Search: CHICKWEED

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.

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. 

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 #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.

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. 

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Chickweed is highly seasonal. Photo by Green Deane

Richardia grandiflora is not a wild edible though some have mistakenly tried it without apparent immediate harm.

Finicky chickweed is up. We’re calling it finicky because while it is the right time of year you are not going to find it at every usual location. We saw it two weeks ago at Blanchard Park in east Orlando, then could not find any at Mead Garden Sunday, which was about eight miles west of Blanchard. Then Monday it was abundant at a location in Groveland (west 40 more miles.) As wild edible goes it’s an easy plant to identify if you examine several characteristics of the plant, not just the blossom. It has a small five-petaled flower that is deeply incised so it looks like ten petals. It has a single line of hair down one side of the stem that changes sides at every pair of leaves, it has a stretchy inner core and tastes like corn silk. A local plant locals confuse for it is Richardia grandiflora which is much larger, coarser, totally hairy, has a large five-petaled blossom and no stretchy core and does not taste like corn silk. 

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

We are also approaching the end of Winged Yam season, Dioscorea alata. They don’t go away this time of year, they are just more difficult to locate. Their long vines start dying off from the ground up. Thus you can see the upper vines still green but as they approach the ground they turn brown and break off making it difficult to see where it went into the ground. They’ll come up again about April. We found several during our foraging class Sunday, some of good size. First you cook them like potato then use them. Mashed potatoes and shepherd’s pie are favorite forms. Eating a plant the state wants to get rid of is a win-win civic duty.

Malvaviscus pendiflorus. Photo by Green Deane

Many Foragers know “Turk’s Cap” or “Sleepy Hibiscus” blossoms are edible. They are a common sight locally and we ate several during our foraging class last Sunday. They are a red hibiscus blossom that never opens thus is called “sleepy.” There are actually two species of them, Malvaviscus arboreus and M. penduliflorus. How do you tell them apart though they are equally edible? M. penduliflorus is thought to be a native of Mexico. It has downward-pointing, wrapped-up flowers that are about two and a half inches long. M. arboreus is native to Texas, Mexico, parts of the West Indies, Central America, and northern South America. It has short, less wrapped blossoms (1.5 inches) that point up. They don’t droop. A hundred grams of fresh flower has: 16 calories, 2.68 grams of protein, 0.89 grams of carbohydrates. It has 67 mg of calcium, 1.21 grams of iron, and 379 mg of sodium. A hundred grams of dried flower has: 100 calories, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 520 mg of calcium, 21.6 grams of iron, 48 grams of vitamin C. No fat, no fiber, no protein or sodium reported.

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

One foraging class this holiday weekend, a new location and no fee ’cause we’re checking the location out for possible future classes. And… the weather this coming Sunday is supposed to be good, mid-60s Saturday night, lower 80’s Sunday, a low chance of rain. Might be windy. Start your new year off on the beach studying plants. 

Sunday January 2nd, as Monty Python used to say, “and now for something different.” Let’s meet at 10 a.m. (at the bathrooms) and wander around Lori Wilson Park, Cocoa Beach, for a couple of  hours. No fee. I did a short private class there a couple of years ago for a Mensa event. Not sure it is extensive enough for a regular class. If the weather’s pleasant it will be a nice way to start the new year. 1500 N. Atlantic Avenue, Cocoa Beach Fl 32931.  10 a.m. 

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. 

The Florida Thatch Palm might be found more in landscaping than in nature.

At what point does a “wild” plant become an edible plant? Good question. Occasionally on teaching trips to south Florida I saw a palm with small white fruit. Twice I tasted them. No particular flavor but more importantly no burning from calcium oxalates (which is usually the first sign a palm fruit is not edible.)  On one trip I took some pictures aiming for identification. What I got tentatively was Thrinax radiata, the Florida Thatch Palm, so called because it was used to thatch hut roofs. Thrinax by the way means “trident” in Greek, radiata radiating. If the identification is correct then are the fruit edible? On page 670 of Florida Ethnobotany by Daniel Austin he writes: “Fruits are sweet and edible.” Then he says “the fiber has been used to stuff pillows and mattresses.”  That problem I have is that the fruit on the palm pictured right was not “sweet” but rather foul tasting. So, either the identification is wrong, the fruit was eaten at the wrong time (though it was totally white) or the flavor varies tree to tree. It will need sorting out.  

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

One of two species of mustard we should see this coming Sunday’s class at Lori Wilson park is Sea Rocket. We have two species of Cakile or Sea Rocket locally.  They show themselves in our winter and preferably on the beach above the rack line. You can also find them blossoming in coastal dunes. The leaves are a bit fleshy but as they are in a tough environment that helps them preserve water. While Sea Rocket can be found along most coasts of the United States, Maine to Washington State, Florida has its own variety, C. lancelolate. There is a video on them here and you can read more about them here.

