Is the unseasonal weather causing Paper Mulberries to fruit? The “hairs” turn fat, orange and sweet.  Photo by Green Deane

At the seventh annual Florida Herbal Conference one of the teachers, Andy Firk, advocated walking as a means of plant discovery. He found many species while walking near where he lived. Even bicycling is too fast, Andy says. The day after the conference ended I had an opportunity to take Andy up on his advice. My motorcycle needed a front tire badly. It was cracking with age, much like me. A shop had ordered the tire for me so I gingerly rode to their garage. As the replacement would take a couple of hours, I decided to walk to a mall about a mile away.

Paper Mulberry fruit when ripe.

There were the usual botanical suspects one finds walking this time of year although with qualifications. We had a couple of very cold weeks last month replaced by a warming trend followed by two weeks of record-hot weather for this time of year. While sauntering I saw something unusual, almost. Paper Mulberries are quite common locally. They are an escaped ornamental that botanists truly misjudged. They imported male colones — to control reproduction — but never considered the possibility of vegetative expansion which made them widespread. By the time others unthinkingly brought in some female Paper Mulberries there were more than enough guys for extensive botanical hanky pankey. One of the more interesting aspect of the Paper Mulberry is that it is a temperate forest tree. While it grows in Central Florida I have never seen it fruit here: Too warm in the winter, supposedly. One hundred miles to the north in Ocala it does have enough chill hours to fruit. But locally in over two decades of watching them nary a single fruit here … until now. While walking to the mall I noticed a Paper Mulberry putting on fruit. That’s the first time I’ve seen it here and also about six to eight weeks early compared to an April fruiting season in Ocala or Jacksonville. The cold snap and the heat wave seem to be likely reasons. One also should consider that the seasons are shifting their dates with several plants perhaps because of long-term climate effects. Ma Nature has a mind of her own. You can read about Paper Mulberries here.

Mayflowers: First blossoms of spring in Maine

Noticing any floral scents in the air this time of year? More than likely it is one of two sources. If you are driving along and notice a sweet aroma it is probably citrus in blossom. When I first moved to Florida, and had not gone thought a citrus blossoming season, I thought I was smelling Mayflowers, aka Trailing Arbutus. Usually blossoming after scentless Pussy Willows, Mayflowers were the first flower aromas of spring (and edible.) My mother and I would go hunting for them in rocky hills in Maine as soon as the ground was dry enough to walk on after the spring melt. And what of the second scent? If you are walking or bicycling now and go in and out of a sweet flower smell that is probably the deceptive Cherry Laurel, Prunus caroliniana. I call it deceptive because its blossoms smell nice and when you crush the leaves there is a distinct aroma of almonds (some say Maraschino Cherries.) Either way the tree, leaves and fruit is laced with cyanide (actually a chemical which on digestion produces fatal cyanide.) The tree and all its parts are to be totally avoided. Unlike most cherries it had a fruit with a hard point, NOT EDIBLE. Because it stays green all year (hence the term Laurel) and is a native the Cherry Laurel is used a lot in landscaping. Ingesting a small branch can kill a 600-pound steer in 20 minutes, you much quicker, a child even quicker. Leave it alone.  

Bull Thistle Blossom. Photo by Green Deane

As every year before it the seventh Florida Herbal Conference was a success. Some 700 folks converged for the weekend about 15 miles east of Lake Wales to study herbalism and related topics. A dozen plus  teachers taught three dozen classes ranging from Remembering Grandmother’s Tea to Reclaiming our Healing Roots. Linda and Luke Black Elk from the Standing Rock Reservation were featured speakers. I had two edible plants walks for adults and one for children. In past years the weather for the conference has been average to bone chilling cold. This year it was air-conditioner hot which perhaps influenced the plants we saw. There were the usual February forgeables such as Smilax, Peppergrass, Pellitory,  Western Tansy Mustard, Oxalises, Dollarweed, Gotu Kola, Heartleaf Sorrel, and Horseweed. But there was also past-season still green as well as new blossoming Smartweed. A toxic Tropical Soda Apple was blossoming, months early. I suspect the unusual weather also produced a huge Bull Thistle, photo left. It’s a two-year plant in northern climes but locally can go through its two-stage cycle in succession without overwintering. It’s the bane of cow pastures and a staple of foragers. You can read about it here. 

Foraging classes are held rain or shine or cold…

Foraging Classes: Please take note that a foraging class has been scheduled for March 10th at Haulover Canal. The bridge there has reopened allowing us to look at all four quadrants of that historic canal. This is always conditional in that the federal agency in charge can close the bridge at any time for any reason. 

Sunday, March 4th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion by the dog park. 

Saturday, March 10th, Haulover Canal, Merritt Island National Refuge, north of the Kennedy Space Center. 9 a.m. If northbound go over the bridge, take next left, a dirt road, at the canal turn right, go to end. Park anywhere. If southbound a quarter of a mile before the bridge turn right onto dirt road, turn right at the canal, go to end. There is no drinking water, and the bathrooms are one Port-O-Let. It is hot, dry and dusty and we walk about three miles.  

Sunday, March 11th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive, Port Charlotte. 9 a.m. Meet at the parking lot on Bayshore Drive across from Ganyard Street.

Saturday, March 17th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. Meet at the Pavilion east of the tennis courts near the YMCA.

Sunday, March 18th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405, 9 a.m. Meet just north of the Science Center in the northern half of the park. 

Saturday, March 24th, Florida State College,  south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246.  9 a.m.We will meet at building “D”  next to the administration parking lot.

To read more about the classes or to pre-pay go here. 

Every forager has serious hang-ups so we might as well discuss them: Thorns, spines and prickles. Wintertime can present a foraging challenge to those who live in colder climates. I have written about that as I did grow up in Maine. You can read that article here. Wintertime, even in warmer areas, can also be a good time to look at some plants more closely than other times of the year. One example is the ability to see thorns, spines and prickles more clearly.

While their function can be similar this trio of sharpies have different characteristics and grow on different parts of the plant. This doesn’t mean much when one is in your thumb or starts your ankle bleeding but it can help you to understand some plants better. The main function of these sharp interruptions is to persuade those who eat greenery to dine elsewhere. But they can have secondary functions as well.

Thorns are always associated with a leaf.

Thorns are modified stems, often strong and formidable, and they are connected to the plant’s vascular system usually from deeply-seated tissue. They are almost always accompanied by a leaf. Think thorn-leaf. One genus that come to mind is the Hawthorn. Literally across the dirt road where I grew up there was a Hawthorn with two-inch thorns. It was a favorite nesting place for birds because the thorns kept most predatory or egg-stealing mammals at bay. I don’t know about snakes but in cold New England snakes weren’t a common problem. As modified stems (read branches) thorns can and often do have leaves. They can also branch. Other species with true thorns include Firethorn (Pyracantha) and Japanese flowering quince.

Some toxic Nightshades are well-armed with spines.

Unlike thorns spines are modified leaves or modified stipules which are leaves that really never got out of puberty. They are also attached to the plant’s vascular system, usually external tissue, and are located right below the leaf scar. Acacia and Locus are well-known for spines. Here in Florida the Water Locust is well-armed. Climbing the tree is simply out of the question. One species, Gleditsia triacanthos, can have spines more than a foot long. That’s protection. Do know that some botanists say the Locust have thorns not spines. Not all is settle science in Botanyland.

Cactus spines are actually leaves.

Cactus also have “spines” but they are quite distinct. In the cactus the spine is actually the leaf itself. What it is growing out of is actually a branch. So on a cactus the spines are actually leaves and the pad is actually a branch. Tiny spines are called “glochids” and are particularly irksome. Cactus spines can also be barbed so to work their way into an offended finger, paw or mouth. And while one does not often think of it spines also provide some shade for the plant. Don’t forget that common names can be wrong. The Euphorbia called “Crown of Thorns” should be called Crown of Spines.

If that was not confusing enough, some plants with spines have those modifications on stiff leaves. The American and English hollies are good examples as is the Oregon Grape Holly. Before modern brushes folks would tie English or American Holly branches into a bundle and drag the bundle up and down their chimneys to clean them. Two common species with spines on their leaf margins are Pineapples and Agaves.

Roses have prickles, not thorns.

Many plants that are thought to have thorns or spines actually have prickles. It rather destroys the old saying that “every rose has a thorn.” Prickles are more along the line of plant hairs on steroids and can be found anywhere on the plant. Where thorns (stems) and spines (leaves) have definite locations prickles are here and there and arise from surface material thus they can break off easily, or more easily than thorns or some spines. Besides the rose the related shrubs Hercules Club and Prickly Ash have prickles. The latter is a tree that was actually named correctly. Perhaps the best armed tree in North America is the Silkfloss Tree. It is bristling with prickles up to two inches long.

Natal Plums have double sets of thorns.

Prickles are often said to help a plant climb, as in a blackberry. And interestingly thorns are also said to help plants climb. Spines are not. As one might expect humans have been encountering these pointy problems for a long time but also using them. They have been employed as needles, pins, and fish hooks. Armed plants have also been used for protection against wild animals and protection for domestic animals and crops. Locally the Natal Plum, which produces an edible fruit, is often planted outside windows. Its double sets of thorns make burglars think twice. But I also would think twice about jumping out a window if I had to land on a Natal Plum. When kept short armed plants can be protective or one can grow them tall and cut off lower offending branches. Knowing the difference between thorns, spines and prickles won’t take the pain away but it can help make the plant identification easier.

EatTheWeeds Go Fund Me campaign

Donations to upgrade EatTheWeeds.com and fund a book are going well and is approaching the half way mark. Thank you to all who have contributed to either via the Go Fund Me link, the PayPal donation link or by writing to Green Deane POB 941793 Maitland FL, 32794.  Recent upgrades have been paid now the Forum needs work and several function problems need to be fixed specifically the search and categories. One goal is to will the site to an organization that will maintain and expand it. A new server also has to be found by April in that the current server — Hostgator — does not provide larger enough capacity to back up the site as it is now. The other issue and not one expected is the difficulty of finding an indexing program or function of a real book. Writing programs used to do it automatically if you designated a term for indexing. Now that most books are ebooks most writing programs do not provide and indexing function. The hunt continues. 

Green Deane Forum

Want to identify a plant? Looking for a foraging reference? Do you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object you want identified? On the Green Deane Forum we chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations around the world share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. One special section is “From the Frightening Mail Bag” where we learn from people who eat first then ask questions later. Recent topics include: Cleavers, Five-Petal Yellow Vine, That’s Poor Man’s Pepper, Coconut Purslane Salad, Green Leaves Inner Purple Outline, New Foraging Seasons, Plant’s In Obama’s Portrait, American Nightshade, and What Plant is this? You can join the forum by clicking on “forum” in the menu.

