

Foraging Classes: Two classes this weekend, Saturday in West Palm Beach and Sunday in Winter Park.

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

Sunday, January 10th, Mead Gardens, 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789. 9 a.m. to noon. The entrance is on the west side off Denning  not the east side off Pennsylvania. Some GPS maps are wrong. Meet near the bathrooms. 

Saturday, January 16th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the dog park pavilion. 

Sunday, January 17th, Spruce Creek, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, 32127. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet that the pavilion (first right after house.) 

Saturday, January 23th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. to noon, meet at the pavilion by the tennis courts. 

Sunday, January 24th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Saturday January 30th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL, 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the dog park. 

Sunday January 31st, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte. 9 a.m. to noon, meet in the parking lot at Ganyard and Bayshore. 

Saturday February 6th, Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St.,  Gainesville, FL 32641. 9 a.m. to noon, meet at the pavilion by the pump house. 

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

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

Canna can grow in a garden or a pond.

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

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

150-video USB or 135 video DVD set would be a good winter present and either is now $99. My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been selling for seven years and are still available. They are the same videos I have on You Tube. Some people like to have a separate copy.  A second option is a16-gig USB that has those 135 videos plus 15 more. While the videos can be run from the DVDs the videos on the USB have to be copied to your computer to play. They are MP4 files. The150-video USB is $99 and the 135-video DVD set is now $99. The DVDs will be sold until they run out then will be exclusively replaced by the USB. This is a change I’ve been trying to make for several years. So if you have been wanting the 135-video DVD set order it now as the price is reduced and the supply limited. Or you can order the USB. My headache is getting my WordPress Order page changed to reflect these changes. We’ve been working on it for several months. However, if you want to order now either the USB or the DVD set make a $99 “donation” using the link at the bottom of this page or here.  That order form provides me with your address, the amount — $99 — tells me it is not a donation and in the note say if you want the DVD set or the USB. 

Green Deane Forum

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

This is weekly newsletter #439. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Lion’s Mane is an edible fungi that’s difficult to misidentify. Photo by Green Deane

Lion’s Mane fries up nicely. Photo by Green Deane

We are shifting mushrooms seasons from terrestrial to trees or ground to wood. Instead of looking down we now look up. Milk caps and chanterelles are giving way to Oysters, Lion’s Mane and Chicken of the Woods. Edible fungi that like wood also often like cooler weather but not exclusively. There are oysters and chickens other times of the year but cool is prime time. Lion’s Mane, however, is one I see only after the season starts to turn cooler and only down to northern Florida. It’s a choice find. To my pallet raised on the coast of Maine it tastes like carb or lobster and I use it in similar ways. This particular specimen was found in a foraging class in Jacksonville last Saturday. You can read more about it here. 

Gooseberries and currants come in several colors and flavors.

You won’t find wild Gooseberries or currants anywhere near The South. They like cool, humid weather: Think New England, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick and west of there (and also possibly the tops of the Appalachian Mountain Chain.) There were several “blights” in the last century. One took out the American Elm and another the great Chestnut. A third took its toll on Gooseberries. They did not get the disease themselves, the White Pine Blister, but they were the intermediate host of the disease. As one might imagine a pine blister in the the Pine Tree State was serious business thus Gooseberries and currants had to go. Legions of Boy Scouts and WPA workers destroyed it where they found it.  But, I do remember seeing them in the wild. We often rode horseback over abandoned woods roads where there were also abandoned farm houses. There I saw Gooseberries and currants self-seeding. A ban on the plants was federally imposted in 1911 then shifted to the states in 1966. You can harvest Gooseberries now here and there at picking farms and no doubt there are some wild one still. You can read about Gooseberries here.

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

Foraging Classes: Going coast to coast this weekend with a class in Melbourne and one in Largo. It’s nice time of year to forage, not too hot, not too cold, not to humid. 

Saturday, November 21st, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335.  9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park (turn right after entrance, go 1/4 mile, dog run on right, parking at run or on previous left.)

Sunday, November 22nd, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park. Situated in Largo on the Pinellas peninsula it’s a large park with a variety of different environments.

Sunday, November 29th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233. 9 a.m. to noon. There are about 12 parking places and a residential street across the street that can be used.

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

When Sea Purslane sequesters salt it turns pink. Photo by Green Deane

Sea purslane is not seasonal but it does favor the spring by putting on a lot of new shoots. By the time autumn falls the plant has been isolating salt from the water which turns its stems red. Thus one uses green stems as greens (boiled, roasted or stuffed in a fish or the like you are cooking) and the red stems for salt or seasoning. The older stems also get a woody core so one usually does not eat them. Young greens can be tossed right on the grill and wilted for a wonderful flavor. Sea purslane will also happily grow in your non-salty garden. It competes successfully in salty areas but does not have to be in salty ground. If you grow it at home it is not salty. To read more about sea purslane go here.

Panera’s in Winter Park where we start and finish the Urban Crawl.

My annual Urban Crawl is coming up, my tenth on Dec. 18th. A reasonable question is what about foraging in a city? There is some surprising research. Dan Brabaner is a geoscience professor at Wellesley College, Boston. With some undergraduate students they studied preserved food collected from fruit trees and the like in the urban Boston area. What they found was cherries, apples, peaches and herbs were relatively low in lead and arsenic. That is, a serving had less amounts of these toxins than the allowed daily amount for a child. The team also did not find a significant difference between peeled and unpeeled fruit. The fruit was low in toxic chemical because they are the furthest away from any toxins in the soil. This would apply to tree nuts as well. Leafy greens faired well, too, because they grow fast and 1) don’t have time to accumulate toxins and 2) most air pollution on them can be washed off. Brabander also analyzed foraged food from plants growing in the urban environment not growing on agricultural soil. These foods had higher micronutrients because they were not growing on worn-out agricultural soil. Calcium and iron were higher as were manganese, zinc, magnesium and potassium. Thus we know that not only do “weeds” pack more of a nutritional punch because they are wild but also because they can be growing in better soil. MY Urban Crawl is a fee class Friday Dec. 18th in Downtown Winter Park. We meet in front of Panera’s at 10 a.m. We wander south to the college, stop at Starbucks, go east to the public library area, then back to Panera’s. 

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

A 150-video USB or 135 video DVD set would be a good winter present and either is now $99. My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been selling for seven years and are still available. They are the same videos I have on You Tube. Some people like to have a separate copy.  A second option is a16-gig USB that has those 135 videos plus 15 more. While the videos can be run from the DVDs the videos on the USB have to be copied to your computer to play. They are MP4 files. The150-video USB is $99 and the 135-video DVD set is now $99. The DVDs will be sold until they run out then will be exclusively replaced by the USB. This is a change I’ve been trying to make for several years. So if you have been wanting the 135-video DVD set order it now as the price is reduced and the supply limited. Or you can order the USB. My headache is getting my WordPress Order page changed to reflect these changes. We’ve been working on it for several weeks. However, if you want to order now either the USB or the DVD set make a $99 “donation” using the link at the bottom of this page or here.  That order form provides me with your address, the amount — $99 — tells me it is not a donation and in the note say if you want the DVD set or the USB. 

Green Deane Forum

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

Our little native plantain is ramping up its seasonal appearance. Photo by Green Deane

This is weekly newsletter #432. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Dandelions hate Florida. They like cool weather and acidic soil. Florida is a hot limestone plate. But as the weather cools we will be seeing more of them. Look in lawn grass under oaks and pines. Nearly all of the Dandelion is edible. Photo by Green Deane

The winter mustards are starting to grow.