Nagi fruit is not edible but the seed oil is.

The Nagi Tree is odd in that the seed oil is edible but the seed isn’t nor is the fruit. You can boil young leaves but they are kind of on par with pine needles (which are a distant relative.) One odd thing is that the leaves clearly look like a monocot, that is, they don’t have branching veins but all parallel veins and no mid-rib in the leaf. The confusion is there are no monocot trees. These hurricane-proof trees produce piles of pretty blue berries that sprout easily. It’s just too bad they are not edible (neither are the blue fruit of the Japanese Blueberry Tree that resembles an olive.) You can read about the Nagi Tree here. 

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.

This is my weekly newsletter #488. 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.

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

Wild Radish has similar uses as Wild Mustard, and flavor.

While bike riding Tuesday last we passed a field with flowering Wild Mustard. That location has been reseeding itself for a number of years. It’s a reminder how resilient wild plants can be and that we have entered our cooler-weather phase. It is also the time to look for Wild Radishes. They are used the same way as Wild Mustards. 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.

With recent cool spells it’s no surprise to find our winter mustards making their annual appearance though I call some of them the Little Mustards and Micro-Mustards. Prime among them is Bittercress, Cardamine hirsuta, sometimes called Hairy Bittercress. Frankly I’ve never found it bitter.

In northern climates Bittercress is a springtime herb growing into summer. Here in Florida it’s a fall herb growing into winter. It is also one of the few mustards, if not the only one, you can find growing in very damp or waterlogged soil. Unlike the Western Tansy Mustard, which adores dry ground, I’ve always found Cardamine hirsuta in well-watered lawns and landscapes or wet spots. In fact this past summer, which was Florida hot as usual, several of our spring-fed streams dried to a trickle exposing much stream-bed. In the shade of a cypress tree on one of those beds an unusual summer crop of Bittercress germinated. All it needed was a bit of shade — read cooler temperatures — and a damp spot. Bittercress is naturally leggy, whispy, even at its best at the end of a season’s worth of growth. Its prime use is as an addition to salads or soups, more flavoring than material substance. Cardamine hirsuta is one of those plants that is not substantial enough to sustain you but with it potent flavor it makes eating and thus life better. To read about our small winter mustards click here and here.  

We often 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 blossoms are boxy. Photo by Green Deae

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. While the Silverthorn fruits around February we saw some in blossom last Sunday, right on shcedule. 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 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. To read more about the Silverthorn go here.

Chickweed has five deeply incised petals. Photo by Green Deane

Real chickweed is up. If you want to sample it in a variety of ways you have a couple of months at best. I usually find chickweed locally between Christmas and Valentine’s Day. It can be found earlier and occasionally after Valentine’s Day. But those two holidays mark the practical beginning and end of the local chickweed season. We found some young stuff Sunday east of Orlando in Blanchard Park. It also doesn’t grow much farther south than central Florida. In northern climates Chickweed is a green of spring. It actually germinates under the snow so it can get a head start on other spring plants. Snow spits here every half century or so and the ground never freezes which is why we can forage 365 days a year. Chickweed is fairly easy to identify. Besides tasting like corn silk it has a stretchy inner core and one line of hair that runs along the stem switching sides at each pair of leaves. Don’t confuse Chickweed for a local cousin the edible, Drymaria cordata. To read more about chickweed click here.  Also coming on strong is Pellitory. To read about Pellitory again click here.

Redflower Ragweed seen in Largo. Photo by Green Deane

Redlfower Ragweed isn’t a ragweed but I’ve been seeing it for several years now. It reminds me of Fireweed/Burnweed except with red blossoms. Botanically it’s Crassocephalum crepidioides (kras-oh-SEF-uh-lum krep-pid-dee-OY-deez.) Crassocephalum is from the Dead Latin “Crassus” meaning “thick” and “kephale” which is Greek for head. Crepidioides is more mangle Greek. “-oides” in Dead Latin is mispronounced borrowed Greek and means “resembles.” Crepidioides means “resembles Crepis.” Crepis is from an old Greek word for a frilly funeral veil. It works its way into English via French as “crepe” paper.  So “thick head resembles crepe paper” is one way to interpret the plant’s name.” And… even though it is called the Redflower Ragweed its leaves more resemble Fireweed/Burnweed, Erechtites hieraciifolius (which is an even more complicated, naughty story.) Redflower Rageweed’s blossoms, however, more resemble the toxic Florida Tassel Flower. Cornucopia II says of Crassocephalum crepidioides on page 37: “Ebolo, Okinawan Spinach, Young leaves and shoots are used as a potherb, fried, or mixed in Khao yam. The leaves are fleshy, tinged with purple and have a somewhat mucilaginous quality and nutty flavor. Has become quite popular on the island of Okinawa and in Hawaii In Thailand, the roots are eaten with chili sauce or cooked in fish curry. Tropical Africa. Cultivated.”