Green Deane DVD Set

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

This is weekly issue 293. 

If you would like to donate to Eat The Weeds please click here.

Ripe and unripe Passiflora lutea fruit. Some passion fruit are edible, most are not. Photo by Green Deane

Passiflora incarnata and unripe fruit. Photo by Green Deane

There are several “edible” Passiflora locally but only a couple worth eating in my tender-tummy opinion: P. incarnata and P. foetida. They both have a tart-sweet flavor and the entire fruit is edible, seeds, pulp and skin. I have eaten both but not in huge quantities, usually one or two at a time. A couple that are marginal are P. lutea and P. suberosa. I see P. lutea often but not P. suberosa which tends to grow further north. During a foraging class this week in Sarasota we saw P. lutea and it was fruiting. Don Porta, mentioned below, tasted it and described it as “interesting.” I would call that being generous. Maybe cooked into a jelly or a juice they might improve. I am a bit concerned that I have seen some websites say P. lutea leaves can be used medicinally like P. incarnata. I would question that though I am not an herbalist nor a chemist (they would not let me take chemistry in school.)  But I seem to remember a study that tested numerous Passifloras and reported they all had some cyanide in their leaves except the P. incarnata which has GABA instead (gamma amino-butryc acid.) It was the only one, in the study at least, that did not have cyanide in its leaves and was specifically singled out. I would be careful about using any Passiflora leaves other than P. incarnata without thorough research first. Also avoid unripe fruit. One species, Passiflora adenopoda, from China,  is definitely fatal. You can read about Passifloras  here. 

Dandelions are a common green.

If you do much foraging one soon learns that most of the wild edibles we harvest are “greens.” There are roots, fruit and nuts as well but about 90% of the forageables fall in the category of “greens.” That is not a complaint but rather an observation. In the world of food things that move under their own power — animals — are the most nutrient dense. Plants are definitely second. In Australia, where there are Aboriginals who still hunt and gather food in traditional ways, roughly two thirds of their diet is creatures and one third plants. As foragers we can get a good amount of calories from roots and nutmeats. The latter have oils and some protein. Natural fruits are usually less sweet than their cultivated cousins but they do provide colorful and health-promoting phytochemicals and anti-oxidants. All that said we should not dismiss greens as bottom of the nutritional barrel. In the middle of the chlorophyl molecule is magnesium. That element is necessary for some 325 metabolic processes in the body  More to the point it’s estimated that 85% of Americans are chronically deficient in magnesium and the rest are not overdosing on it either. Thus mom was right: Eat your vegetables including the green ones.

The Common Sow Thistle is a tasty green.

A January 2018 article in the British Medical Journal calls magnesium deficiency a public health crisis that is driving many diseases ranging from heart disease to osteoporosis even diabetes. How does that happen? It’s call the nutritional triage theory. If you are low on magnesium — or any essential nutriment — the body uses what it has for essential functions such as staying alive (id est breathing, pumping blood, maintaining body temperature et cetera.) Next in line is keeping reproduction status ready. Daily repairs for long-term survival get put off. And when enough of those repairs are put off long enough that causes problems sometimes dramatically increasing disease rates (although even children are now showing the effects of low-magnesium diets.) The take away is eat your greens, better still eat wild greens. Why? Because there has been a drop in magnesium content in food crops because of soil depletion and farming techniques. The journal reports that since 1940 there has been a tremendous decline in overall micronutrient density of food either by depletion or refining. Flour today, for example, has 82% less magnesium than it used to, polished rice -83%, sugar -99%, cheddar cheese -38%,  vegetables in general -24% whole milk -21%, and bacon -18%. Interestingly one of the problem is caused by unbalanced crop fertilization: High levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium reduces absorption of magnesium in plants.

So while some might complain that “greens” are the majority of wild plants we forage those ‘greens” carry a micronutrient that we are becoming increasingly deficient in. I think I’ll go steam up a side dish of False Hawks Beard… or Dandelions… maybe or Sow Thistle or…

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

Foraging Classes: Classes are light this his month because I’m teaching at two conferences, one this weekend in Hawthorn, Florida. And since I am in the area I will be having a class in Ocala this Sunday.  See directly below.

Sunday, February 11th, Jervey Gantt Recreation Complex, 2390 SE 36th Ave., Ocala, FL, 34471. 9 a.m. Meet at the entrance to the pool, aka Aquatic Fun Center.

Saturday, February 17th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335. 9 a.m. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park.

Sunday, February 18th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. Meet at the Pavilion east of the tennis courts near the YMCA.

Sunday, March 4th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion by the dog park. 

For more information about the foraging classes go here.

Donations to upgrade EatTheWeeds.com are going very well. Thank you to all who have contributed to either via the Go Fund Me link or by the PayPal donation link. The fund has already started paying down the cost of the first phase of upgrades started in September.  The site went down just before Hurricane Irma and was off line for about a month. When it came back with a new look many features were not functioning. Some are still buggy such as updating the ARCHIVE section.  ETWs itself has been up for over a decade and the operating system was older than that. Many of the adds-ons and plug-ins were no longer working so it needed a major overhaul. The site’s content itself took many years to create. It contains information about over a thousand of edible plants.  The site has 145 related videos which are currently on You Tube. Hopefully they can be moved back to the site. The Green Deane Forum has some 12,000 posts with plans to expand. The goal is to upgrade more, do more videos and get a book published.  I also want to get the site in shape so I can will it to some organization that can own and maintain it when I’m long gone. You can go to the Go Fund Me page here, or, if you want to use PayPal instead you can use this  link.

2018 Earthskills in Hawthorne Florida.

There are two conferences this month one this week. Earthskills runs for several days in Hawthorn, Florida. There are a wide variety of classes to attend and a lot of camaraderie. I lead a class there Friday and Saturday afternoons. You can still register on line at Earthskills here.

 In two weeks there is the Florida Herbal Conference., Feb 23-25.  Keynote speakers this year are Linda and Luke Black Elk from the Standing Rock Reservation. Linda (of the Catawba Nation) is an ethnobotanist specializing in teaching about culturally important plants and their uses as food and medicine. She is a lecturer at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, North Dakota. Luke Black Elk (Thít?u?wa? Lakota) is a storyteller, grassroots activist, and traditional spiritualist. He has conducted research in water restoration, sustainable building design, and food sovereignty, and hopes to use these techniques to encourage a more traditional way of life among his people. Luke has lived on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation his entire life, becoming deeply involved in cultural and community activities. For more information about the Florida Herbal Conference go here.

Coquina: Small clam, huge flavor.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

Acorns depend on a wet spring.

Many people are surprised to learn most acorns are edible if processed. They were a staple for many native groups who had a wide variety of ways to make them palatable. The amount of acorns a tree produces — called a mast — is effected by weather specifically temperatures, rain and wind. Setting aside temperatures and wind for a moment the amount of spring rain affects the mast. Usually a wet spring means more acorns. But you also need some dry days at the right time to wind-carry the pollen around. Winds distribute that pollen for miles around. Bees do visit oaks blossoms but they are considered a minor pollinator. Throwing a kink in this are temperatures. There are about a dozen different species of oaks locally and they usually don’t all pollinate at the some time unless the weather has been cold. That forestalls some species from pollinating creating more species pollinating at the same time. They wait for warmer weather and that translate into higher amounts of pollen than usual. This is very bad news locally for those who are allergic to oak pollen. Dr. Richard Lockey of the University of South Florida in Tampa says this oak allergy season could be particularly rough. “When it goes this year it will go very quickly and very high because we’ve had such cold weather…” he said. When will it end? Sometime in April which means a really bad March and perhaps part of February. You can read about acorns here.

Radium Weed, Euphorbia peplus. Photo by Green Deane

Non-edibles are not covered often in these newsletters or the related website because it is after all Eat The Weeds and I am not an herbalist. But weeds are related to herbalism (see the two conferences this month.) At our foraging class in Sarasota Sunday Don Porta brought for show and tell some Radium Weed, Euphorbia peplus. The species is originally from Europe and thus got to places like Australia. There it is classified as a noxious weed but much used for treating skin cancer such as basal cell, squamous cell and intraepidermal carcinomas. Radium Weed is reported sporadically in the United States such as in one county in each of these states: Louisiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, Colorado, and Illinois. It’s more common in some states and regionally such as in Southern California. The white sap of the plant is put on skin lesions daily for three days and is as effected as other nonsurgical intervention. In fact in the March 2011 edition of the British Journal of Dermatology it was reported that in a study using 36 patients “the sap from Euphorbia peplus is effective against human nonmelanoma skin cancers.” The active ingredient was identified as Ingenol Mebutate. That’s also the main active ingredient in a pharmaceutically prepared cream for the same use called Picato Gel. There is some controversy.

Picato Gel

The FDA warned in 2015 that Picato Gel can have serious side effects such as allergic reactions and shingles. More common, though, are people applying it, getting some on their fingers then touching their eyes. People who did not wash their hands thoroughly later had issues when applying makeup or inserting contact lenses. I could not find any follow up on the 2015 report of shingles being related to the medication’s use. Might it have been a coincidence? As to why would folks use the sap directly from the plant rather than buy the preparation? Depending upon the amount of Ingenol Mebutate in the preparation a package of two tiny tubes costs from about $700 to $1,200 per prescription. Perhaps the lesson is the plant is powerful medicine and needs to be used carefully… and we should also question why six drops of sap from a plant that is very easy to grow costs $1,200.

Green Deane DVD Set

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

This is weekly issue 290. (And a local note for those who live in southern Volusia County. There’s a lot stinging nettle growing there at Becks Ranch Preserve around the pavilion.) 

If you would like to donate to Eat The Weeds please click here.

There are at least five edible wild species in this photograph. 

Can you name the wild edibles in this photo?

Blossoming Western Tansy Mustard. Photo by Green Deane

From a distance, or with older eyes, the Western Tansy Mustard can resemble Ragweed, or vice a versa. And locally they are in season about the same time. But the Western Tansy Mustard has much finer leaves, doesn’t grow as tall, is a lighter green, and of course has a mild mustard flavor. Ragweed has a strong flavor unless boiled twice. But I recommend you don’t eat that. We don’t know if there are long-term affects from eating Ragweed. The Western Tansy Mustard also likes dry weather and dry locations. You find it in unwatered lawns and fields. A very common place to locate the mild mustard is near paddocks and other dry places livestock are kept or visit. For a small plant that most folks don’t notice it actually has quite a history. You can read about it here.