While looking for the yellow-blossomed Dandelions above also start looking for the more extroverted yellow-blossomed Wild Radish and Wild Mustard. These two peppery species look very similar and are used the same way. There are several ways to tell them apart but on a glance one identifier of the radish is that it grows in a windrow way whereas mustards tend to grow straight up. Radish blossoms are always yellow, mustard blossoms can be yellow or white.  I usually start to find tasty Wild Radishes and Wild Mustards when the nights start getting cooler.  To read more about Wild Radish, go here. Wild Mustards click here.  

Our native Plantago is small and hairy. Photo by Green Deane

There are Plantains that look like tough bananas and there are Plantains that are low and leafy plants. No relation. Just two different groups with the same common name. Plantains can be native or non-native. The one pictured left is native, the Dwarf Plantain. We saw one Sunday in our foraging class at Mead Gardens. 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. They are used on bites, stings and to help puncture wounds heal. 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 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. You can read about the Plantains here.

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

Foraging Classes will go ahead despite the weather. On it’s current track Tropical storm Eta should be past us by this weekend. We might have to wear boots and carry an umbrella  but the back side of storms are usually fiary tame. 

Saturday, November 14th, Florida State College, south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246. We haven’t had a class here for several months because of COVID and we’re trying to avoid predicted bad weather that weekend. Meet at Building A next to the administration parking lot.  9 a.m. to noon. This is a pleasant wander around the campus with environments ranging from pond to woods and in between. There are also a good complement of edible ornamentals. We might might find some Lion’s Mane mushrooms. 

Sunday, November 15th, Wekiva State Park, 1800 Wekiwa Circle, Apopka, Florida 32712. This class is scheduled only once or twice a year. There is a park admission Fee: $6 per vehicle. Limit 8 people per vehicle, $4 for a single occupant vehicle, $2 pedestrians or bicyclists. Meet at the Sand Lake parking lot. 9 a.m. to noon. Unlike city parks or the urban area, Wekiva Park is “wild” Florida. There are very few weeds of urbanization. The edibles are mostly native plants and far between. This class is recommended for anyone interested in what the natives used. We walk quite a lot. 

Saturday, November 21st, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335.  9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park (turn right after entrance, go 1/4 mile, dog run on right, parking at run or on previous left.)

Sunday, November 22nd, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park. Situated in Largo on the Pinellas peninsula it’s a large park with a variety of different environments.

For more information, to pre-pay or to sigh up, go here.  It is also time to mark your calendar for my 10th annual Urban Crawl. It will be Friday December 18th at 10 a.m. in Winter Park, Florida. We meet in front of Panera’s. It’s difficult to believe I’ve had that walk for ten years now. 

Brazilian Pepper Berries. Photo by Green Deane

Also beginning to fruit fruiting is the controversial Brazilian Pepper. I harvested 17 ounces of them Saturday during our foraging class in Port Charlotte. At one time it was heavily promoted as the “Florida Holly” ignoring that the state has many native hollies. Its berries are often confused with a relative called Pink Peppercorns. In fact “Pink Peppercorns” were banned from the United States for several years because authorities thought they were the same species as Brazilian Pepper. As for using the Brazilian Pepper berries as spice, clearly some people can without any problems. Other people get extremely sick trying them just once. Some people can use them for a few days or weeks without a problem and then get ill. As I tell my students in foraging classes, you’re on your own with this one. So what am I going to to with them? Either one test gallon of wine, or, use them to flavor a gallon or two of mead (as they make a nice honey.) I haven’t made up my mind. 

Skunk Vine lives up to its name. Photo by Green Deane

Perhaps as a last gasp — virtually — some Skunk Vine was blossoming this past week (along with some Black Cherries. Skunk Vine is aptly named though its aroma drifts more towards bathroom than skunk. However the tough vine is something of a nutritional powerhouse with some of the good chemicals one finds in the Brassica family. You can eat it raw but if you cook it outside is recommended. Oddly it was intentionally brought to Florida to make rope. This was done just before 1900 when a lot of ships were still carrying sails and miles of rope. Ground zero was the USDA Brooksville Field Station in Hernando County Fl. Yes, this invasive vine  — like many other species — was imported by the United States Department of Agriculture.  Thirty-six years later it was all over Florida but it took until 1977 for it to be a recognized invasive (long after it had crawled into other southern states.) While the blossoms are attractive we eat only the leaves and young tips. You can read about Skunk Vine here.

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

A 150-video USB or 135 video DVD set would be a good winter present and either is now $99. My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been selling for seven years and are still available. They are the same videos I have on You Tube. Some people like to have a separate copy.  A second option is a16-gig USB that has those 135 videos plus 15 more. While the videos can be run from the DVDs the videos on the USB have to be copied to your computer to play. They are MP4 files. The150-video USB is $99 and the 135-video DVD set is now $99. The DVDs will be sold until they run out then will be exclusively replaced by the USB. This is a change I’ve been trying to make for several years. So if you have been wanting the 135-video DVD set order it now as the price is reduced and the supply limited. Or you can order the USB. My headache is getting my WordPress Order page changed to reflect these changes. We’ve been working on it for several weeks. However, if you want to order now either the USB or the DVD set make a $99 “donation” using the link at the bottom of this page or here.  That order form provides me with your address, the amount — $99 — tells me it is not a donation and in the note say if you want the DVD set or the USB. 

Green Deane Forum

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

This is weekly newsletter #431, If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Erechtites hieraciifolia: Edible Pile Driver

Art Gallery Pension, Athens, Greece. Photo by Green Deane

When I go to Greece I always stay a few days in Athens to get used to the time change and visit in-town relatives (as opposed to out-of-town relatives.) I stay at the same little hotel — the Art Gallery Pension — on Erekthion Street. It’s a few hundred feet due south of the Acropolis and the Erechtheon, a shrine also atop the Acropolis (or Acropoli as the Greeks say.)  I also stay at the same pension a month or so later when I am ready to leave, to enjoy the Plaka night life after I’ve adjusted to the time change and to visit in-town relatives again. So when I see Fireweed’s scientific name, Erechtites hieraciifolia, though half a world away I am reminded that even after some two and a half millennia the language of the past is still with us, particularly with Greek in botany. More on that later.

Erechtheion, or in Greek Ἐρέχθειον

Opinions vary greatly on the Fireweed. Horrible, a choice edible, or toxic? Widely used in the past and the present in Asia this is not a dainty-flavored plant. While young leaves can be eaten raw and older ones cooked Native Americans did not use it for food but rather medicine. This might give us pause to be cautious. A 1939 study found the plant has pyrrolidines. That’s a group of chemicals that can damage your liver, permanently. Usually species with pyrrolidines are not eaten. Yet this plant has a history of consumption.

Fireweed (Erechtites hieracifolia) Photo by Green Deane

Merritt Lyndon Fernald, of Gray’s Manual of Botany and also co-author of Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America, wrote twenty years after the above study: “There is no reason, except the odor, that prevents us from using it.” Dick Deuerling, author of Florida’s Incredible Wild Edibles, told me personally he only ate tasty wild foods and that did not include the E. hieracifolia, though he included it in his book.  Dr. James A. Duke author of the Handbook of Edible Weeds and a second book, Medicinal Plants, said he could not improve on the comments of Troy Peterson, author of A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants who said of the E. hieraciifolia: “The strong flavor suggests this is an acquired taste.” Duke recommends we don’t eat it.