The city of Winter Park has added an edible to their downtown park. Photo by Green Deane

My annual Urban Crawl is coming up, my twelfth, on Friday, December 17th.  It’s a free class. We meet in front of Panera’s at 10 a.m. in Winter Park. We wander south to the college, stop at Starbucks to drink & drain, go east to the public library area, then back to Panera’s around noon. There is a free parking garage behind (west) of Paneras if you go to the upper floors. If you park on the city streets you chance a ticket as the class is longer than parking hours allow. A year ago in their downtown park they removed a Limequat leaving the space empty. I have no idea why the tree had to go in that it was regularly fruiting and while not rare a novelty. It was replaced by a Acerola Cherry also called Barbados Cherry. This little tree’s claim to fame is a huge amount of acorbic acid which is natural vitamin C. It often has fruit on the ground. 

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

Foraging classes are scheduled out to the beginning of January. As the potential weather in January reveals it self, and the spread of the Omnicon version of COVID, I will schedule more classes. As my classes are outside, weather — as of now — is a greater influencer than COVID. 

Sunday December 19th, Colby-Alderman Park: 1099 Massachusetts Street, Cassadaga. Fla. 32706. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the bathrooms. 

Sunday December 26th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the bathrooms. The park entrance is on South Denning. Some GPS directions get it wrong.

Sunday January 2nd, as Monty Python used to say, “and now for something different.” Let’s meet at 10 a.m. (at the bathrooms) and wander around Lori Wilson Park, Cocoa Beach, for a couple of  hours. No fee. I did a short private class there a couple of years ago. Not sure it is extensive enough for a regular class. If the weather’s pleasant it will be a nice way to start the new year. 1500 N. Atlantic Avenue, Cocoa Beach Fl 32931.

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out and replaced by a 150-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. They’re a nice Christmas gift sent by First Class Mail. 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. I’d like to thank all of you who ordered the DVD set over the years which required me to burn over 5,000 DVDs individually. 

Green Deane Forum

Want to identify a plant?  Perhaps you’re looking for a foraging reference? You might have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane and others from around the world — chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk 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 #486. 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.

Cones from the Australian Pine minus seeds. Photo by Green Deane

I recently uploaded a new video about the Australian Pine. I see an attractive stand of them regularly in Port Charlotte (on Bayshore near Ganyard.) It’s a much maligned tree that suffers under the rubricks of “invasive weed.” That means some official decided it is out of control, not good for the environment, and harmful to the local ecosystem. Yet, in other countries it is intentionally planted. The tree has edible parts. While there can indeed be ecological reasons to trash a plant that designation almost always carries with it a load of attitude as well… kind of like botanical bullying.

The Australian Pine has branchlets not needles. Photo by Green Deane

The Australian Pine is not a pine and is more closely related to the oaks. In fact it is often called the “she oak.” It’s a prime source of firewood (and can be burned immediately after cutting.) It is also used for smoking meat and fish as are the “needles” after soaking them salt water. And those whispy rhapidophyllum are not needles. They are branchlets.  (Rhapidophyllum, from the Greek, is the botanical name for needle-leaf whereas in the animal world the same shape is hystrix also from the Greek ὕστριξ meaning porcupine.) And as one might guess the Needle Palm is Rhapidophyllum hystrix, a bit of drunk botanical overkill there. It’s a cold-hardly palm that hurts like hell and will grow as far north as Long Island and Seattle. 

In Florida Australian Pines are seen as far north as Haul Over Canal, just north of the space center where they hold the dirt banks of the canal in place. And they are also in the center of the state in Deland, home of Stetson College. The species barely fits into the edible realm. It’s sap is drinkable, the branchlets edible as are the cones but better are the roasted seeds. In the video I highlight their nutritional content. You can watch it here. 

A young Leonotis leonurus  blossom. Photo by Green Deane

There’s an innocent-looking ornamental plant in local parks which in some European countries the possession of which can get you 30 years in prison: Wild Dagga, or, Leonotis leonurus. As a student of Greek I always have an issue with the name because “Leonotis”  means “Lion’s Ear” while “leonurus” is mangled Greek and “new” Latin for “Lion’s Tail.” So it’s name is Lion’s Ear Lion’s Tail…. more drunk botanical overkill.  They took it all from the historical King of Sparta, λέωνῐ́δᾱς,  or Leonida, which means “son of a lion.” A second species found locally — and more often — is Leonotis nepetifolia (catnip leaf.) The plants look similar except “lion tail” has skinny leaves like marijuana, and the “catnip leaf’ has somewhat large diamond-shaped leaves like catnip. The blossoms and over all growth pattern is similar for both. From tropical South Africa and India Lion’s Tail is used … recreationally…  where as Catnip Leaf is used medicinally. Both have leonurine, Lion’s Tail apparently more than Catnip Leaf. Water extraction — tea — is the common method. A 2015 study says Leonotis leonurus seems to be mildly pschoactive. “Research has proven the psychoactive effects of the crude extract of L. leonurus, but confirmation of the presence of psychoactive compounds, as well as isolation and characterization, is still required.” Sounds like a pitch for more research money. Others report both species contain marrubiin which is an analgesic and probably why they have been used in traditional medicine. Bees and humming birds also like the species. I will be doing a video on them. A relevant pubmed article can be read at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29016795/