Fruit of the Latex Strangler Vine. Photo by Green Deane

If you have been following the news Florida had some cold weather a couple of weeks ago. Two mornings in a row my bird bath was frozen. The electricity bill quadrupled. Such cold weather also allows one to study the moderating effects of bodies of water, small and large. I used to own a Carambola Tree, about 60 miles north of where they like to grow. But it was beside my pool, protected by the house and a fence. It fruited all year even after cold weather. This past weekend I had a foraging class in Largo, Fl., which is slightly northwest of Tampa. Ten days ago the overnight temperatures dipped into the upper 20s, enough to freeze a lot of species not accustomed to it. At the Eagle Lake Park in Largo we saw the unfrozen fruit of the Latex Strangler Vine. Despite its name it is a prime wild edible. And in this case in trees right on a small lake. It’s not unusual for the vine itself to survive our winters because the root is protected in the ground. But to see its fruit escape a local freeze because of heat from the lake was educational. You can read more about the Latex Strangler Vine here.

The mighty Heart Leaf Nettle. Photo by Green Deane

It is worth repeating the warning that this is stinging nettle season. While we have two different species of “stinging nettles” the one proliferating in lawns now is the Heart Leaf Nettle, in the genus Urtica. The other is in the genus Cnidoscolus. The Heart Leaf Nettle has perhaps has the second-worst Urtica sting on the planet. There’s one in New Zealand that is a killer. This one just hurts big and lasts long. Its botanical name means “Stinging Dwarf.” I would much rather take a few bee stings than a bite from the Heart Leaf Nettle. It treats me badly, creates a welt and hurts for many days. I can eat it, however, with no problem. Perhaps in contrast to its out-sized sting the species does not grow very tall: A foot high is a good-sized plant. As it is too warm most of the year for the species to thrive it shows around Christmas and is usually gone around March, give or take a few weeks depending on the weather. The main problem is that it grows in and among other edibles this time of year. Thus one can be reaching for a pleasant nibble only to be viciously mugged by this warrior of chemical warfare. You can read about this stinging nettle here.

Simpson Stopper Leaves Photo by Green Deane

Dimpled, round and pointed. The Simpson Stopper has three different kinds of leaves: Dimpled, round and pointed. They also have their own particular aroma when crushed (in that regard they all smell the same.) The species is a native and is being encouraged in landscaping. It also has twin berries that ripen to orange. Depending where you are in the state some are fruiting already or blossoming in other areas. The berries themselves resemble marmalade in flavor with a bit of bitter aftertaste. Like the leaves, the flavor is distinct. Another interesting aspect of the Stopper is that its seeds — which you don’t eat because they taste bad — taste like unripe Suriname Cherries which easily insult the mouth. And indeed the shrubs — Simpson Stopper and Surinam Cherry — are related and have been in and out of mutual genera for several decades. And to complicate things there are many species of Stoppers. You can read about the conumnrum here.

Foraging classes are held rain or shine, heat or cold.

Foraging Classes: This week we had our second class at a new location, Eagle Lake Park in Largo. It was flush with many common winter edibles and should be an interested location as spring approaches. This weekend we are in Sarasota. 

Sunday, February 4th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233. 9 a.m.

Sunday, February 11th, Jervey Gantt Recreation Complex, 2390 SE 36th Ave., Ocala, FL, 34471. 9 a.m. Meet at the entrance to the pool, aka Aquatic Fun Center.

Saturday, February 17th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335. 9 a.m. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park.

Sunday, February 18th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. Meet at the Pavilion east of the tennis courts near the YMCA.

Sunday, March 4th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion by the dog park. 

For more information about the foraging classes go here.

Donations to upgrade EatTheWeeds.com are going well (though I need to get a better handle on Go Fund Me’s mailing program.)  Thank you to all who have contributed to either via the Go Fund Me link or by the PayPal donation link. It still has a ways to go. However, the fund has already started paying down the cost of the first phase of upgrades started in September.  The site went down just before Hurricane Irma and was off line for about a month. When it came back with a new look many features were not functioning. Some are still buggy such as updating the ARCHIVE section.  ETWs itself has been up for over a decade and the operating system was older than that. Many of the adds-ons and plug-ins were no longer working so it needed a major overhaul. The site’s content itself took many years to create. It contains information about over a thousand of edible plants.  The site has 145 related videos which are currently on You Tube. Hopefully they can be moved back to the site. The Green Deane Forum has some 12,000 posts with plans to expand. The goal is to upgrade more, do more videos and get a book published.  I also want to get the site in shape so I can will it to some organization that can own and maintain it when I’m long gone. You can go to the Go Fund Me page here, or, if you want to use PayPal instead you can use this  link.

Keynote Speakers at the Florida Herbal Conference Linda and Luke Black Elk.

There are two conferences this month: Earthskills in Hawthorn, and the Florida Herbal Conference near Lake Wales. I lead plant walks at both events. Earthskills is next week,  Feb 7-11 and the Florida Herbal Conference is Feb 23-25. Both are still accepting registration. You can register at Earthskills here.  Keynote speakers this year at the Florida Herbal Conference are Linda and Luke Black Elk from the Standing Rock Reservation. Linda (of the Catawba Nation) is an ethnobotanist specializing in teaching about culturally important plants and their uses as food and medicine. She is a lecturer at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, North Dakota. Luke Black Elk (Thítȟuŋwaŋ Lakota) is a storyteller, grassroots activist, and traditional spiritualist. He has conducted research in water restoration, sustainable building design, and food sovereignty, and hopes to use these techniques to encourage a more traditional way of life among his people. Luke has lived on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation his entire life, becoming deeply involved in cultural and community activities. For more information about the Florida Herbal Conference go here.

Magnolia petals can be eaten. Photo buy Green Deane

It’s a natural assumption: Blossoms are usually delicate thus they can’t harm you. I know of a local blossom that even a tiny amount ingested will send you to the hospital with gastric distress, perhaps more. And the Mahoe blossoms while edible are tough. Hibiscus blossoms, admittedly,  usually are pretty but flavorless. They add color and texture to salads. One blossom overlooked for culinary use is the Magnolia, big, showy and very fragrant. I am often asked if the seeds are edible and the answer is I do not know. I have never seen any reference to seeds. However the blossom does have its uses. The petals can be used as a spice. Usually I chop them and semi-pickle them in a sweet and sour solution, read vinegar and sugar. Flower buds can also be used as a spice. But, just as the scent of the blossom is strong so is the spice or relish. Use sparingly or your dish will be too magnoliaesque to consume. I have heard of people batter frying the petals but that strikes me as questionable, that is, strong-flavored. To read more about the magnolias go here.

Green Deane Forum

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

Make sure you remove all glochids. Photo by Green Deane

How to pick a cactus pad. In a word … carefully. Most foragers know cactus have edible parts but what does one look for, generally? First make sure it’s a pad, segmented often oval or tear-drop shaped. You do not want anything that looks serpentine. Also no white sap. White sap in plants that resemble cactus can be very deadly even after being dry for many years. In one case smoke from burning dessicated Euphobia branches killed some stranded people. They were  trying to stay warm around the fire on a cold desert night. So, pads, no white sap. While which cactus you collect (Opuntia or Nopales) might be the luck of the draw, the less spines the better, and the less glochids the much better. Glochids are tiny tuffs of sharp hair that hurt, are hard to dig out, and last for days. Ma Natures knows the pads are good food so she protects them mightily. Big spines can be cut, burned or scraped off, glochids burned or washed off. Just scraping is not so successful with glochids. Wear stiff gloves without seams. Those little glochids will pass right through seams or cloth and get ya. Hint: Young pads, the ones we want anyway, often have not developed glochids. Let us presume you have a spineless, glochidless young pad. What do you do with it? You can eat it raw, skin and all, or roast it or boil it. I know one restuarant that steams them (preserving color) then lightly grills them puting the pads whole on a Mexicanesque hamburgers.  With older (de-spined) pads you can still eat them raw or cook. Usually the tougher spine “eyes” are removed just like you would with a potato. And the pad can be peeled as well. Pads at a certain point become woody and too tough to eat. To read more about cactus click here.

Green Deane DVD set of 135 videos

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

This is weekly issue 289 and note there is one more article below. 

If you would like to donate to Eat The Weeds please click here.

There are at least three wild edibles in this photograph.. 

Seablite should be a commercial vegetable. Photo by Green Deane

It’s still January yet there are botanical signs of spring. First, chickweed is waning in some areas. Locally it is a flash in the seasonal pan, an edible one can find for not much more than a couple of months. You can read about it here. Our seasonal plantago, the Dwarf Plantain, is doing well as are Sow Thistles. And this weekend not only did we spot Sweet Clover during our foraging class but Seablite as well.

Sweet Clover has a hint of vanilla aroma.

These two aren’t the Jekyll and Hyde plants of the foraging world but they are quite different. Both were both seen in Spruce Creek Park south of Daytona Beach. Sweet Clover has a sorted history and is one of four common clovers found in North America though they are in different genera: Red, Crimson and White Clover. Sweet Clover can be used for a tea, if prepared correctly. Nearly a century ago the pea-related plant was linked to a disease in livestock called Sweet Clover Disease. It took a poor cow owner and a professor named Link to solve the problem in the 1930s. That eventually led to the anticoagulant drug Coumadin. You can read about it here. The other happy-to-find plant in the foraging class this week was Seablite, my candidate for a commercial vegetable.

We found Seablite just starting its seasonal run. Photo by Green Deane

Unlike other salt-tolerant herbacious plants often found in coastal areas or salt licks, Seablite is seasonal. Saltwort, glasswort, and Sea Purslane are here all year. Seablite starts coming up in January and lasts to about April, depending on the location, oddly later in the season further south. In the Chenopodium family it’s a very mild green with a pleasant texture. Seablite is edible raw or cooked but truly a pleasure to eat when lightly steamed or boiled. I like to put it in a fish or small squash to flavor them while they cook. Knowing the location of where some of it grows, it took some looking but we found a few sprigs up, enough to identify the plant and have a taste. It has skinny fleshy leaves that have a nice crunch. You can read more about it here.