Fireweed, famine food or goumet delight? Photo by Green Deane

That said I have a good friend who enjoys the flavor immensely, raw or cooked.  Here’s what one reader — below –had to say about it: “I’m honestly perplexed with regards to the culinary reputation of this plant. Every chef I’ve shown this plant to so far has been really impressed, in a good way. The distinct perfume and flavor goes amazingly well in multiple preparations. I did cold blanched greens Korean style with sesame oil and soy sauce, brown rice steamed with chopped fireweed and shiso, and a quick chutney pickle of peeled fireweed stems and leaf tips, poor man’s pepper, nasturtium leaves, chopped apples, cucumber and coriander. I also used it as a soup base with lamb’s quarter and nettle. One vegetarian cold soup with raw goat buttermilk and the cooked wild greens puree, and one with chicken broth. The blanched greens also went into translucent summer roll wraps with sauteed pickerelweed, plantain seed heads, chanterelles, venison and nasturtium flowers, to be served with the chutney.

Not a single person in the large class (22 students + wildlife center interns and instructors) found the fireweed to be less than delicious prepared by these methods. All of the above dishes vanished like snow on a hot griddle, and I had to go harvest more fireweed after class so there would be any left for my chef buddy to play with at his restaurant. They ate it all.

Identification is 100% certain; this is Erechtites hieraciifolia. Properly prepared, it is delicious, and all of the local professional chefs whom I’ve gotten interested in wildcrafted foods are pretty excited to work with this plant. It’s not at its best raw and unadorned, but a little kitchen tweaking and flavor pairing and it’s suddenly amazing.

All I can say is if other foragers don’t know how to use and appreciate this green, that just leaves more for me and my chef friends!”

E. hieraciifolia has been viewed a famine food as the Caesar Weed (Urena lobata) is a famine food: Nutritious, common, and edible if you can get past this or that. With Caesar Weed it is texture, with E. hieraciifolia it is aroma and flavor though opinions do vary from ugh to delicious. These plants are plentiful in the spring and summer. Tall, rank and in your face, it is hard to misidentify a Fireweed. Foul or not it is as good as any other spring/summer green and is not unheard of in winter either. Perhaps the key is proper preparation. Fernald did not have a lot of chefs giving the green a try.

As to the scientific name, Erechtites hieraciifolia. The latter part, hieraciifolia, is easy: It means “having leaves like the hawkweed,” referring to the Hieracium (which itself means of or pertaining to priests.) But, Erechtites is more involved and botanists tend to not know their Greek. One, for example, will say the genus name may come from Erechtho, to break. Another says it might be for the fable early king of Athens, Erechtheus. Both close but no cigar. They need to read more of the Classics.

Ericthonius scaring maidens to jump off the Acropolis

The goddess Athena went to the lame blacksmith-god Hephaestrus. He was the tool maker for the gods. She wanted some weapons. (For sake of the story we will set aside why a goddess would need weapons or someone to make them.) Things did not go as she planned. Hephaestrus found her so enticing that he tried to overpower her and take away her virginity. She successfully resisted and he missed his mark, so to speak, leaving a deposit on her thigh. With a scrap piece of wool she wiped it off and threw the wool to the ground. That impregnated the earth, Gaia. Gaia gave birth to a son and took him to Athena who named him Erichthonius. Erextho means trouble and xthon means earth.  The name has come to mean “troubles from the earth” for a troublesome, ruderal weed that pops up after fires.  The transliterated spelling varies greatly. Erechtites was also the name of an ancient groundsel in Greece and was first used to describe a plant in 40-80 CE by Dioscorides (for whom the yam genus is named.)   King Erechtheus, who invented the chariot, was actually an early king of Attica not Athens but the region of Attica included Athens.

Erechtites hieracifolia blossoms. Photo by Green Deane

The plant has many local names as well besides Fireweed: Goat’s Chicory, Burn Weed, Stickers, Sun’s Ribs, Dog Weed and American Burnweed. There is also a second “Fireweed” a tall perennial (Epilobium angustifolium) in the evening-primrose family with spikes of pinkish-purple flowers. It is also edible. Our Fireweed has one other common name: Pilewort. Folks used Oil of Fireweed to externally treat their hemorrhoids. Fireweed puts out the fire.  A poultice of the leaves work well I am told. Fireweed also has some internal uses as well such as treating dysentery.

And I saved this for last. The pronunciation of Erechtites hieraciifolia, is eleven syllables: e-rek-TEE-tez  hee-eh-rak-ee-FO-li-a. I should mention that some folks remember Erechtites by starting with “Eric’s Teeties.” Clearly Greeks like long words. That is why it is easy to tell the difference between an Irish and Greek cemetery. When you drive by the Irish cemetery the stones are all tall and skinny with vertically engraved short names like Sean Ireland. Whereas all the stones in the Greek cemetery are low and long to accommodate Βασιλιος Σταβρος Τσαπατσαρις.

Green Deane’s Itemized Profile

IDENTIFICATION: Erect annual to 80 inches, flower yellow to whitish, 1/3″- 2/3″ inches long; inflorescence flat-topped to elongated clusters of drooping heads, flowers barely open; fruit, a dry seed on a bright white fluffy powder puff. Leaf alternate, lance-shaped, sharply toothed, some times lobed. It has a … ah… distinctive aroma that once you know is unmistakeable.

TIME OF YEAR: Blooms early summer to autumn.

ENVIRONMENT: Dry to wet; open woods, partially disturbed sites, fields, lake shores. Often colonial.

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Tops, leaves, flower buds raw or cooked, including steaming and boiling.

* E. hieracifolia (L.) Raf. PYRROLIZIDINE ALKALOID: hieracifoline. Manske, Can. J. Res., 17B, 8 (1939)

Wild Plums are fairly easy to locate this time of year. Photo by Green Deane

What are those white blossoms? This time of year it might be three different species and two are related.

Hawthorns are also in the Rose Family. Photo by Green Deane

Like the photo above the most showy now are wild plums. They’re easy to spot this time of year: Just look for small trees with white blossom and no (or few) leaves. Your two choices are Chickasaw Plum (many canoe-shaped leaves which with a 10-powered lens have teeth with bozo-noses) Flatwood Plum (with flat leaves.) (The American Plum is a possibility but I never see this far south.) The blossoms of the plums have five petals and will remind you of an apple or blackberry blossom (which are also in the greater Rose Family.) Speaking of said Hawthorns — directly above — are blossoming now, too, white with few leaves but they are far less extroverted than plums. I don’t see them in the wild south of Ocala. I’ve seen them planted in the Orlando area but they tend to die after a couple of hot summers. Their leaves are more goosefoot or spatula-shape, the blossom resemble the plum blossoms and woody parts are usually well-armed with thorns. If you have a difficult time deciding which species of Hawthorn you have don’t let it bother you. Botanists can’t tell them apart ether. You can read about them here. 