The city of Winter Park has added an edible to their downtown park. Photo by Green Deane

My annual Urban Crawl is coming up, my twelfth, on Friday, December 17th.  It’s a free class. We meet in front of Panera’s at 10 a.m. in Winter Park. We wander south to the college, stop at Starbucks to drink & drain, go east to the public library area, then back to Panera’s around noon. There is a free parking garage behind (west) of Paneras if you go to the upper floors. If you park on the city streets you chance a ticket as the class is longer than parking hours allow. A year ago in their downtown park they removed a Limequat leaving the space empty. I have no idea why the tree had to go in that it was regularly fruiting and while not rare a novelty. It was replaced by a Acerola Cherry also called Barbados Cherry. This little tree’s claim to fame is a huge amount of acorbic acid which is natural vitamin C. It often has fruit on the ground. 

Henbit likes cooler weather

The first is Henbit. It’s in the mint family but does not smell or taste minty. It does, however, have a square stem and the blossoms resembles mints. In northern climates it is one of the first green plants to pop up after the snow goes (it and chickweed.) Locally it likes our cooler months of the year. It was esteemed by the natives because among all the annual greens it is not spicy but rather mild if not on the sweet side. What can be confusing about it is that the leave shape and stem length is different from young to old leaves. But they all have a scalloped shape. It also has a similar looking relative that is also edible called Dead Nettle. You can read about Henbit here.

Cranesbill is barely edible

Also found in lawns this time of year are wild geraniums, usually Cranesbill or Stork’s Bill. (Why one is one word and the other two-words possessive I do not know.)  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 are extremely bitter. You might be able to toss a little bit of both in a salad 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 petals you might have the non-edible Fumaria. It comes up this time of year and from a distance the leaves can remind one of the wild geraniums. To read more about them go here. 

Foraging Classes: This weekend before Christmas we visit Red Bug Slough, always a ncie walk in Sarasota, and then to a familiar standby in east Orlando, Blanchard Park. Please note something different on January second and further down in the newsletter my Urban Crawl next week.    

Saturday December 11th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet by the playground. 

Sunday December 12th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m to noon, meet at the pavilion next to the tennis courts. 

Saturday December 18th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte. 9 a.m. to noon. This class will not meet and will be rescheduled. 

Sunday December 19th, Colby-Alderman Park: 1099 Massachusetts Street, Cassadaga. Fla. 32706. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the bathrooms. 

Sunday December 26th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the bathrooms. The park entrance is on South Denning. Some GPS directions get it wrong.

Sunday January 2nd, as Monty Python used to say, “and now for something different.” Let’s meet at 10 a.m. (at the bathrooms) and wander around Lori Wilson Park, Cocoa Beach, for a couple of  hours. No fee. I did a short private class there a couple of years ago. Not sure it is extensive enough for a regular class. If the weather’s pleasant it will be a nice way to start the new year. 1500 N. Atlantic Avenue, Cocoa Beach Fl 32931.   

Walt Cook, a Wyoming state veterinarian, takes care of one 300 stricken elk, all of which quickly died after eating a lichen, Parmelia molliuscula.

I am constantly meeting people who want to reduce the entire realm of foraging down to one sentence: “If the animals can eat it you can eat it.” That advice can kill you and or make you very ill. Birds can eat arsenic, squirrels strychnine, poison ivy is high-protein deer food. Conversely day lilies kill cats and avocados crash canaries. Three hundred elk were killed in Wyoming eating native lichen.  Animals don’t have a great sense of what is not edible. Hunger can override what defenses they have. There’a quite a list of false advice for humans. You hear “all black berries are edible.” Wrong. “Most red berries are edible,” Wrong. The best you can do with berries is that almost all white berries are toxic. Not all but almost all, or enough of them to leave white berries alone. In the satirical novella Animal Farm, by George Orwell, the final rule is “all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.” That might be said about eating plants. Goats can eat almost anything. They are the garbage scows of the world, putting pigs to shame. However avocados will kill goats, but not us. In fact Avocados are toxic to most creatures. That said, as humans go we are fairly limited compared to animals, tolerance-wise. That’s another reason to know your plants and use the I.T.E.M. system, Identification, Time of Year, Environment, Method of Preparation. Unlike domesticated plants wild plants still have their defense mechanisms. (Bitter is often a warning sign.) I had a fellow email me from a Mediterranean country. He said his foraging method was if it tasted good he ate it, if it tasted bad he didn’t eat it. He asked me what I thought of that. I replied I hoped he had good life insurance.