Goji Berry season is just starting. Photo by Green Deane

While on our wild food patrol we saw our local version of Goji Berries. It might grow in other locations but I have always found it near brackish water. Not only is it found at Spruce Creek but also across U.S. Highway 1 at a small park along Harbor Road. I’ve also found them on the west side of Turtle Mound. We saw two patches of them starting to fruit.  The fruit are also called Christmas Berries but so to are several fruiting plant so using the botanical name is a good idea, Lycium carolinianum. And while their name might be associated with the Yule Tide season I have seen the shrub heavy with fruit in April such as the picture at right. We found a few fruit now but I would expect more as we move into spring. Interestingly they are a spiny shrub in the Nightshade family. The small red fruit are on the slightly sweet side, pleasant. You can read about them here. 

The first week of donations to upgrade EatTheWeeds.com went very well. Thank you to all who contributed to either via the Go Fund Me link or by the PayPal donation link. The fund has already started paying down the cost of the first phase of upgrades started in September.  If you remember the site went down just before Hurricane Irma and was off line for about a month. When it came back with a new look many features were not functioning. Some are still being fixed.  The ETWs site has been up for over a decade but the operating system had not been upgraded in all that time. Many of the adds-ons and plug-ins were no longer working so it needed a major overhaul. The site’s content itself took many years of work and study to create. It contains information about over a thousand of edible plants.  I did all the research myself and all the writing, as you can tell by the spelling.  The site has 145 related videos which used to be on the site and I hope to get them back on site. They are currently on You Tube. The Green Deane Forum has some 12,000 posts with plans to expand. The goal is to upgrade more, do more videos — I have one in mind if we get a few warm days — and get a book published. Finding an indexing program seems to be a big headache regarding a book. And I want to get the site in shape so I can will it to some organization that can own and maintain it when I’m pushing up daisies. You can go to the Go Fund Me page here, or, if you want to use PayPal instead you can use this  link.

Classes are held rain or shine or cold.

Foraging Classes: Foraging classes went coast to coast this past week, near Daytona Beach and a couple of hundred miles southwest near Ft. Myers. This Sunday will be our second visit to Eagle Lake Park in Largo, a little west and north of Tampa. Should be fun!

Sunday, January 28th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion by the dog park.

Sunday, February 4th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233. 9 a.m.

Sunday, February 11th, Jervey Gantt Recreation Complex, 2390 SE 36th Ave., Ocala, FL, 34471. 9 a.m. Meet at the entrance to the pool, aka Aquatic Fun Center.

Saturday, February 17th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335. 9 a.m. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park.

Sunday, February 18th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. Meet at the Pavilion east of the tennis courts near the YMCA.

Sunday, March 4th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion by the dog park. 

To read more about the classes go here. 

Bulrushes have edible roots. Photo by Green Deane

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

One of the odd things you can do in Florida is see plants that don’t exist. They are species the state has not collected samples of for herbarium purposes thus they don’t officially exist. One of the non-existent plants you might be seeing this time of year is Wild Pineapple, Bromelia pinguin. I discovered it Christmas Day some nine years ago and look forward to its brilliant blossoming and yellow fruit. I have since found it in several location although it is officially not anywhere. And be forewarned: Should you find this plant that does not exist it is is well-armed with spines that curve in both directions so it gets you coming and going. Also it’s edibility varies person to person so caution is advised as well. To read more about the Wild Pineapple go here.  

Indigofera spicata, Creeping Indigo, is toxic to horses and has caused death locally. Not edible.

Usually every winter about this time veterinarians issue a warning about a plant that makes horses, donkeys and rabbits sick, Creeping Indigo, or Indigofera spicata. Cold weather causes this pea relative to blossom pink, making it a little easier to see in the grass. Unfortunately it’s a plant favored by horses with deaths reported.  This highlights that relying on instinctual means to avoid toxic plants is not too reliable for animals or man. The first major book on toxic plants was written for livestock owners. 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. Locally it is very common in Seminole County but is also found in Ocala — our famous horse country — and in Tampa. It is suspected to be toxic to many grazing animals.  By the way if you feed dogs the meat of horses that died from eating this weed it can kill them, too. The offending chemical is indospicine which is a non-protein amino acid. It is toxic to the liver because of antagonism to the essential amino acid arginine, with which it competes. One of its principal toxic actions is inhibition of nitric oxide synthase. Don’t eat it. 

Green Deane DVD set of 135 videos

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

Green Deane Forum

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

Keynote Speakers at the Florida Herbal Conference Linda and Luke Black Elk.

There are two conferences in February forager should be interest in: Earthskills in Hawthorn, and the Florida Herbal Conference near Lake Wales. I lead plant walks at both events. Earthskills is Feb 7-11 and the Florida Herbal Conference is Feb 23-25. Both are now accepting registration. You can register at Earthskills here.  Because you read this newsletter you can get a discount for the Florida Herbal Conference. If you register for that conference between now and January 31 using the code FHC2018_GREENDEANE you can get a 30% discount. Keynote speakers this year at the Florida Herbal Conference are Linda and Luke Black Elk from the Standing Rock Reservation. Linda (of the Catawba Nation) is an ethnobotanist specializing in teaching about culturally important plants and their uses as food and medicine. She is a lecturer at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, North Dakota. Luke Black Elk (Thítȟuŋwaŋ Lakota) is a storyteller, grassroots activist, and traditional spiritualist. He has conducted research in water restoration, sustainable building design, and food sovereignty, and hopes to use these techniques to encourage a more traditional way of life among his people. Luke has lived on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation his entire life, becoming deeply involved in cultural and community activities. For more information about the Florida Herbal Conference go here.

This is weekly issue 288 and note there is one more article below. 

If you would like to donate to Eat The Weeds please click here.

There are three wild edible species in this photograph. Can you identify them? 

What do you see #16

On new growth the fruits are easy to find, on trimmed shrubs the fruit often hides inside the foliage.

Ripe Silverthorn fruit are very sweet but taste awful when unripe. Photo by Green Deane

In many parts of the world February is the depth of winter; the coldest, snowiest, most miserable month of the year. But from Georgia south, it’s fruiting time for the exotic Silverthorn. Last Sunday in Jacksonville we rummage through a hedge of Silvethorn and found a few fruit on their way to being ripe which is red with silver and gold speckles. These were still gray/green. Unripe they are bitter and sour but when ripe very sweet and high in vitamin C. Silverthorn was originally planted as an ornamental in the 1800’s from the Carolinas south and west. Birds, who know food when they see it, have helped to naturalized throughout the South. The distinctive fruit reportedly has the highest amount — by percentage to weight — of the antioxidant lycopene. The slightly bitter, edible seed has omega-3 fatty acids. To read more about the Silverthorn go here.

Mild Western Tansy Mustard in bloom.

For such a small plant the Western Tansy Mustard has a huge history. It’s called “western” because there was already a Tansy Mustard in Europe. The botanical powers of the day didn’t want to call that plant the Eastern Tansy Mustard so ours became the “western.” I’ve been seeing what-ever-its-name recently and it’s right on seasonal time.  This little gray-green mustard is a winter annual here and is quite consistent where it likes to grow; dry spots with only natural watering.  It’s fairly a common find this time of year in paddocks and other farm areas that include oak scrub (note that from a distance you could dismiss the Western Tansy Mustard as a young Ragweed but its leaves are finer.) The sample this weekend was growing along a side walk on a dry area of a college campus. Its minute seeds were a major staple for some Indian tribes and the leaves are edible raw or cooked. It is probably the mildest of our seasonal mustards. To read more about the Western Tansy Mustard go here.

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

A local church has a raised-bed garden for their grade-school students. It has many of the expected plants, tomatoes for example. However lower temperatures have done them in but their cabbage is doing just fine. They were also raising cotton, always an interesting plant tufted with white patches.  (Incidentally cottonseed oil is not edible until processed. It rapidly destroys potassium which 85% of Americans are already deficient in Magnesium. Cottonseed oil can also reduce fertility.) Of course, what I am more interested in is the garden weeds. They have a fine crop of amaranth, henbit and bitter cress. All three grow readily here in the winter though henbit is the only cool-season annual. Amaranth is a spinach substitute, and bitter cress is a peppery little mustard. Henbit, however, is unlike most winter greens. It is not spicy nor is it used like spinach. It’s mild and on the sweet side and was a welcomed taste to native foragers. Henbit is commonly used in salads but can get lost amid flavors. You can read about Henbit here. 

Common Edible Purslane

The Problem with Portulacas. Species in this genus cause some problems for foragers. At least one is edible, some perhaps less so, and others not at all. I don’t know of any reports of any being toxic per se so it’s not a dangerous genus at least in the Americas. Perhaps the best known and most edible is  Purslane, Portulaca oleracea which has a simple yellow blossom — see left — that opens around noon and is very common. It’s an esteemed vegetable, near the top of the list of forageables, and high in vitamins C, A and melatonin. However, from there things can get confusing with P. pilosa, P. amilis, P. grandiflora, P. rubricaulis, P. smallii and P. umbraticola. Two are not common: I don’t ever recall seeing P. grandiflora, or P. rubricaulis. P. smallii is extremely rare and not found in Florida. 

Portulaca pilosa, note the hairy stems.

Portulaca pilosa, the Moss Rose, or Rose Moss, is native to the southeastern United States. It gets lumped in with other Portulacas as edible but that has not been my experience. I have not found P. pilosa forager friendly. Every time I have tried to eat this little native, raw or cooked, it has mildly burned my throat and upset my stomach.  Other folks report similar experience. It’s fairly easy to identify in that it has pink blossoms and pointy, hairy leaves. I put  P. amilis, aka the Paraguayan Purslane, in the same category: It’s an import from South America and slightly less common than P. pilosa. It also has pink blossoms but flat leaves instead of pointed. It, too, tastes bad to me.  

Portulaca umbraticola. Photo by Green Deane

Excluding the three uncommon ones, which seemingly only serious botanists find, that leaves P. umbraticola. Those are the fancy ones you see sold in garden centers. They are usually hybrids and will not seed true but can be propagated by cuttings. To add to the confusion they have been mistakenly sold in the past as P. grandiflora. They have large blossoms and come in a range of colors such as pink, orange, yellow and mixed. Are they edible? As far as I know no because they don’t taste good. A few decades ago I asked Forager Emeritus Dick Deuerling if they were edible and he said he didn’t know and hadn’t tried them.  So while there are several Portulacas around I can only vouch for one as truly edible and safe, P. oleracea, the common weed with a simple yellow blossom that opens around noon. 