Pawpaws are related to Magnolias. Photo by Green Deane

Another white-blossomed species I look for but not until April or so are Pawpaws. Here in Central Florida the best place to find them is in pastures. They have blossoms similar to Magnolias. Botanists say Magnolias are related to Pawpaw but that the Pawpaws are an older species. While not rare Pawpaws are scarcer here than …say… in the Carolinas. There you bump into them at every turn and they are medium-sized trees. Here they’re often spindly shrubs and there are dwarf varieties as well. They can have white or maroon/purple blossoms. Pawpaws are pollenated by a carrion fly which should give you some indication of how the blossoms smell. The one on the left was seen in mid-February in Largo Florida, definitely earlier than usual. If you find some fruit you have to be careful the first time you eat one. It’s quite rare but some people can have a life-threatening allergic reaction to them. 

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

The weather is moderating. I have one foraging class this weekend and it’s in Palm Harbor east of Tarpon Springs. Note the foraging class schedule is through the end of March.

Sunday, February 23rd, John Chestnut County Park: 2200 East Lake Road, Palm Harbor, FL 34685. Meet at the trail head of the Peggy Park Nature Walk, inside Chestnut Park. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Saturday, March 7th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the pavilion near the YMCA building and tennis courts.

Sunday, March 8th, George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, FL, 34981. 9 a.m. to noon. (There are no official bathrooms at this location.)

Saturday, March 14th, Florida State College, south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246.  We meet at Building “A” next to the administration parking lot. 9 a.m. to noon.

Sunday, March 15th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233. 9 a.m. to noon.

Saturday, March 21th, Ft. Meade Outdoor Recreation Area, 1639 Frostproof Highway, Fort Meade, FL 33841. (Frostproof Highway is also Route 98.) 9 a.m to noon. Meet at the second set of bathrooms (in the middle of the park) which is due south from the highway. (Don’t confuse this location with Mead Gardens which is in Winter Park near Orlando.)

Sunday, March 22nd, Wickham Park, 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335.  Meet at the “dog park” inside the park. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Saturday, March 28th, Haulover Canal, Merritt Island National Refuge, north of the Kennedy Space Center. We meet the the northwest end of the canal area. 9 a.m. to noon.

Sunday, March 29th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange FL, meet at the pavilion. 9 a.m. to noon. 

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

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

It is also time to be on the look out for a “choice” wild mushroom, the Blewit, or Lepista nuda. At first glance it can look like the violet plastic top of some discarded can. The tasty fungus likes cooler weather and is also terrestrial. Usually this time of year most ground-growing mushrooms are not edible. Wintertime here is when you often find edibles mushrooms on wood. The regular mushroom season does’t start until after warm days and spring rains, usually sometime in late April or early May. Long-range weather forecasts say Florida will be warmer than usual this spring and stormier which means wetter. So perhaps mushroom season will start sooner than usual. 

Wild Garlic will be cloving soon. Photo by Green Deane

Both foraging classes this past week found Wild Garlic.  It’s a native that’s about six inches high now but will be blossoming in a few weeks then setting cloves. What makes this Allium curious is that it puts an onion bulb on  the bottom end and garlic cloves on the top end. This particular species is very pungent. It’s great for cooking or as a trail side 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 record of southeastern natives using the plant and only three tribes had names for it. I call it good.

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

Plantago Power: It was a dark and rainy … morning… and I was searching through the gloom along the road for a wild mustard/radish for my foraging class some years ago. It was cold. It was rainy. It was gray. Something caught my eye so I pulled Van Go over and headed towards a watery ditch. The plant I thought it might be — a mustard — it most certainly was not. It was a Plantago, the largest one I have ever seen. That was worth a picture and posting on the Green Deane Forum.  While it resembled Plantago major it was in fact Plantago Rugelii. One difference is the P. rugelii has pink/purple at the base of the petiole (stem) P. major is white. Unlike P. major, which is from Europe, P. rugelii is native to North America. It is odd that we don’t hear more about it.

Green Deane Forum

Want to identify a plant? Perhaps you’re looking for a foraging reference? You might have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane and others from around the world — chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. Several hard-to-find books are there page for page. Recent posts this week include Nettle Spanakopita, Pawpaws Starting Early? What are those White Blossoms, Brazilian Pepper Revisited, COVID 19, Palmer Amaranth, In The Loop, Tomatoes: A Fruit First, a Vegetable Second, and Butterweed: Annual Warning.  You can join the Forum by going to the upper right hand top of this page. 

Foraging DVDs make a good gift to watch during winter.

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

Donations to upgrade EatTheWeeds.com have gone well. Thank you to all who have contributed to either via the Go Fund Me link, the PayPal donation link or by writing to Green Deane POB 941793 Maitland FL, 32794.  There are many needs left such as expanding the foraging teacher page and the page on monotypic edibles. There’s always something and such things get more complex and expensive every year. 

Winged Sumac

Botany Builder #38: Terminal. No, botanically it does not mean dead. Technically it means at the end of an axis. I just think of it as the end of a branch. A good example throughout North America are the edible Sumacs. They have terminal clusters of flowers which later turn to berries.  “Terminal” is from the Dead Latin Terminus, meaning the end. It is from a Roman god of the same name that protected boundaries (usually as a bust on a post.)  Historical note: The city of Atlanta used to be called Terminus because that was where the railroad stopped.

This is weekly newsletter 393, If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Eastern Redbud blossoming on the West Orange Bike Trail. Photo by Green Deane

Blossoms of the Eastern Redbud. 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 tis time of year because it has small pink blossoms and no 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. 

Cattail blossom producing pollen. Photo by Green Deane

Two other species that are “blossoming” now are familiar ones, Pines and Cattails. Males pine cones, yes there are such a thing, are dropping pollen now. Called microsporangiate strobili, they are edible but don’t have much of a flavor or pleasing texture. Their pollen, however, is edible and can have some hormonal uses as well. Interestingly pine pollen is often blamed for Hay Fever but usually it’s Ragweed that is causing allergy problems at about the same time. Pine pollen is heavy and doesn’t travel far whereas Ragweed pollen is light and floats long distances. You can read about pines here, video here. Also producing pollen powder now are Cattails. Far more productive than male pine cones, the male part of the Cattail blossom produces a dense, yellow, pollen. It’s relatively easy to collect and quite useful such as augmenting bread flour. The dry female part of the blossom — the cat tail part — is edible but is as unattractive to eat as the male pine cone. You can read more about the Cattail here, video here.

Teaching a foraging class in West Palm Beach

Foraging Classes: The weather gods may smile upon us this weekend with clear days this weekend for a class near Orlando and one in Sarasota.

Saturday, February 8th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789. Meet at the parking lot. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Sunday, February 9th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Saturday, February 15th, 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, February 2nd, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park. 9 a.m to noon. (This is to make up for an earlier class here that has scheduling issues.) 

Saturday, March 7th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the pavilion near the YMCA building and tennis courts.

Sunday, March 8th, George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, FL, 34981. 9 a.m. to noon. (There are no official bathrooms at this location.) 

Saturday, March 28th, Haulover Canal, Merritt Island National Refuge, north of the Kennedy Space Center. 9 a.m. to noon. Read the instructions below. We meet the the northwest end of the canal area. 

Sunday, March 29th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange FL, meet at the pavilion. 9 a.m. to noon. 

For more information, to sign up for a class, or to pre page, 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 14 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. 