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out and replaced by a 150-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. They’re a nice Christmas gift sent by First Class Mail. 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. I’d like to thank all of you who ordered the DVD set over the years which required me to burn over 5,000 DVDs individually. 

Want to identify a plant?  Perhaps you’re looking for a foraging reference? You might have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane and others from around the world — chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk 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 #485. 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.

And on this date 80 years ago I had an uncle in the Navy at Pearl Harbor. He survived the attach and the war. 

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Goji berries like brackish water locations and the cooler weather of fall and winter. Photo by Green Deane

The Christmasberry, of which there are many, is poorly named. I have found it from late November to mid-April. We found and ate a lot of them in my foraging class last week south of Daytona Beach. I have also found patches barely blossoming to others fruiting heavily at the same time. Whenever you find Lycium carolinium its looks close to dead if not dying, dry, leafless, covered with Ramalina lichen. Except for the blossom it does not look like a member of the Nightshade family, which it is. 

Most folks are surprised to learn Goji Berries grow in North America. Six species were eaten by Native Americans. Among the edibles species on this continent are L. andersonii, Lycium berlandieri, L. carolinianum, L. exsertum, L. fremontii, L. pallidum, and L. torreyi.  L. ferocissimum is a pest in Australia and their native L. australe was eaten by the Aboriginals. The leaves of the L. halimifolium are cooked and eaten in Eurasia as is the L. chinense. The L. chinense and L. barbarum produce the commercial fruit called Goji Berry. L. barbarum is naturalized in England and L. chinense is naturalized  in about 19 states and Ontario. 

Interestingly the USDA nutrition panels on Goji Berries are unusually short, many of them commercially generated. According to the longest one 100 grams of dried Goji Berries have 349 calories, 14.26 grams of protein, 0.39 grams of fat, 77.06 grams of carbohydrates (45 of them sugar) and 13 grams of fiber. Vitamin C is 48.4 mg, two thirds your daily need, and vitamin A 26822 IU (which is some 11 times your daily need.)  Sodium 298 mg, calcium 190 mg, and iron 6.8 mg. That is is high in sodium is not surprising. I always find the species growing where there is brackish water.   

The species does come with some warmings. As mentioned the Goji is in the Nightshade family so perhaps people with an allergy to that family (tomatoes, peppers, egg plants, tomatillos et cetera) should avoid it. Goji is also high in lectins which can also bother people. The reason why we can’t eat raw kidney beans is lectins, the poison Ricin is lectins from the Castor Bean Plant. Lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins. Cereal grains and legumes are high in lectins. Gluten is a lectin and some people are gluten intolerant. The one medical warning associated with Goji berries is they may increase the potency of drugs like Warfarin (making you bleed more easily.) Goji berries also contain atropine in low amounts

Bauhinia blossoms are edible but not all the seeds. Species vary.

We saw several species blooming this past weekend in my foraging class. The Hibiscus were happy including the “Sleepy Hibiscus.” It’s a fairly easy shrub to identify because the bright red blossoms that never unfurl. Also blossoming was the Bauhinia. It’s a tree that is both easy and challenging at the same time. The blossoms are edible, look nice in salads. Some of the species have edible seeds and some do not. (They are in the pea family and most pea trees — most not all — do not have edible seeds.) Sorting out which Bauhinia you have can be a challenge, nearly as bad as sorting out which Cereus you have. Like the Cereus cactus there are several man-made hybrids and perhaps even some fake botanical names. It can make species identification a real headache though as far as I know all the blossoms are edible. Only “discovered” 111 years ago the blossom of the Bauhinia blakeana is the emblem of Hong Kong. You can read about the Bauhinia here.

Chickweed is highly seasonal. Photo by Green Deane

Real chickweed will soon arrive. If you want to sample it in a variety of ways you have a couple of months at best. I usually find chickweed locally between Christmas and Valentine’s Day. It can be found earlier and occasionally after Valentine’s Day. But those two holidays mark the practical beginning and end of the local chickweed season. It also doesn’t grow much farther south than central Florida. In far northern climates Chickweed is a green of spring. It actually germinates under the snow so it can get a head start on other spring plants. Snow spits here every half century or so and the ground never freezes which is why we can forage 365 days a year. Early Chickweed in the Carolinas can be found Starting in September. Chickweed itself is fairly easy to identify. Besides tasting like corn silk it has a stretchy inner core and one line of hair that runs along the stem switching sides at each pair of leaves. Don’t confuse Chickweed for a local cousin the edible, Drymaria cordata. To read more about chickweed click here.  Also coming on strong is Pellitory. To read about Pellitory again click here.