After many upgrades — and more upgrades needed — EatTheWeeds has opened a Go Fund Me page. My ETWs site has been up for over a decade.  It took many years of work and study to create it. The site contains information on over a thousand of edible plants.  I did all the research myself including many hours spent in university libraries scouring journals. There was also some first-hand indigestion along the way. As I tell people I wrote every article, no cut and paste. Every misspelling is authentically mine. (I don’t remove some of them as they are copyright traps. When someone copies my articles and include my spelling I can prove where they stole it.)  The site has 145 related videos which I hope to get back on the site. They are currently on You Tube. The site’s Green Deane Forum has some 12,000 posts and needs to be expanded. The goal is to upgrade more — there are still bugs and features needed — do more videos and get a book published. More importantly I want to get the site in shape so I can will it to some organization that can maintain and upkeep it in future when I’m pushing up daisies. You can go to the Go Fund Me page here, or, if you want to use PayPal instead you can use this  link.

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

Foraging Classes: It was in the upper 30’s when we started our foraging class this past Sunday. That’s okay… sometimes the class in south Florida starts out in the lower 90’s.  It won’t be too cold or too hot for the foraging classes this weekend.

Saturday, January 20th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, 32127. 9 a.m., at the pavilion. (First right after entrance.) 

Sunday, January 21st, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive, Port Charlotte. 9 a.m. Meet at the parking lot at the intersection of Bayshore Road and Ganyard Street.

Sunday, January 28th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion by the dog park.

Sunday, February 4th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233. 9 a.m.

Sunday, February 11th, Jervey Gantt Recreation Complex, 2390 SE 36th Ave., Ocala, FL, 34471. 9 a.m. Meet at the entrance to the pool, aka Aquatic Fun Center.

Saturday, February 17th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335. 9 a.m. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park.

Sunday, February 18th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. Meet at the Pavilion east of the tennis courts near the YMCA.

Sunday, March 4th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion by the dog park. 

To read more about the classes go here. 

2018 Earthskills in Hawthorne Florida.

There are two conferences in February forager should be interest in: Earthskills in Hawthorn, and the Florida Herbal Conference near Lake Wales. I lead plant walks at both events. Earthskills is Feb 7-11 and the Florida Herbal Conference is Feb 23-25. Both are now accepting registration. You can register at Earthskills here.  Because you read this newsletter you can get a discount for the Florida Herbal Conference. If you register for that conference between now and January 31 using the code FHC2018_GREENDEANE you can get a 30% discount. Keynote speakers this year at the Florida Herbal Conference are Linda and Luke Black Elk from the Standing Rock Reservation. Linda (of the Catawba Nation) is an ethnobotanist specializing in teaching about culturally important plants and their uses as food and medicine. She is a lecturer at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, North Dakota. Luke Black Elk (Thítȟuŋwaŋ Lakota) is a storyteller, grassroots activist, and traditional spiritualist. He has conducted research in water restoration, sustainable building design, and food sovereignty, and hopes to use these techniques to encourage a more traditional way of life among his people. Luke has lived on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation his entire life, becoming deeply involved in cultural and community activities. For more information about the Florida Herbal Conference go here.

Green Deane DVD Set

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

Green Deane Forum

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

This is weekly issue 287 and note there is one more article below. 

If you would like to donate to Eat The Weeds please click here.

Are cattails all they’re reported to be? Euell Gibbons called them the “Supermarket of the Swamp.” Under cultivation it’s doubtful any species produces more starch per acre than cattails, nearly 6,500 pounds. On paper cattails seem to be the perfect foraged food. Reality, however,  throws some water on that.

Cattails in North Carolina. Photo by Green Deane

There is no doubt that if I needed food I would turn to the cattail. It has edible parts from the green top to the mucky bottom. And as survival instructors are fond of saying if you have cattails you have four of the five things you need to survive: Food, water, material for fire and material for shelter. All you are missing is companionship, which is debatable. Another plus is that cattail rhizomes are available every day of the year though you may  have to break the ice to harvest them. My disagreement is not about their edibility or usefulness but rather perspective and their position in the hierarchy of foraged food. Cattails are always placed near the top of the foraging list whereas perhaps they should be nearer the middle of the pack.

There are definitely two sides to the species. On the fast food side are edible male and female parts of the unusual flower including pollen (and fuzz if you have a tough tummy.)  Then there are the inner lower stalk, stolons, and sprouts growing off the rhizome. Requiring a bit more work, the rhizomes can be roasted for the starch inside. That would get the plant a solid rating as a forageable. But then there’s the slow food side, the labor-intense extraction of the starch to make a flour for various uses. I would call that the cultivated side and over emphasized.

Cattail rhizomes need processing.

Cattails would make a good commercial crop for the starch. It could be grown in unused swamp land and be mechanically harvested — keeping us dry. No doubt a more efficient means of starch extraction could be devised besides water-intensive settling tanks. One possibility is grinding clean dried roots to separate the stomach-irritating fiber from the starch. The rough fiber is why we just don’t eat the rhizome as it is, although another issue is the cattail usually grows in mud that does not smell appetizing. Even cleaning the roots to dry them takes labor, and water.

Cattails should be on everyone’s foraging list. They are significant and reliable wild food. But one has to know what you want to do with them. It is not enough to know they are edible. The “how” is very important as well as what resources you have on hand and how much time you can dedicate to the edible task. Cattails are good but not great.

A sidewalk Dandelion and tart oxalises. Note Dandelions point away from themselves. Photo by Green Deane

When people ask me where can they find wild food I want to say “where can’t you find wild food?” On a short walk today there was, not a rare, but not-as-common as one would like winter edible, a Dandelion. And if you look closely there are some Oxalises in there as well, I suspect O. stricta. The key to finding wild edibles is to get the plant inside your head. It has to be as familiar to you as your friend’s face in a photo. You need what is called the “ability to disconfirm.” What is that? If you were going through a supermarket checkout line with a head cabbage but the clerk said it was a bunch of bananas you would disagree. If the clerk provided a reference sheet that showed a picture of  cabbage but called them bananas you would still disagree because you know the difference between the two. You have the ability to disconfirm.  You need that with wild plants and you get that way by studying them. An “app” is not an answer. It is better to own information in your head than rent it in your hand.

Chilled Green Iguana. Photo by Maxine Bentzel

Cold weather means different things to foragers in various parts of the country. For some it means finding cattail rhizomes in frozen ponds or fungi in the snow such as Oysters mushrooms. In part of Florida it means collecting Green Iguanas that have dropped out trees. When temperatures slides below 40 F. Iguanas slow down and stop. I’ve had them plop on the ground during winter classes in West Palm Beach. This past weekend we saw two Iguanas belly up in suspended animation. They are consider a delicacy in many parts of Central America and are raised for food. There was a report — whether true is difficult to confirm — of a fellow on Key Biscayne taking advantage of their cold-induced stupor. He reportedly collected several to take home to barbeque. He put them in his car… his cozy car… and while he was driving home they warmed up and weren’t happy causing an accident. You can read about eating Iguanas here. 

Common Sow Thistle. Photo by Green Deane

Sow thistles, abundant now, come in three varieties locally, all edible. The common sow thistle and the spiny sow thistle are found throughout most of the state and other parts of the country. The Field Sow Thistle is a northern resident that just gets into Florida. While Sow Thistles are here most of the year they prefer the cooler winter months and are easy to find. Of the two most populous sow thistles the Common Sow Thistle (Sonchus oleraceus) is the preferred. It’s edible until a fairly good size. It has smooth, soft leaves and often a bluish tint to its leaves. The Spiny Sow Thistle (Sonchus asper) is also good when gathered young. When older its leaves develop pseudo-spines which usually soften on cooking. But some people don’t like the texture. Don’t confuse Sow Thistles with true thistles or wild lettuce below.

True Thistles draw blood. Photo by Green Deane

True thistles are mean. They produce either green basal rosettes with painful spines or basal rosettes with a fat tall stalk covered with needle-sharp spines and shaving-brush blossoms. When I was a kid we would pick the blossoms before they opened so we cold hang them up and watch them open into a ball of fluff like cotton. Best time to harvest them for food is when the rosette is huge or when the stalk is still small. Wild Lettuce— which is usually bitter — comes in several variaties. They, like the thistle, start out with what looks like a basal rosette then sends up  stalk. Neither have spines. The lettuce leaf stalk is V-shaped. A single line of hair can be found along the underside of the main leaf vein. Those hairs can range from very soft to very stiff. The sap can be white, beige or white turning to beige. The leave width can vary, too. You can read about the sow thistles here.

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

Foraging Classes: This past week saw a cool class in east Orlando and a warm class in West Palm Beach. As one might expect wild mustard were plentiful and we also found some “real” chickweed, a fleeting winter visitor. This week, to cut down on the driving some, there will be a class Saturday in Altamonte Springs, northwest of Orlando, and a class in Jacksonville Sunday even if it is chilly. 

Saturday, January 13th, Seminole Wekiva Trail, Sanlando Park, 401 West Highland St. Altamonte Springs, Florida 32714  (at the intersection with Laura Avenue.) 9 a.m. We meet in the first parking lot on your right immediately after the entrance.

Sunday, January 14th, Florida State College,  south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246. 9 a.m. Meet in front of Building D.

Saturday, January 20th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, 32127. 9 a.m., at the pavilion. (First right after entrance.) 

Sunday, January 21st, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive, Port Charlotte. 9 a.m. Meet at the parking lot at the intersection of Bayshore Road and Ganyard Street.

Sunday, March 4th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion by the dog park. 

To read more about the classes go here. 

Keynote Speakers at the Florida Herbal Conference Linda and Luke Black Elk.

There are two conferences in February forager should be interest in: Earthskills in Hawthorn, and the Florida Herbal Conference near Lake Wales. I lead plant walks at both events. Earthskills is Feb 7-11 and the Florida Herbal Conference is Feb 23-25. Both are now accepting registration. You can register at Earthskills here.  Because you read this newsletter you can get a discount for the Florida Herbal Conference. If you register for that conference between now and January 31 using the code FHC2018_GREENDEANE you can get a 30% discount. Keynote speakers this year at the Florida Herbal Conference are Linda and Luke Black Elk from the Standing Rock Reservation. Linda (of the Catawba Nation) is an ethnobotanist specializing in teaching about culturally important plants and their uses as food and medicine. She is a lecturer at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, North Dakota. Luke Black Elk (Thítȟuŋwaŋ Lakota) is a storyteller, grassroots activist, and traditional spiritualist. He has conducted research in water restoration, sustainable building design, and food sovereignty, and hopes to use these techniques to encourage a more traditional way of life among his people. Luke has lived on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation his entire life, becoming deeply involved in cultural and community activities. For more information about the Florida Herbal Conference go here.