Chestnut Oak acorns are the largest we have locally. Photo by Green Deane

Many people are surprised to learn most acorns are edible if processed. They were a staple for many native groups who had a wide variety of ways to make them palatable. The amount of acorns a tree produces — called a mast — is effected by weather specifically temperatures, rain and wind. Setting aside temperatures and wind for a moment the amount of spring rain affects the mast. Usually a wet spring means more acorns. But you also need some dry days at the right time to wind-carry the pollen around. Winds distribute that pollen for miles. Bees do visit oaks blossoms but they are considered a minor pollinator. Throwing a kink in this are temperatures. There are about a dozen different species of oaks locally and they usually don’t all pollinate at the some time unless the weather has been cold. That forestalls some species from pollinating creating more species pollinating at the same time. They wait for warmer weather and that translate into higher amounts of pollen than usual. This is very bad news locally for those who are allergic to oak pollen. You can read about acorns here.  A video on acorns is here. 

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

Plantago Power: It was a dark and rainy … morning… and I was searching through the gloom along the road for a wild mustard/radish for my foraging class. It was cold. It was rainy. It was gray. Something caught my eye so I pulled Van Go over and headed towards a watery ditch.  Then I heard a baby cry. Seriously. The figure I thought was a bag lady with stuffed shopping cart was a bundled-up woman with a baby stroller waiting for a bus. Things look different in the dim drab of winter. And the plant I thought might be a mustard most certainly was not. It was a Plantago, the largest one I have ever seen. That was worth a picture and posting on the Green Deane Forum.  There one of our regular members, Josey, who has an eye for detail and a whole lot of knowledge, offered it as Plantago Rugelii rather than P. major. One difference is the P. rugelii has purple at the base of the petiole, P. major is white. Unlike P.major, which is from Europe, P. rugelii is native to North America. It is odd that we don’t hear more about it. You can read about it here and watch a video here. 

Foraging DVDs make a good gift to watch during the lifeless months of winter.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

This is weekly newsletter 391, If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Wild horses do it, deer do, perhaps wild bees don’t do it but most creatures forage in the winter and so can you. Photo by the Wild Horses of Alberta Society

It’s rather obvious that wintertime foraging varies where you live. In moderate Florida we can forage all year and the wintertime provides some of the best opportunities. But what of northern climates?

An edible turtle under ice. Photo by Richard Due.

I grew up where winter night temperatures easily dropped into the 30-plus below zero (-38 celsius.) Sometimes the schools had to close for several days because they could not be kept warm. And once we went skating at 50 below just to say we did. (Chilblains from that night some 60 years ago still bother me in air conditioned buildings. It’s wasn’t the skating with a bonfire that did permanent damage but rather the arctic one-mile walk home.) That was on Gowen’s Pond, our local natural skating rink. It had one tree-stump island, probably had been a water-tolerant hackmatack. That speck of protrusion through the ice was perhaps six square feet in total area. The ice was thinner there and one winter I saw a turtle under the ice feeding some some green pond plant. That generated several thoughts. One was that it was warm enough for the turtle to go looking for food. Two that the turtle found food, and, three that the turtle was food even in the winter.  Like the turtle or the horses I grew up with you can find food in hostile winter climates if you know where to dig or browse. You can read more about that here. 

Chickweed have five petals that look like ten Photo by Green Deane.

Chickweed stole the show this weekend. In well-watered spots chickweed was in green glory, lush, full, blossoming, happy to be alive. With such healthy plants it was easy to find the identifying characteristics: stretchy inner core, a single line of hair on the main stem that switches 90 degrees at the nodes, a five-petal blossom that looks like 10 petals, and uncooked chickweed tastes like raw corn. Also sprouting patches of green on the monoculture brown park were stinging nettles. It’s still early in the season for nettles with most of them no higher than four inches, just about the same height as our winter henbit also available for the picking. A private forage later on produced, surprisingly, some native mint and a lot of true thistles. Lot’s of food and flavor there. There were also ticks-a-plenty.

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

I’m teaching at a Mensa regional gathering in Cocoa Beach this Saturday afternoon so I am having a class in Melbourne Saturday morning. Sunday we are squeaking in a class in Jacksonville before really cold weather sets in next week.

Saturday, January 18th, Wickham Park, 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL. 9 a.m. to noon.  Meet at the Dog Park inside the park.  

Sunday, January 19th, Florida State College,  south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246.  9 a.m. to noon. We will meet at building “D”  next to the administration parking lot.

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

The spate of warm weather recently increased our wanderings. Here are some of the bounty we found in foraging classes:   natal plum, swinecress (which we later found there) some and a couple of Milkweed Vine fruit. While we nibbled on many things among them were Turks Cap, Oxalis,  Black Nightshade (see below), Violets, False Hawk’s Beard, Plantagos, Fireweed, and Hairy Bittercress which is barely hairy at all. Also noticed during the forage was a tasty False Roselle not yet done in by the cool weather. And although the Eastern Red Bud won’t flower in profusion for couple of months we found a couple of winter-daring blossoms to look at.

Use sublimed sulfur to thwart tick attacks.

Before the state of Florida went on the Internet most of the information it thought fit for its citizens to know was produced in pamphlet form. When the shift was made to the Internet some information got lost or was dropped. One useful bit of advice was using sublimed sulfur to keep ticks off.  Available online or through local pharmacies or chemical supply stores you put it in an old sock or the like and dust your cuffs and collar with it before entering tick habitat. It either repels them or vastly slows them down from finding a place to grab on, giving you more time to find the hardy ones (to reduces chances of disease you should remove them within 24-hours. After that the chances of disease goes up exponentially with each passing hour.) I used sublimed for many years very successfully finding a tick or two on me now and then but not attached. That’s the good news. Now the bad news, for me at least. While I am not a biochemist I would suspect this would not be something you would do if you had a sulfur allergy. Indeed, after I used it for many years I developed an allergy to it (severe nasal congestion and eye watering.) So be careful. That’s said it did work well while I used it. 

Weeds of Southern Turf Grasses

If you didn’t find a weed book you wanted under the Christmas tree here’s one you can pick up locally or order. The University of Florida has put out an unintentional edible weed book, Weeds of Southern Turfgrasses. What I mean is the book is not designed for foragers but rather land managers. However, the majority of the plants in the book are edible. It has 437 color photographs of 193 weed species found in the south usually on lawns and the like. As you can see by the link I have a list of the edibles and what pages they are on. Many of my students just print the list then paste each entry on the appropriate page or make notes on that page. There is also a link on the page to order it through the state of Florida. DO NOT ORDER IT THROUGH AMAZON OR OTHER BOOKSELLERS. Why? Because they will charge you from $38.67 to $59.66 for a book you can buy at a local extension office for $8. If you order it through the link I provide it is $14 plus shipping. (I actually found one bookseller in the past asking over $800 for it.) As it says on the link I do not get any money for recommending this book. It is just an inexpensive, handy book to have.

The Black Nightshade has berries.

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 (Solanum americanum) produces an umbrella-like spread of black shiny berries on one small stalk (photo to left.) 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.

The American Nightshade can have totally ripe and unripe berries at the same time. Photo by Green Deane.

My friend had skipped many details. The wrong identification also led to the wrong preparation compounding the error. Admittedly the plants did have a few things in common. They were both green, grew in Florida and had leaves that can vaguely be the same rough shape, diamondish. But the difference between a seed spike of small green flowers vs. a cluster of shiny black berries is not paying attention to details. Fortunately no great harm was done. No matter how much Details are important (even though it is my personality to dislike them.) Locally two plants you will commonly encounter that you need to know about are the edible elderberry and the deadly water hemlock. To the beginner they can look similar. To learn important details about them and how they differ click here.