Most of us have been told eating apple seeds is dangerous. That is usually followed by “there was a man who ate a cup of apple seeds and died…”

Is that theoretically possible? Yes.  You’d have to eat 85 grams of apples seeds, about three ounces, or about 114 seeds, all at one time, all thoroughly chewed. That could, in theory, deliver a fatal dose of cyanide. That’s for a 150 pound person, a larger person could tolerate more, a child much less. Probably children should not eat any apple seeds. The way cyanide works is rather fascinating. It attaches to our red blood cells better than oxygen. So instead of oxygen being delivered throughout the body for mitochondrial use cyanide is. We essentially stop making energy. But what about the guy who ate the cup of seeds? There’s bit of a problem with that.  In 1964 John Kingsbury, Phd., an expert on plant poisonings, particularly regarding farm animals, published Poisonous Plants of the United States and Canada, Prentice-Hall. He was the expert and his book became the book to reference. On page 365 Kingsbury wrote:

“Apple seeds are cyanogenetic. A man, who found apple seeds a delicacy, saved a cupful of them. Eating them at one time, he was killed by cyanide poisoning.”

Kingsbury’s inclusion of the incident in his book gave the story legitimacy and it has been quoted extensively ever since by professionals and amateurs alike. But from a traditional journalistic point of view the story is full of what we called in the newsroom “holes.” Who ate the seeds, when, and where? Basic facts that add credibility. Professor that he was Kingsbury included where he got the story from in footnote 1335. That footnote reads: Reynard, G.B., and J.B.S. Norton in Poisonous Plants of Maryland in Relationship to Livestock. Maryland Agricultural Experimental Station, Technical Bulletin. A10, 1942. 312 pp. So Kingsbury in 1964 is quoting a farm bulletin from 1942. What does that bulletin say? On page 276 of the now 77-year old bulletin Reynard and Norton write about prussic acid harming livestock. (Amygdalin is essentially a sugar and cyanide molecule which when digested releases hydrogen cyanide which used to be called prussic acid.) They note in the last paragraph, above right:

“Apple seeds are mentioned, not as having caused stock-poisoning, but because of the fact that one instance was recorded from personal inquiry in which an adult man was killed following eating a cup of these seeds at one time. The seeds had been saved up, apparently thought to be a delicacy in small amounts and upon being eaten developed enough of the deadly prussic acid to cause this tragic death. The instance is recorded here as a caution to others who might attempt to eat more than a few of these seeds at any one time. Previous investigators have reported that apple seeds contain appreciable amounts of amygdalin from which prussic acid is developed, but actual reports of poisoning are rare.”

Florida Tasselflower is long-term toxic to humans and very toxic for horses.

Livestock poisonings from prussic acid are “rare.” What of  humans?  A 130-year search of the New York Times by this writer produced 437 stories involving prussic acid. Those included suicides, murders and a few accidental medicinal deaths. None by an apple seed overdose (which surely would have made the newspaper.) We are left with no who, no where, and no when as well as a  “recorded from personal inquiry…”  and “apparently.” That means someone told them it had happened. Their reference is as weak as Kingsbury’s. Without a name, a time and place it is not much better than an urban legend. It could have happened, or it just might be a story.  More so, man has been eating apples for some 6,000 years. One would have thought in that amount of time it would have become common knowledge that you don’t eat a lot of apple seeds in one sitting. Also during the days of Johnny Appleseed everyone was making cider and there were millions of seeds available annually for decades if not centuries. One wouldn’t have to save them up at all. Getting rid of apple seeds was a problem, not getting enough of them. Also they dry out very quickly so if you saved only a few at at time by the time you had a cup that way the earlier seeds would not be edible (and drying can reduce the offending chemical. My grandmother dried peach pits for that purpose, making them safe.)  And … with all those millions of seeds around and hungry people why only one report of an apple seed over dose?

We can’t say the story is not true, but we can call it doubtful. Click here to read about Wild Apples.

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

Foraging Classes: Two favored locations for classes this weekend, Port Charlotte and Mead Garden. The Saturday class in Port Charlotte is filling up quickly. It features a variety of edibles including many salt-tolerant species. Mead Garden Sunday is a central location with a great diversity of species. 

Saturday December 4th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the parking lot of Bayshore and Ganyard St.

Sunday December 5th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the bathrooms. The park entrance is on South Denning. Some GPS directions get it wrong.

Saturday December 11th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet by the playground. 

Sunday December 12th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m to noon, meet at the pavilion next to the tennis courts. 

Updating videos: This past month was busy with the uploading of 12 new videos on You Tube in EatTheWeeds: 151: Persimmon Revisited, 152: Lantana, 153: Sea Oxeye, 154: Tropical Almond Revisited, 155: Sumac Revisited, 156: Seagrapes, 157: Tamarind, 158: Bananas Revisited, 159: Ghost Pipes, 160: Swine Cress, 161: Goldenrod, and 162 Dove Plum. The goal over the coming months is to revisit some species that were recorded on old technology. Some new species will be as well. 