Green Deane DVD Set

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

Deep-Fried Maple Leaf, more tempura than leaf.

If you look around nearly any lake or field now you’ll probably see trees ablaze with red, often long stretches of them taking up part of the horizon. Those are fruiting maple trees. Up north those spring seeds will be green, except on red maples (which incidentally are very toxic to horses.)  When young, maple seeds can be quite sweet and eaten raw, or parched, or boiled. Usually the wings and hulls are removed first. By the time the wings have turned brown the seed is usually bitter so leaching, boiling and/or roasting might be needed. Some native tribes also sprouted the seeds for fresh greens after the long winter. In Japan one Maple species’ leaves are packed in salt for a year, rinsed, then cooked in tempura batter. Maples, of course, are also used to make syrup though that tends to be a more northern product although one of Florida’s Maples, the Box Elder, was used for syrup. To read more about maples click here

Green Deane Forum

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

This is weekly issue 286 and note there is one more article below. 

If you would like to donate to Eat The Weeds please click here.

Full-Time Foraging

Can you survive off foraging? I am often asked that question and have been a consultant for individual, groups and shows who what to try it. While I customize my answer it usually contains similar essential things to consider. The quick answer is “yes” you can live off foraged food because humanity did so for a long time. But can you do that today and will you rough it like folks in the past or use a combination of yesterday and today?

Before one gets into food particulars for living off just foraging there are many proforma questions that need to be answered. Is foraging legal in your area? Are there places you can forage, either private or public land? If you are going to forage and live off the land will you drink “city” water? Will you use electricity or gas to cook with? How about electric lights? Or are you going primitive? Is this a wood for heat, light and purifying water endeavor or will your foraged food be cooked on a modern conveniences under electric lights in air conditioning behind screens that keep out drive-you-crazy insects?  Will you use a refrigerator? If you are you going to have a garden — either domesticated vegetables or intentionally planted wild species — will the local government let you? Do you know how to garden in your area? Gardening is more than just putting seeds in the ground and every area has different challenges. Will it be organic? Will you use old practices or things like modern fertilizer? What are the prime caloric staples in your area? Which creatures are the best to hunt or fish or trap? If you are going to eat creatures do you have the proper licenses and know the seasons? Will you make the hand line you fish with or is modern tackle allowed? Are trot lines or trapping legal? Those work while you do other things and can increase the chances of success.

As for food those who foraged for their daily sustenance also spend much time preserving food for the lean months. This brings up energy and daylight. There are only so many hours in a day and most of it will be expended getting food. Do you know how to dry or otherwise preserve food? And don’t forget things that evaporate time like illness, bad weather, and pests be they mammals, birds or insects which are also your prime competitors for wild food and garden crops. There is also the lack of variety or said another way your menu changes only with the seasons. Even if you can live off wild yams and fish every day after a few weeks that diet becomes torture. There are example of people who had only one thing to eat — even in abundance — but starved because they just could not eat the same food for another day. (Just as an aside my father during WWII has only cheese to eat for a month. For the rest of his life — some 66 more years — he never ate another piece of cheese.) 

Are you going it alone or with others? Solo is hard. The Mountain Men of California went into the wilderness with 100 pounds of flour, 25 pounds of sugar, 10 pounds of salt, two horses, guns, ammo, fishing equipment and traps. Most of them died in their mid-30’s. Doing it all yourself wore them out and there were accidents and illness. In northern (warm) Australia there is a large area set aside where Aboriginals who want to live a hunter/gatherer lifestyle can. Those who do get 64% of their energy from things that move, and 36 percent from plants, essentially a two-thirds one-third division.  Creatures are nutritionally dense and plants provide chemicals need for many metabolic processes. The Aboriginals also know the exact harvesting season of the animal or plant and are never too early or too late. They get maximum calories in for minimum calories out. They also have division of labor and help each other. Teamwork is essential as is efficiency.  

Living off foraged food is more than just plant and animal knowledge. Besides being organized it also requires knowing how pure you are going to be. Are you going to use as few modern conveniences as possible, totally roughing it or a combination? Are you ready to do it every day with no time off? Will you try a pilot week first? A well-known forager tells a story a several teams being invited to live a month on some 700 acres. All they could take were the clothes on their back and one knife per person. Only a mother and daughter team made it the entire month. All the solos failed and bailed out by week two. What was mom and daughter’s secret? Beside knowing what they were doing, division of labor: “I’ll get the food and water, you get the firewood and start on tonight’s shelter.” The two greatest limiters are how much energy you have and how many hours of daylight you have. Those are critical make or break elements. 

A few hundred years ago when there were no restrictions, tribes with many hands and a division of labor,  living off the land was a living. Modern society puts a lot of restrictions in the way but eases other problems with electricity, clean water and a safe bug-free climate-controlled place to sleep. There are benefits and trade offs. So when I am asked can you live off the land the answer is yes. But you also have to know how you want to do it, how to do it, and have the personal wherewithal to do it.   

Blossoming Carolina Pony Foot, a small bitter edible found under foot. Photo by Green Deane

Are they edible? That is often asked about a small lawn plant called Pony Foot, or Dichondra carolinensis. I think they are bitter and medicinal, others toss them into salads. But since they are bitter it is better to mix them with other greens — as one does chicory — rather than using them as the main ingredient. They spread by means of runners and they taste a lot better without the runners.  The species is also used as a ground cover in shade. I’m not sure why the plants were called Dichrondra which means two hearts. Its leaves do alternate but they are more kidney-shaped than heart-shaped. They also have a slightly off-side funnel shape (a basal notch.) While usually dime-size I have seen them more than an inch across. Pony Foot is often found with two other edibles, Dollarweed, which has a stem attached to the middle of the leaf, and Gotu Kola which has a spade-shaped leaf but rounded teeth on the margin and the stem is hairier.

Sublimed sulfur to thwart tick attacks.

Before the state of Florida went on the Internet most of the information it thought fit for its citizens to know was produced in pamphlet form. When the shift was made to the Internet some information got lost or was dropped. One useful bit of advice was using sublimed sulfur to keep ticks off.  Available online or through local pharmacies or chemical supply stores you put it in an old sock or the like and dust your cuffs and collar with it before entering tick habitat. It either repels them or vastly slows them down from finding a place to grab on, giving you more time to find the hardy ones. I have used it for many years very successfully. I still find a tick or two on me now and then but not attached. While I am not a biochemist I would suspect this would not be something you would do if you had a sulfur allergy.

Weeds of Southern Turf Grasses

If you didn’t find a weed book you wanted under the Christmas tree here’s one you can pick up locally or order from the University of Florida:  Weeds of Southern Turfgrasses. The book is not designed for foragers but rather land managers. However, the majority of the plants in the book are edible. It has 437 color photographs of 193 weed species found in the south usually on lawns and the like. As you can see by the link I have a list of the edible plants and what pages they are on. Many of my students just print the list then paste each entry on the appropriate page. There is also a link on the page to order it through the state of Florida. DO NOT ORDER IT THROUGH AMAZON OR OTHER BOOKSELLERS. Why? Because they can charge you from $49.95 to over $800 for a book you can buy at a local extension office for $8. If you order it through the link I provide it is $14 plus shipping. Yes, I actually found one bookseller asking over $800 for it. As it says on the link I do not get any money for recommending this book. It is just an inexpensive, handy book to have.

The Amaranth has a seed spike and often has a notch at the end of the leaf and a chevron-shaped watermark.

What is the prime mistake made by foragers? That’s very easy to answer: They make the plant fit the description. It happens to beginners and old hands as well. The beginners don’t see the details and the more experienced are irritated the plant doesn’t fit so they stretch the definitions. But as the bromide warns the devil is in the details. I will readily admit I loathe details. It is not me by nurture or nature. It is one of two reasons I did not stay with law…details and the you-must-win mentality even when you’re wrong.  But details, as much as we might not like them, are what foraging is all about. If I can suppress my irritation with details and work with them so can you. The good part is that you can get to know a plant well enough that the details make a whole picture and you don’t have to think about them as much with plants you know.

The Black Nightshade has berries. Photo by Green Deane

I had a friend who thought of himself as an outdoorsman thus beyond needing to study edible plants. He called me one day asking “how do I get the seeds out of the pigweed berries.”  I knew there was a problem immediately. Our local “pigweed” does not have berries but our local nightshade does. Our “pigweed” (upper left photo) is an Amaranth and has seed spikes. About the size of fingers or more they are covered with tiny flowers that produce a multitude eye-of-the needle seeds, tan to black.  No berries involved at all. Conversely the nightshade produces an umbrella-like spread of black shiny berries on one small stalk (photo to right.) It does have a lot of seeds inside the berries. So I thought I had better ask him why he wanted the seeds before I told him him the Amaranth didn’t have berries but the nightshade did. He wanted to grow some in his yard. They had been steaming the leaves and eating them like spinach! When I got done explaining he said “then that’s why we’ve all been getting headaches after eating the leaves.” Indeed. The leaves of this particular nightshade are edible but they must be boiled in one or two changes of water, not steamed.My friend had skipped many details. The wrong identification also led to the wrong preparation compounding the error. Admittedly they did have a few things in common. They were both green, grew at the same time and had leaves that can vaguely be the same rough diamond shape. But the difference between a seed spike of small green flowers vs. a cluster of shiny black berries is not paying attention to details. Fortunately no great harm was done. 

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

Foraging Classes: Last Saturday’s foraging class at Eagle Lake in Largo went well. It was a sight unseen but had plenty of wild edibles to identify. If you know of more place for such a class please let me know. Generally speaking state parks and or wilderness are not good locations. Large, old, city and county parks often are. They have a variety of different landscapes such as lawn, fields, woods, ponds et cetera. 

Saturday, January 6th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail. Orlando, FL., 32817. 9 a.m. We meet next to the WMCA building at the tennis courts. It will be chilly, dress warmly. 

Sunday, January 7th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405, 9 a.m.  We meet just north of the science center parking lot.

Sunday, January 14th, Florida State College,  south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246. 9 a.m. Meet in front of Building D.

Saturday, January 20th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, 32127. 9 a.m., at the pavilion. (First right after entrance.) 

Sunday, January 21st, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive, Port Charlotte. 9 a.m. Meet at the parking lot at the intersection of Bayshore Road and Ganyard Street.

Sunday, March 4th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion by the dog park. 

To read more about the classes go here. 