Oyster Mushrooms. Photo by Green Deane

Most local edible mushrooms are in winter recess. Our Ringless Honey Mushroom season ended several weeks ago. Most of our terrestrial species will stay hidden until heavy spring rains. However during a foraging class this weekend we did see some Amanitas, of which there is no shortage of in the southeast. It was three examples of the same species, A. citrina. But the big find but not a winter surprise was were logs of Oyster Mushrooms, of the Pleurotus ostreatus complex. They say “complex” because the mushrooms can vary enough for mycologists to notice but not enough to be called a different species.  I’ve seen them on Oaks in the winter as well as Sweet Bays and Sycamores. In warmer weather I see a related smaller species on palms.  Oyster Mushrooms — which do not taste like oysters but can smell like anise — are considered one of the safer mushrooms to harvest because none of the possible look-a-likes are deadly… just sickening. And here’s a reminder that several facebook mushroom pages are associated with EatTheWeeds. They are Florida Mushroom Identification Forum, Southeastern U.S. Mushroom Identification, Edible Mushrooms: Florida, Edible Wild Mushrooms, and the Orlando Mushroom Group.  

The Nine DVD set includes 135 videos.

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

Donations to upgrade EatTheWeeds.com have gone well. Thank you to all who have contributed to either via the Go Fund Me link, the PayPal donation link or by writing to Green Deane POB 941793 Maitland FL, 32794.  There are many needs left such as expanding the foraging teacher page, the page on monotypic edibles and the Plant Archive page. There’s always something and such things get more complex and expensive every year. 

Do you know this tree with edible parts? You would if you read the 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: Asystasia gangetica aka Chinese Violet or Ganges Primrose, Armillaria mellea Ringed Honeys, Acorn Treatment Question, Acorn Questions Any Poisons? A Cure For The Common Cold, Lactifluus piperatus, Elderberry Capers?  You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

This is weekly newsletter 388, 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.

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If you are in the habit of eating wild mushroom then you’re waiting for the spring rains. Local this usually happens in latter April or early May. That and warmer ground temperature tells mushrooms to grow. As a prelude I had my first edible wild mushroom find of the season this week.

Old Man of the Woods, Strobilomyces sp.  is a rather distinct mushroom. There are a few variations  — a microscope helps to sort them out — but they are all edible. There are at least three species in North America and are in a group of mushrooms called Boletes. These mushrooms do not have gills but rather pores on the underside. The saving grace is none of them cause lasting organ damage if you eat a toxic one. There is a short check list one can use to tell if a Bolete is a potential edible.  In Europe most of the Boletes are edible, in North America most are not, and in The South if not Florida many are unidentified. Opinions vary on the Old Men. Some cook and eat the entire mushroom. Others just the cap with pores throwing away the stems, others just the cap throwing away the pores, and some not liking the texture dry the pore-less cap, powder it, and use it for flavoring. I like the cap with pores fried which is how I cooked the one at the top of the newsletter. To me they taste like Porcini mushroom. The only drawback is you find only one or two at a time.

One local trio of edible mushroom we are waiting for are called “Milk Caps.” When broken or scraped all three weep a liquid, often white. It is not a latex but is called that. The liquid, however, can also be light yellow or watery. That the mushroom is the weeping helps you identify the genus, sometimes the species. Common locally is the Lactifluus hygrophorides, L. corrugis, L. volemus var. volemus and L. luteolus. The latter is edible but smells strongly like a dead fish.  I picked some twelve pounds of them last year. They’re a substantial mushroom with a good flavor and texture. They are also fairly easy to identify. It has a ruddy cap, slightly felt-like to touch, wide-space gills, and bleeds a white fluid that does not stain the mushroom. 

Perhaps the most coveted wild mushroom locally is the Chanterelle. We have several species and sometimes they are difficult to sort out. That is not just in the field. The genus is, as they say, is under revision and the names are changing. Experts can’t agree exactly how many species there are and how many of them are found locally. It’s fairly easy to tell if one has a Chanterelle. It’s a bit more of a challenge to figure out which Chanterelle you have. I collected some 22 pounds of them last year. They are distinct enough in flavor and texture to hold their own in recipes. I like them sautéed with scrambled eggs.

Perhaps no ornamental was championed as much as the Pineapple Guava. However the perfect shrub for many places never really caught on. There could be several reasons for that. It probably didn’t help that a close relative, the Strawberry Guava, is a severe invasive species in some locations.  The shrub also does not get showy. It’s almost always drab. And while the blossoms are extroverted you have to hunt for them. While the entire blossom is edible most people only eat the petals. Five or six months from now they will be dark green fruit that stay green as they ripen. They just get softer. The shrub is easy to identify when in blossom. To read more about both guavas, go here.

Let us revisit what is blossoming this time of year: The Eastern Coral Bean. It is also sometimes called the Cherokee Bean. What is odd about this plant is the edible flowers produce toxic beans.  So we do not eat the red and black beans. A few of the red blossoms are edible raw but they are usually boiled then mixed with other foods notably scrambled eggs. When you cook the blossoms they turn light green. The distinctive shape of the leaves makes the shrub easy to identify. Young leaves are edible cooked but are marginal fare. Like the Pawpaws above they prefer dry, sunny places. A few raw red blossoms seem okay but if eaten in larger amounts they can be mind altering and approaching dangerous. Boiled they are fine. (Juice from the shrub’s stems, by the way, has been used to treat scorpion stings.)  You can read more about the Eastern Coral Bean here.

What’s the old saying? Close but no cigar. That might be the case with Foresteria segregata. Also called Florida Privet and Swamp Privet, you can find it anywhere from brackish waterways to an intentional ornamental in landscaping. The straight limbs were used for arrows and the blue berries possibly used for ink. I suspect the species has never worked its way into ethnobotanical literature because the berries taste bad. I’m not sure, however, if the story ends there. Yes, the berries are not considered edible. That said I have not found any references to toxicity but that might be because they are too foul to eat. However, it is in the Olive family and olives don’t taste good unless “cured.” What I wonder is 1) if the fruit are edible if 2) they are treated (meaning cured)  like olives?  It’s pure speculation on my part. They could be toxic for all I know. But it’s an idea.

Foraging classes: Saturday’s class is in my own backyard, so to speak, Orlando, Blanchard Park. The rain should be past but it might be a little chilly. Sunday’s class is in Eagle Park Lake in Largo, a site we haven’t visited for several months.

Saturday, April 20th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet next to the tennis courts by the YMCA building.

Sunday, April 21st, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park. Arrive earlier than later as it is Easter and the park can fill fast.

Saturday, April 27th,  Red Bug Slough Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233.  9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the parking lot. 

Saturday, May 4th, Colby-Alderman Park: 1099 Massachusetts Street, Cassadaga. Fla. 32706. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet by the bathrooms. 

Sunday, May 5th: Ft. Meade Outdoor Recreation Area, 1639 Frostproof Highway, Fort Meade, FL 33841. (Frostproof Highway is also Route 98.)  9 a.m to noon. Meet at the brown bathrooms in the middle of the park which is due south from the highway. 

Saturday, May 11th,  Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. 9 a.m to noon. Meet just north of the science center in the north section of the park. 