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out and replaced by a 150-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. I’d like to thank all of you who ordered the DVD set over the years which required me to burn over 5,000 DVDs individually. 

Want to identify a plant?  Perhaps you’re looking for a foraging reference? You might have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane and others from around the world — chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk 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.

My annual Urban Crawl is coming up, my twelfth, on Friday, December 17th. We meet in front of Panera’s at 10 a.m. in Winter Park (north end of Park Avenue.) We wander south to Rollins College, head back north stopping at Starbucks to drink & drain, go east to the public library area, the lake docks, then back to Panera’s. It takes a couple of hours. There is a free parking garage behind (west) of Paneras if you go to the upper floors. If you park on the city streets you chance a ticket as the class is longer than parking hours allow. 

Persicaria maculosa, an edible plant with dozens of names most relating to the smudge on the leaf.

Rain, yellow jackets, Lady Thumbs, Honey Mushrooms, and Chickweed punctuated my foraging classes in South Carolina this past weekend. Before we get into the details many thanks to Lenard and Donna Putney for the use of Putney Farm for the classes and for the sponsor of Upstate Weedeaters Anonymous (of South Carolina) also on Facebook.  

Chair in tree from flooding. Photo by Green Deane

The rain was from a front passing that came through Friday and left about 10 inches. I did get stuck at the end of the farm’s driveway but skills from decades of getting unstuck from snow and frost-heave mud kicked in and all I got was wet.  Saturday it was not heavy slogging but things were a tad damp. A nearby creek flooded badly and the area we look for Ipomoea pandurata and Box Elder was too soggy to visit. How high was the water? Note the chair in the tree. A nearby fellow who built too close to the small creek also had his truck muck mired and his generator float away along with an inflatable child bounce-house. 

Sow thistle, in this case, Sonchus asper, is a cool weather pot herb. Photo by Green Deane

As for yellow jackets… on Saturday’s class I was fortunate enough to step directly on their ground entrance while talking about a sow thistle, Sonchus Asper. That — unknowingly — kept them at bay. We also covered Wild Geraniums as the same stop as well as Amaranth and Rumex hastatulus, a nice tart sorrel. Not one sting. Good thing as the class was a dozen or so people. By Sunday morning, however, the little stingers had dug out and I got too close though I did not know that until they strafed my leg. Fortunately I am not allergic to their stings. I did talk a little faster though…. 

As for the chickweed…. While scruffing some Carolina Bristle Mallow I saw a couple of one-inch high plants that looked familiar. Their raw corn taste confirmed them as chickweed (clearly starting its seasonal run in South Carolina. I don’t see them in Florida until perhaps late January or early February.) Knowing they were up we found more in select places. The Bristle Mallow, incidentally, is a semi-edible.

If it looks like a garlic and smells like a garlic it is edible.

Two other surprises of the weekend were a young garlic and honey mushrooms. As to which wild garlic my guess is Allium vineale, (ALL-ee-um VINE-ee-ul) also called Crow Garlic. It’s not native but rather came from Eurasia during the colonial period. The species is grass-like when young and later sends up a long seed spike with small cloves on top. If a plant looks like a garlic and smells like a garlic it is edible no matter where you are on earth. That’s also true with onions: If it looks like an onion and smells like an onion it is edible but you have to have both, looks and aroma. Here in Florida we have a toxic lily that looks like a garlic/onion but has no aroma.

Honey Mushrooms are cespitose, growing in a clump. Photo by Green Deane

I am extremely familiar with Ringless Honey Mushrooms but this was the first time I saw Honey Mushrooms (with a ring) Armillaria mellea.  Fortunately also with the class Saturday was Tom McGrath from Georgia who is familiar with the species. They are among the few mushrooms that are cespitose which means growing in a clump (think like a bouquet, large caps on top like blossoms with decreasing skinny stems down to a point that holds together.) Interestingly that area of South Carolina has both species — Honey and Ringless Honeys and are they first to respond to the cooling weather of fall. The ones in the picture came home with me. 

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

Foraging Classes: Less traveling this weekend for foraging classes, at least for me. Sarasota on Saturday and Winter Park on Sunday. 

Saturday October 16th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL,. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Sunday October 17th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  Meet at the bathrooms. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Saturday October 23rd, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. 9 a.m. to noon, meet just north of the science center.

Sunday October 24th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte.  9 a.m. to noon, meet at the parking lot of Bayshore and Ganyard.

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

Lady Thumbs are distantly related to Japanese Knotweed.