Poison Sumac only grow in wet spots. Photo by Green Deane

There’s a wide variety of Sumacs.  Locally the local edible is the “Wing Sumac.” In other areas of the country it can be the Staghorn Sumac. Shapes and quality vary but they always have terminal clusters of garnet-colored berries, give or take a hue. The berries have hair on them. And on the hair is malic acid, the acid that makes apples tart. You can rinse off the acid and make a vitamin-C rich “lemonade.” The berries can then be dried, ground, and used as a spice. And in the springs the shoots can be peeled and eaten raw or cooked. If you are worried about Poison Sumac, to the right, it grows only in wet spots, has a much different leaf, and when in fruit has white berries positioned farther down the stem, not terminal clusters. Also Poison Sumac leaves have bright red stems.

Green Deane DVD Set

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

Keynote Speakers at the Florida Herbal Conference Linda and Luke Black Elk.

It’s time to be thinking about two conferences in February, Earthskills in Hawthorn, and the Florida Herbal Conference near Lake Wales. I lead plant walks at both events. Earthskills is Feb 7-11 and the Florida Herbal Conference is Feb 23-25. Both are now accepting registration. You can register at Earthskills here.  Because you read this newsletter you can get a discount for the Florida Herbal Conference. If you register for that conference between now and January 31 using the code FHC2018_GREENDEANE you can get a 30% discount. Keynote speakers this year at the Florida Herbal Conference are Linda and Luke Black Elk from the Standing Rock Reservation. Linda (of the Catawba Nation) is an ethnobotanist specializing in teaching about culturally important plants and their uses as food and medicine. She is a lecturer at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, North Dakota. Luke Black Elk (Thít?u?wa? Lakota) is a storyteller, grassroots activist, and traditional spiritualist. He has conducted research in water restoration, sustainable building design, and food sovereignty, and hopes to use these techniques to encourage a more traditional way of life among his people. Luke has lived on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation his entire life, becoming deeply involved in cultural and community activities. For more information about the Florida Herbal Conference go here.

Green Deane Forum

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

Pokeweed seeds before soaking in battery acid. 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, 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. Make 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 F 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 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.

This is weekly issue 285. 

If you would like to donate to Eat The Weeds please click here.

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

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

I grew up where winter night temperatures easily dropped into the 30-plus below zero (-38 celsius.) Sometimes the schools had to close for several days because they could not be kept warm. And once we went skating at 50 below just to say we did. (Chilblains from that night some 55 years ago still bother me in air conditioned buildings. It’s wasn’t the skating with a bonfire that did permanent damage but rather the arctic one-mile walk home.) That was on Gowen’s Pond, our local natural skating rink. It had one tree-stump island, probably had been a water-tolerant hackmatack. That speck of protrusion through the ice was perhaps six square feet in total area. The ice was thinner there and one winter I saw a turtle under the ice feeding some some green pond plant. That generated several thoughts. One was that it was warm enough for the turtle to go looking for food. Two that the turtle found food, and, three that the turtle was food.  Like the turtle or the horses I grew up with you can find food in hostile winter climates if you know where to dig or browse. You can read more about that here. 

Dandelion blossoms are sweet, the green parts are bitter. Photo by Green Deane

Dandelions are an excellent example of an early summer northern plant that likes Florida’s winter. One can occasionally find Dandelions here all year but the temperatures are generally too hot. Also, Dandelions like acidic soil and Florida is a limestone door stop stuck under the North American plate. Cooler weather and acid-creating vegetation such as oaks and pines helps one find Dandelions. If you are used to northern Dandelions you might be disappointed in our local pretenders. Up north Dandelions can be 20-inches tall with huge blossom.  If I find a Dandelion here that’s eight-inches tall it’s a large specimen. In the early ’60’s I made my first batch of home-made wine from such boisterous Dandelions, bottling it in returnable 12-ounce glass Coca-Cola bottles. The number of dandelion blossoms needed, about two gallons, were easy to collect. It would be difficult to find enough here. Mr. Gowen, the owner of the frozen pond mentioned above, came by one night and had a couple of bottles. The wine had it’s expected effects. There was something maniacally satisfying for a young teenager to watch an adult loosen up by drinking your wine. From there I moved on to brewing beer in the basement with a five-gallon crock and an oil lamp for heat. I was what? Thirteen? You can read more about Dandelions here. 

From a few feet above Swinecress can appear feathery. Photo by Green Deane

Another seasonal edible, Swinecress, was spotted this week in couple of locations. It’s low-growing and found mostly in lawns where it can duck most mowers. Swinecress is in the mustard family so the general taste is identifiable quickly. It’s among the few plants whose botanical name helps us identify the species. Sometimes a plant will have two names that honor two botanists which doesn’t help us with identification. Swinecress, however, is Coronopus didymus. Coronopus means Raven Foot, or we would say crow foot. To some, or at least the naming botanist, the leaf resembles a crow’s foot.  And while that might be so it is the Didymus part that makes the plant easy to identify.  Didymus means two testes and indeed it takes very little imagination to see that imagery in the arrangement of the species’ seeds. Once you see it you won’t forget it. Swinecress is edible raw or cook and only here for a couple of months. To read more about this micro-mustard go here. 

Some people just make it tough for others. That’s the case with Sam Thayer and his foraging books. Each one lifts the bar higher making the mountain steeper for those with thoughts of authorship. Sam has published his third title, Incredible Wild Edibles: 36 plants that can change your life. ISBN: 978-0-9766266-2-6. His first two are Forager’s Harvest and Nature’s Garden.

Incredible Wild Edibles

Besides being able to pick catchy titles Sam backs up the advertising with solid writing and good pictures. His third book has what we have come to expect — great specific plant write ups. This volume also delivers a good bit of foraging instruction and philosophy. In much of  Sam’s writing I hear echos of my thoughts from where to forage to why some plants are called what they are called, common and botanical names. One of many irritating examples I can cite is Pinus palustris, literally swamp pine… It does not like to grow in perpetually damp soil. (And I won’t even get started on too many plants called “Pig Weed” “Indian Potato” or “Creeping Charlie.”)  Sam in this latest edition also bravely marches into the emotional mind field of invasive species. When I am asked to speak before a Native Plant Society I am damned no matter what I say. Some native plant advocates don’t want to hear about edible native plants because those natives get eaten. Other native plant advocates only want to hear about edible natives because it presents natives positively. And still some native plant advocates don’t want to hear about edible non-natives because it presents non-natives as having some value. It’s like talking about eating Begonias before the National Begonia Society: Half the audience is thinking “Hmmm, begonias are edible” and the other half is thinking: “That bastard eats begonias.” When I hear a scream in my foraging classes it is always some native plant person having an emotional melt down over some species. All you can do, as Sam has done, is stake out a position and philosophy which is foragers can do a service regarding invasives. After all, who is closest to the plants? Most botanists don’t forage and many a “park ranger”  doesn’t know what he or she is protecting, why, or if it is a good idea. 

Incredible Wild Edibles is Sam Thayer’s  Third Book

Reading Sam’s book helped me to dig out some old memories and new discoveries. Gooseberries were one. My mother liked to collect horses and that meant I was drafted to be groom, stall sweep, hay raker and riding companion. We used to wend along abandoned roads with forgotten homestead. Often by ramshacked 1800’s- homes we’d see gooseberries and their relative currants. A more recent discovery of mine that Sam covers is Thimbleberry. I don’t recall ever seeing it until I hiked parts of the Appalachian Trail in North Carolina.  And Sam has a good section on “sugaring.” My indentured servitude with horses was compulsory. My salving over maple sugar was voluntary. Our neighbors in Maine sugared every spring and for many years I tapped, lugged, and boiled. My payment was always in maple syrup. As someone who has been low-carb for over a dozen years I’m not sure I would work so willingly now but it was a fine endeavor for a boy or anyone one who wants to get close to some trees and the work of making your own food. 

You may think that now is not the time to think of foraging but it is. Winter will give way to spring. Sam’s third book with 36 new plants has no overlap with his first two books so you’re getting maximum information for the price. Buy the book now so when the snow is gone you are ready. Get it inside your head and get a jump start on the foraging season. Sam’s website is here.   

Classes are held rain or shine or cold…

Foraging Classes: Saturday’s class in Eagle Lake should be interesting. It  a request for me to hold a foraging class in a place I’ve never visited. So when I say meet near the bathrooms near the dog park I will be looking for them as well. I don’t know how far we will walk nor what parts of the park we will visit. The point is to hold a foraging class site unseen. So if you want to see how I find edibles it’s a class to attend. It’s going to be an adventure treasure hunt and a fun way to end out the foraging year.  

Saturday, December 30th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. Meet near the bathrooms near the dog park. 

Saturday, January 6th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail. Orlando, FL., 32817. 9 a.m. We meet next to the WMCA building at the tennis courts.

Sunday, January 7th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405, 9 a.m.  We meet just north of the science center parking lot. 

Sunday, January 21st, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive, Port Charlotte. 9 a.m. Meet at the parking lot at the intersection of Bayshore Road and Ganyard Street.

To read more about the classes go here. 

Quite a few white mushrooms that  like to grow on wood. Photo by Green Deane

Most local edible mushrooms are waiting for warmer weather. Our Ringless Honey Mushroom season ended a few weeks ago. Most of our species will stay hidden until heavy spring rains. However during a foraging class this weekend we did see some Amanitas, of which there is no shortage of in the southeast. It was three examples of the same species, A. citrina. But the big surprise was a log of Oyster Mushrooms. While finding them on a downed tree is not unusual I had not seem them this time of year. Checking with some fungal friends we confirmed their identity as in the Pleurotus ostreatus complex. They say “complex” because the details of the mushroom can vary.  I’ve seen them on oaks in the fall and Red Bays in the summer but not on an Ear Tree in winter. Oyster Mushrooms — which do not taste like oysters but can smell like anise — are considered one of the safer mushrooms to harvest because none of the possible look-a-likes are deadly… just sickening. And here’s a reminder that several facebook mushroom pages are associated with EatTheWeeds. They are Florida Mushroom Identification Forum, Southeastern U.S. Mushroom Identification, Edible Mushrooms: Florida, and the Orlando Mushroom Group which will start having mushroom hunts as soon as the season starts.   

Green Deane Forum

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

The Nine DVD set includes 135 videos.