Sunday, May 12th, Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge, 2045 Mud Lake Road, DeLeon Springs, FL. 9 a.m. to noon. A few hundred feet after crossing the railroad tracks on Mudlake Road there in the parking lot on your right.  We meet there. This is a hike of approximately four miles, two out and back mostly native species, very few ornamentals. While the walking is easy we are exposed to the elements, sun on a clear day, wind on a cold day. Check the weather, dress appropriately. Bring water, wear suitable footwear. Know that as it is federal land it can be closed anytime for any reason without notice. 

Saturday, May 18th, Florida State College,  south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246.  9 a.m. to noon. We will meet at building “D”  next to the administration parking lot.

Sunday, May 19th, Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St.,  Gainesville, FL 32641. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the picnic tables next to the pump house.

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

Foraging is more than identifying edible wild plants. It also involves knowing how to cook them, when they are prime to harvest, and subject of this review, where to find them. In real estate the mantra is “location, location, location.” We could use that with plants but a refinement would be “environment, environment, environment.”

We know not to look for swamp plants in a desert, unless there is an isolated spring there such as an oasis. Likewise, few cactus grow in swamps though there are exceptions. We also usually find salt tolerant plants near the shore or inland near salt licks (and sometimes along northern roads salted every winter.) But some of those salt-tolerant plants will grow in your garden and do not need to be in a salty environment. Sea Purslane is found on the shore or near brackish water where its job is to build soil by forcing the wind to slow down and drop sand. But, it will also grow in your garden, no salt or wind needed. Other plants are more picky and won’t grow well if not in their preferred location.

For example, one species I am long-familiar with is Blueberries. They like soil on the acidic side, a pH below 7 on a 14-point scale. I grew up in poor-soil Maine where one could find 120-acre fields of nothing but Blueberries. Yet where I live in Florida Blueberries are found in small colonies in isolated pockets. Why? One answer is Florida is a limestone plate (alkaline not acidic) so it is a waste of time to look for Blueberries unless there are acid-producing pines, oaks or perhaps cypress nearby. I planted Blueberries specifically bred for Florida but one has to amend the soil — the amount of acid — nearly as much as one has to work daily to keep a pool from turning green. They eventually died, one of my few failures.

Another example is Dandelions. I have observed for several decades that Dandelions don’t like Florida, or at least the areas of Florida I visit. They like acidic soil. It might be it is not Florida’s heat they don’t like but rather the alkaline (“sweet”) soil. The few places I have seen Dandelions growing have been areas of acidic soil again near pines and often oaks. Dreher Park in West Palm Beach is a good example. What Dandelions there are there can be found growing in lawn grass amongst oaks. While I have also found Dandelions year round they tend to favor the winter months such as November through February.

Some plants can do well in nearly any soil. Henbit, Dead Nettle and Shepard’s Purse are good examples. However, a close relative of Shepard’s Purse, Poor Man’s Pepper Grass, likes soil on the alkaline side. This means you probably won’t find Pepper Grass near Pines and Oaks. Plants that like acidic soil (below a pH of 7.0) that you can find near Oaks and Pines include Eastern Bracken Fern, Curly Dock, Mullein, Nettles, Violets, Pineapple Weed, Plantagos, Wild Radish, Sheep Sorrel, Sow Thistle, and wild Strawberries. Plants that like it on the “sweet” or alkaline side besides Pepper Grass? Wild Carrots, Lamb’s Quarters, Amaranth, Pokeweed, White Mustard, and Purslane. Don’t look for those in an oak scrub or with a lot pines around.

Besides the pH of soil the kind of soil can make a difference. Chicory likes “heavy” soil meaning lots of clay, or rocks. Also liking heavy soil is Broadleaf Dock, Daisies, Milkweed, Plantains, true Thistles, and Wild Garlic. Plants that can endure hard packed soil include Field Mustard, Morning Glories — some of which are edible — and Pineapple Weed (it used to grow in our gravel driveway.) Going the other directions, plants that like sandy soil include Goldenrods, Sandspurs , Horsemint, and Spurge Nettle. Plants too look for in agricultural soil include chickweed, Dandelions, Lambs Quarters, Plantains, Amaranth and Purslane. And while Florida Betony can grow edible roots in rich loam or sand it tends to grow larger and easier to harvest roots in sand.

By their very presence some plants can tell you about what’s in or not in the soil. Burdock likes soil very high in iron and sulfate but low in calcium and manganese. Chickweed and Dandelions like low-calcium low-phosphorus soils. Crabgrass likes very low levels of calcium, phosphorus but high levels of chlorine, magnesium and potassium. Oxalis and Hop Cover, however, prefer low levels of calcium but high levels of magnesium. Purslane and Mustard like high phosphorus levels.

If you see a healthy patch of White Clover you know the soil is lacking in nitrogen. Or said another way, you won’t find happy White Clover in nitrogen-rich soil. I suspect that holds true for other members of the pea family as well. Because of preferences you will usually not find amaranth and clover growing together. Red Clover, however, prefers to grow in areas of soil high in potassium. Wild Garlic also likes high potassium as well along with chlorine, magnesium, and sodium.

All My Videos are available for free on You Tube. They do have ads on them so every time you watch a Green Deane video I get a quarter of one cent. Four views, one cent. Not exactly a large money-maker but it helps pays for this newsletter. If you want to see the videos without ads and some in slightly better quality you can order the DVD set. It is nine DVDs with 15 videos on each for a total of 135 videos.  Many people want their own copy of the videos or they have a slow service and its easier to order then to watch them on-line. The DVDs make a good gift for that forager you know especially as spring is … springing. Individual DVDs can also be ordered or you can pick and choose. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right hand side of this page (if your window is open wide enough.)  Or you can go here.

Want to identify a plant? Looking for a foraging reference? Do you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object you want identified? On the Green Deane Forum we chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations around the world share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. One special section is “From the Frightening Mail Bag” where we learn from people who eat first then ask questions later. You can join the forum by clicking on “forum” in the menu.

Donations to upgrade EatTheWeeds.com have gone well. Thank you to all who have contributed to either via the Go Fund Me link, the PayPal donation link or by writing to Green Deane POB 941793 Maitland FL, 32794.

This is weekly issue 351.  

Lamb’s Quarters… Fat Hen… and where to find it. 

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

One day not long after that a neighbor was visiting, a chicken farmer named William Gowen. As he left to walk home he ask my father if he could have a few Lamb’s Quarters. My father said he could. Mr. Gowen pulled up about eight five-foot high plants, hefted them over a shoulder, and happily carried them home to eat. Until then I had no idea they were edible. As Mr. Gowen was also a good gardener I am sure any Lamb’s Quarter that dared to grow in his garden also became dinner. I was reminded of him while on the way to my foraging class in Ocala Saturday. Along the way I saw a lot of Lambs Quarters in several citrus groves.

The species is actually easy to find this time of year because citrus groves are not manicured much in the winter. Lambs Quarters can grow through their entire cycle and not get weeded out. Very mild, the leaves are edible raw or cooked. Lambs Quarters is the closest plant you will find in the wild similar to spinach. You can also eat the seeds. Lamb’s Quarters like disturbed soil and can be found in gardens, along roadsides, and agricultural areas. To read more about them go here.