Pretty easy to see during our classes but hard to sort out were the prolific Lady Thumbs, Persicaria maculosa. Botanists are of little help here. The plant (and relatives) have bounced between to genera — Polygonum and Persicaria — and have had multiple names, botanical and common. Fortunately there are no known toxic plants in the greater group if you don’t get the ID down to the species. They are usually mild when young and can be peppery when older. The plants are usually used in salads, more when mild, as a spice when peppery though they can be a pot herb as well. In a raw serving there is some B2, vitamin C and vitamin A. When cooked only B2 was detected.  Persicaria maculosa (as of this writing) is a native of Eurasia and is on the weed hit list of many states. There are a couple of native species that can resemble it: The Nodding Smartweed (Persicaria lapathifolia) and Pennyslvania Smartweed (P. pensylvania.)

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out and replaced by a 150-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. I’d like to thank all of you who ordered the DVD set over the years which required me to burn over 5,000 DVDs individually. 

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

This is my weekly free newsletter #477. 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.

Wisteria is usually invasive though there is a native species. Photo by Green Deane

The weather may be chilly still it’s a hot time of year for foraging. A species  blossoming now and rarely covered is Wisteria. I failed to notice it during our foraging class in Gainesville Sunday. (I only spotted it near the entrance after class.) The blossoms are edible raw or cooked but the rest of the plant is toxic (though that varies from species to species.) With some two seeds can kill a child. While most Wisteria is considered Asian there is a native species in the Americas, W. frutescens. You can read about Wisteria here.  

The non-aromatic Cherokee Rose is not native. Photo by Green Deane

Another Asian species sighted this weekend is one that was once considered native, the Cherokee Rose, which is actually an invasive. Botanically Rosa laevigata (Rosa is from the Greek ῥόδον (rhódon) meaning rose and laevitata or (Levis) is Dead Latin for  smooth or polished. It’s a “climbing shrub” as is Smilax and Nicker Bean. Cherokee Rose is a large nearly odorless white bloomer from the low mountains of China and Vietnam. It was carried to the Americas in 1780 and was reportedly cultivated by the Cherokee thus the name. In 1916 at the urging of womens’ clubs it was made the state flower of Georgia and still is. It  produces huge rose hips to two-inches long though you have to burn bristles off to use them. And as one might presume the rugged vining shrub is covered with mean prickles. Handle carefully. Sugar from the plant has been used to make wine.

“Deer Mushrooms” are edible. Photo by Green Deane

An edible mushroom taking advantage of the cool, rainy weather is the Deer Mushroom, in this case Pluteus petasatus. These are bunching mushrooms usually growing on old hardwood remains, either logs, stumps, roots or debris. As often is the case the botanical name is more confusing than enlightening. Pluteus  can mean shed or penthouse. Petasatus is Dead Latin for wearing a cap (meaning) ready for a journey. A relative is called P. cervinus the latter means deer or stag because of that species’ cap color. It is also sometimes called the Deer Mushroom or Fawn Mushroom. These two are edible but are viewed as marginal. One reason is the cap is mostly gills with little cap material. Sometimes it can have a radish flavor. Spore print is salmon to pink. 

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

Foraging Classes: We should have good weather for classes this weekend. Maybe I’ll ride my motorcycle if the nights are not too cold. 

Saturday, March 27th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park.

Sunday, March 28th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789. 9 a.m. to noon. The entrance is on the west side of the park off Denning. (If you are going to attend this class please email me first.) 

Saturday, April 3rd, Florida State College, south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246. 9 a.m. to noon. We meet at Building A next to the administration parking lot. Whether the bathrooms are open or not is always a problem at this location. Because of that this class might be relocated to Palatka. This will be cleared up soon. 

Sunday, April 4th, Bayshore Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte. Meet at the parking lot at Bayshore Drive and Ganyard Stree. 9 a.m. to noon. 

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

Hydrilla is used as a supplement. Photo by Green Deane

During a class in Ft. Pierce I managed to get a photo of Hydrilla for my forthcoming book ( schedule to be published next year.) I thought I had seen it in the lake before so I raked some out last Saturday. Invasive Hydrilla is a bit of a contradiction. A native of Europe there is no record of people using it. Yet it is grown, dried, powdered in Florida and sold as a calcium supplement. Ten grams has some 225 mg of calcium.  So not edible but consumable. You can read about Hydrilla here. 

Wild Garlic will be cloving soon. Photo by Green Deane

Edible now is our wild garlic. It’s not at the stage of putting cloves on top yet but we sampled several leaves of it this past weekend. We’ll see it in Eagle Lake Saturday. Green right now are Mulberries and Blackberries. They should be ripe a month from now. We also saw flowering Hawthorn and Bradford Pears. Some plums are fruiting already. Going out of season is chickweed. It’s getting long, mature and bunchy.

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

150-video USB would be a good spring present and is now $99. My nine-DVD set of 135 videos is being phased out. In fact I do not have any. The USB videos are the same videos I have on You Tube for free. 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 make a $99 “donation” using the link at the bottom of this page or here.  That form provides me with your address, the amount — $99 — which tells me it is not a donation. Please include a snail-mail address because they are sometimes not included.

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 #450 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.