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

Green Deane teaching at a Florida Herbal Conference

It’s time to be thinking about two conferences in February, Earthskills in Hawthorn, and the Florida Herbal Conference near Lake Wales. I lead plant walks at both events. Earthskills is Feb 7-11 and the Florida Herbal Conference is Feb 23-25. Both are now accepting registration. You can register at Earthskills here.  Because you read this newsletter you can get a discount for the Florida Herbal Conference. If you register for that conference between now and January 31 using the code FHC2018_GREENDEANE you can get a 30% discount. Keynote speakers this year at the Florida Herbal Conference are Linda and Luke Black Elk from the Standing Rock Reservation. Linda (of the Catawba Nation) is an ethnobotanist specializing in teaching about culturally important plants and their uses as food and medicine. She is a lecturer at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, North Dakota. Luke Black Elk (Thít?u?wa? Lakota) is a storyteller, grassroots activist, and traditional spiritualist. He has conducted research in water restoration, sustainable building design, and food sovereignty, and hopes to use these techniques to encourage a more traditional way of life among his people. Luke has lived on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation his entire life, becoming deeply involved in cultural and community activities. For more information about the Florida Herbal Conference go here.

It’s difficult to ruin food in a solar oven.

Should you get a solar oven, or perhaps build one? There are pros and cons. They really are just an insulated black box with a clear plastic cover. Or, you can make one with a black pot, an oven bag and a windshield reflector. There are two down sides to buying one. The first is cost. I paid $135 for mine about thirteen years ago. It comes with a small temperature detector so you can use it to sterilize water. As I have had mine around 13 years that’s about $10 a year. Does it save $10 in electricity per year? Probably if  you use it regularly. It’s like using a slow cooker and most recipes for slow cookers work in a solar oven. It’s difficult to over cook with a solar oven. What’s the down side? Over time the plastic cover has warped on my oven, twisted slightly, torque. So to keep it tight it needs a  clamp on four sides. And in the winter months when the sun is lower the extra reflection helps keep the temperature up. In that regard the older this oven has a lower the top end temperature than it used to. When new it could easily reach 425 F or so. Now with the clamps and the reflector it reaches about 325 F. That’s okay in that food starts to cook at 185 F.  Cooking with a solar oven also requires turning it every hour or so to keep it pointed towards the sun. 

Three hours later…

You can make a wide variety of homemade solar ovens from stationary to portable to inexpensive or costly.  A cardboard box stuffed with hay covered by a window works well. Or as mentioned above a dark pot in an oven bag positioned correctly with a reflector works well, too. My old oven will cook a fryer chicken in about three hours on a totally sunny day, longer on partly cloudy day.  How can you tell when it’s done?  Droplets will condense on the inside of the cover and you will detect the aroma of baked chicken. I bought the oven after the hurricanes of 2004 when we went a total of 15 days without electricity or running water. As mentioned you can not only cook with the oven but sterilize water, too. You can see a video about cooking with a solar oven here. 

This is issue 284. 

If you would like to donate to Eat The Weeds please click here.

Chickweed is a favorite wild edible but only shows up in our wintertime.

My first chickweed of the season was spotted during our foraging class last Saturday in Orlando at Blanchard Park.  As few sprigs were found elsewhere in the park its been growing this past month. Among the wild edibles it is fairly easy to identify with several distinct characteristics. Chickweed has a line of hair on the stem that switches sides at every node (where there are two leaves.) It also has a stretchy inner core and tastes like raw corn. Add the time of year here — our winter — and it’s an easy-to-identify foragable. To read more about chickweed go here.  

Goosegrass was used to separate the curds from the whey. Photo by Green Deane

Chickweed was not the only first sighting of the season. Along the Seminole Wekiva Trail this past Sunday I also spied Goosegrass, Galium aparine. It’s another of our fleeting winter edibles that’s around for a couple of months then gone. Young leaves and shoots are edible raw, as they toughen they should be cooked. At some point Goosegrass becomes too tough to eat. Reportedly the species is good for the lymph system. One odd thing is that Goosegrass is in the coffee family. The seeds, small as they are, can be roasted and do have a coffee flavor. Add a few Yaupon leaves and you have a wild coffee with caffeine. The easiest way to know you have the right Goosegrass is 1) it has whorls of six, seven, and eight leaves and it sticks to you like velcro. To learn more about Goosegrass go here.  Also check out the foraging classes below for  different locations over the next two weeks which include the Seminole Wekiva Trail.  

Sycamores drop a lot of leaves.

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

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, age 48

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

Trianthema portulacastrum, Desert Horse Purslane, a potential edible that on a glance can resembles purslane or the Tar Vine.

I’ve also noticed a plant locally that looks like Tar Vine. I have foraged Tar vine  and this plant is similar but it is not quite.  It is very tempting to make it fit the Tar Vine description, particularly when the plant hasn’t blossomed. You must avoid that. Waiting for the blossom is always good form. None of  us are so hungry we must eat a new wild plant NOW!  Take your time. The look of Tar Vine that I have in my head lets me see similar pattens in this new plant but also tells me it is not the Tar Vine. I think it might be Trianthema portulacastrum, a possible edible. My problem plant can also resemble purslane at times. You can read more about the “Desert Horse Purslane” with this study.

Classes are held rain or shine, hot or cold. This Dwarf Plantain was seen on our Saturday foraging class.

Foraging Classes: The holiday season brings a few changed to the foraging classes. Saturday’s class is in Cassadaga near Deland. It’s a nice location that usually draws a small class so there’s a lot of individual attention. Sunday’s ‘s foraging class is a new location, Sanlando Park in Seminole County near Altamonte Springs. Sanlando Park is a popular tennis site but it is also next to the Seminole Wekiva Trail and some good acerage of woods and fields. We meet 9 a.m. at the first parking lot on your right after the entrance on Laura Avenue (yes, they are open 8 to 5 the day before Christmas.)

This past week Blanchard Park was where the class met and wandered. It gave us an opportunity to view not only seasonal impact but how water flow can affect where plants choose to grow. There were long strips of seasonal edibles such as Dwarf Plantains, Cucumber Weed, West Indian Chickweed, small mustards, and Stinging Nettles. We also managed to find a Sugarberry Tree still clinging to some fruit. 

Saturday, December 23, Colby-Alderman Park: 1099 Massachusetts Street, Cassadaga. Fla. 32706. 9 a.m.

Sunday, December 24th, Sanlando Park, 401 West Highland St.
Altamonte Springs, Florida 32714 (at the intersection with Laura Avenue.) 9 a.m. We meet in the first parking lot on your right immediately after the entrance. This class involves about three miles of walking over several hours. 

Saturday, December 30th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. This is close to Clearwater Fl. Meet near the bathrooms near the dog park. This class is a request for me to hold a foraging class in a place I’ve never visited. So when I say meet near the bathrooms near the dog park I will be looking for them as well. I don’t know how far we will walk nor what parts of the park we will visit. The point is to hold a foraging class site unseen. So if you want to see how I find edibles it’s a class to attend. It’s going to be an adventure treasure hunt and a fun way to end out the foraging year.  

To read more about the classes go here. 

Penera’s Winter Park

My seventh annual Urban Crawl is this Friday, Dec. 22nd. This is a free foraging class held in downtown Winter Park, Fl. We meet at 10 a.m. in front of Panera, 329 N. Park Avenue (that’s on the north end of Park Avenue, not the south end.) We wander around Winter Park proper for two to three hours, starting and ending at Panera. We also manage to pass a Starbuck’s in the process and spend some time on the Rollins College campus. One of the reasons for the urban crawl is to show foragers that there’s a good selection of edible even downtown. It also gives us a chance to discuss and use our skills to identify areas that might be sprayed or other wise contaminated. No reservation necessary. There is free parking west of Panera in the parking garage, levels four and five.

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

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

The endings of botanical names in Dead Latin can often give us a clue about the species especially -ifera and -oides (and variations such as -iferum.) Often the botanical name is virtually no help in identifying a plant, such as when the genus and the species honor two different people. A good example is Decaisne

Dead man’s Fingers

 fargesii, Dead Man’s Fingers. It’s named after Joseph Decaisne and Pere Farges. No description there… seems like a lost opportunity to me… Sometimes the species name is misleading as the Longleaf Pine, Pinus palustris, which means a pine that likes to grow in swamps. Unfortunately Pinus palustris only grows on the top of dry sandy hills. That the descriptive name is very wrong is not enough to get it changed. The reason to change a name has to be botanical even if flimsy botanical.

-ifera and -oides however usually are helpful. -ifera means “producing” or “bearing.” Papyrifera means paper bearing, as in Betula papyrifera, the Paper Birch, left. Bulbifera means bulb bearing, such as the Dioscorea bulbifera, the Air Potato. Cerifera means wax bearing like the Southern Wax Myrtle, Myrica cerifera.  Myrica cerifera produces a green wax that was traditionally used to make Bayberry Candles.

-oides means “resembling” or ‘looks like.”Tillandsia usneoides (Spanish Moss) means looks like the lichen Usnea. Ranunculoides means looks like ranunculus. Centruroides means … like sharp (and is also the genus of scorpions in reference to their stingers.) While the -folia can mean leaves it is also used to mean looks like. Aquifolium means holly-like leaves. Tiliifolia — yes four “i’s” — means basswood-like leaves. Sonchifolia means leaves like a sow thistle. So if you have an -ifera in front of you it should be producing something. If you have an -oides it should look like something else you probably already know. -Folia is usually also descriptive.

Keynote Speakers at the Florida Herbal Conference Linda and Luke Black Elk.

It’s time to be thinking about two conferences in February, Earthskills in Hawthorn, and the Florida Herbal Conference near Lake Wales. I lead plant walks at both events. Earthskills is Feb 7-11 and the Florida Herbal Conference is Feb 23-25. Both are now accepting registration. You can register at Earthskills here.  Because you read this newsletter you can get a discount for the Florida Herbal Conference. If you register for that conference between now and January 31 using the code FHC2018_GREENDEANE you can get a 30% discount. Keynote speakers this year at the Florida Herbal Conference are Linda and Luke Black Elk from the Standing Rock Reservation. Linda (of the Catawba Nation) is an ethnobotanist specializing in teaching about culturally important plants and their uses as food and medicine. She is a lecturer at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, North Dakota. Luke Black Elk (Thít?u?wa? Lakota) is a storyteller, grassroots activist, and traditional spiritualist. He has conducted research in water restoration, sustainable building design, and food sovereignty, and hopes to use these techniques to encourage a more traditional way of life among his people. Luke has lived on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation his entire life, becoming deeply involved in cultural and community activities. For more information about the Florida Herbal Conference go here.

This is issue 283. 

If you would like to donate to Eat The Weeds please click here.