A familiar site this time of year are left over Citron Melons descendants of cultivated citrons from centuries ago. We can see them now because tall grass — which replaced frozen citrus –is dry in many place and died back. But you can also find them in active citrus groves like Lamb’s Quarters. While they are “edible” usually it is only the rind that is processed in various ways. Interestingly citron melons came to Florida before or with the citrus industry. Depending on which expert you want to quote Floridians have been raising citrus for some 506 years or so and citrons grow faster than citrus. Steady sources of modern food made them obsolete particularly as a source of pectin. Citron Melons escaped cultivation and have been taking care of themselves ever since. When I wrote my original article about them information was hard to find and foggy… still is. You can read about them here.

The last average frost date in central Florida is Valentine’s Day though the latest on record is April 24th. Spring may not be here quite but plants we can forage are on the move and will be featured in upcoming newsletters. If you are looking to harvest maple seeds now — they are edible — look for ruddy trees on the sky line. Those will be maples seeding. On a reduced scale now is also a good time to look for flowering Eastern Red Bud trees. They have small — that’s important, small — pink blossoms and no leaves. The blossoms are about half an inch to an inch long. Don’t confuse the Eastern Red Bud with an ornamental tree — the pink Tabebuia — which is also blossoming now except it has huge pink blossoms and no leaves. Neither the pink nor the yellow Tabebuia are edible.

In Port Charlotte this past weekend there were Loquats with ripe fruit but also plenty of green fruit so their season is set to take off. We also saw blooming Suriname Cherries and one Cocoplum bud. There were also a lot of Pawpaws in blossom. They are easy to spot: Look for medium-high shrubs with large whitish-yellow blossoms in pastures. Livestock do not eat them. Also common now throughout the state are wild mustards and radishes. They look similar and are used the same way. These peppery species are easy to spot on the dry dandy banks of roads where they form clumps of light yellow blossoms. Oh… also blossoming this week are wild Blackberries.

There aren’t a lot of hacks or shortcuts in foraging but there are a few. One is if it looks like a garlic or onion and smells like a garlic or onion it is edible. But it must have both: Looks and aroma. If it look like a mint and smells like a mint it is edible. Again, it must have both: Looks and aroma. Some folks try the same collective advice with mushrooms.

There are rules to follow to decide if a Bolete is edible. Those are trustworthy and expert approved. Some have tried to make some rules for Russulas with less success though no Russula is deadly if you are in good health. More to the point an edible Russula is not a mushroom of great texture or flavor. Perhaps less controversial but a little foggy are edibility rules for the Agaricus group (which when edible are tasty and textureful.) My Ocala foraging class is next to two sports fields and over the years the area has produce Agaricus mushrooms (they are closely related to the button mushrooms you buy in the store, which is an Agaricus.) The problem is while it is fairly easy to spot an Agaricus which Agaricus is more difficult. There are some edibility guidelines but as they are often crafted by California mycologists it makes one wonder if they work well in Florida.

The mushrooms we saw this past Saturday did not fit any Agaricus descriptions in Common Mushrooms of Florida by James Kimbrough. Still we thought it probably A. campestris as they are common in The South and Florida is part of the South. More importantly the crushed stem did not stain yellow and had no particular aroma other than mushroom. That put it into the edible realm and so it was. But from there it gets complicate. Some Agaricus can stain and smell of this or that and be edible or not edible depending upon the color of the stain, the aroma and intensity. You need a good nose to sort them out. Mushrooms is really one of those classes of wild edible you truly have to study with someone. At any rate after watching these sports fields produce mushrooms for several years it is nice to know they are edible.

On a personal note: I have a good reason to be in Maine over the 4th of July including the weekend before and after. I’ve been pondering holding or joining some foraging class there during that time frame. If you know of any possibilities please let me know.

Upcoming Foraging classes: There are no foraging classes this weekend because I am teaching at the Florida Herbal Conference east of Lake Wales. My classes resume in March starting with one in Orlando and another Fort Pierce at George LeStrange Preserve, an area I don’t visit too often.

Saturday, March 2nd, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. Meet near the tennis court near the YMCA building.  9 a.m. to noon.

Sunday, March 3rd, George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, FL, 34981. 9 a.m. to noon. The preserve has no official bathroom or drinking water so take advantage of the various eateries and gas stations before arrival. 

Saturday, March 9th, Florida State College,  south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246.  9 a.m. to noon. We will meet at building “D”  next to the administration parking lot.

Sunday, March 10th, Haulover Canal, Merritt Island National Refuge, north of the Kennedy Space Center, 9 a.m. to noon or later. Because of its shape this class requires the most walking and climbing, about four miles. We meet at the end of the northwest jetty. Take the annual sprig time change into account that day so you are on time.

Saturday March 16th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park.

Sunday, March 17th,  Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233.  9 a.m. to noon. 

Saturday, March 23rd, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. Meet near the tennis court near the YMCA building.  9 a.m. to noon.

Sunday, March 24th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the parking lot at the intersection of Bayshore Road and Ganyard Street.

Donations to upgrade EatTheWeeds.com have gone well. Thank you to all who have contributed to either via the Go Fund Me link, the PayPal donation link or by writing to Green Deane POB 941793 Maitland FL, 32794.  There are many needs left such as expanding the foraging teacher page and the page on monotypic edibles. I’m still having a hard time finding articles I wrote!  There’s always something and such things get more complex and expensive every year. Indeed, the average email cost to send each newsletter is $20.

All My Videos are available for free on You Tube. They do have ads on them so every time you watch a Green Deane video I get a quarter of one cent. Four views, one cent. Not exactly a large money-maker but it helps pays for this newsletter. If you want to see the videos without ads and some in slightly better quality you can order the DVD set. It is nine DVDs with 15 videos on each for a total of 135 videos.  Many people want their own copy of the videos or they have a slow service and its easier to order then to watch them on-line. The DVDs make a good gift for that forager you know especially on long, cold winter months. Individual DVDs can also be ordered or you can pick and choose. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right hand side of this page (if your window is open wide enough.)  Or you can go here.

Want to identify a plant? Looking for a foraging reference? Do you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object you want identified? On the Green Deane Forum we chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations around the world share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. One special section is “From the Frightening Mail Bag” where we learn from people who eat first then ask questions later. You can join the forum by clicking on “forum” in the menu.

Plantago Power: It was a dark and rainy … morning… and I was searching through the gloom along the road for a wild mustard/radish for my foraging class. It was gray day, the kind my step-father called “lowery.” (Yes, there is such a word.) Something caught my eye so I pulled Van Go over and headed towards a watery ditch.  Then I heard a baby cry. Seriously. The figure I thought was a bag lady with a stuffed shopping cart was actually a bundled-up woman with a baby stroller waiting for a bus. Things look different on drabby days. And the plant I thought might be a mustard in the ditch most certainly was not. It was a Plantago, the largest one I have ever seen. That was worth a picture and posting on the Green Deane Forum.  There one of our regular members, Josey, who has an eye for detail and a whole lot of knowledge, offered it as Plantago rugelii rather than P. major. They look similar but one difference is the P. rugelii has purple at the base of the petiole, P. major is white. Unlike P. major, which is from Europe, P. rugelii is native to North America. It is odd that we don’t hear more about it. Like all Plantagos P. rugelii is edible and medicinal.

If you would like to donate to Eat The Weeds please click here. Or you can use my Go Fund Me  link, or by writing to Green Deane POB 941793 Maitland FL, 32794

This is weekly issue 343.