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Easy to identify, difficult to remember, the Golden Rain Tree. Photo by Green Deane

Golden Rain trees are now fruiting and have seeds of debatable quality. Earlier in the year the trees had yellow blossoms that showered down. Now the pink pods are developing seeds containing eruic acid. (Currently most of the seeds are pale green or white and soft but they will turn black and hard.) If their flavor is acceptable I suspect they are a famine food — eaten sparingly — because of the eruic acid, which has a long history.

Eruic acid is the prime oil in Rape seed (a member of the mustard family.) Used as a cooking oil it was known for causing lung cancer in cooks in India. In rat studies the oil interfered with heart muscle metabolism. It was brought out of the gastronomical wilderness after cocoanut oil was demonized along with saturated fats by the infamous Ancel Keyes in the 1950s. The cooking oil industry turned to corn and soybean oil. When research showewed those started to generate disease, rape seed oil was chosen as the anointed one (meaning cheap to produce.) Plants were bred to reduce the Eruic acid (a polyunsaturated oil) creating Canola (Canada Oil Low acid.) Even the low-acid Canola oil has to go through much industrial processing before being bottled for use. 

In short the oil that was reduced and removed to create Canola is found in Golden Rain tree seeds. Those who watch movies might recall it is also one of the ingredients in Lorenzo’s oil used to treat adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD). Where the seeds are reported eaten, they are roasted. 

Brazilian Pepper Berries. Photo by Green Deane

Also beginning to fruit is the controversial Brazilian Pepper.  At one time it was heavily promoted as the “Florida Holly” ignoring that the state has many native hollies. Its berries are often confused with a relative called Pink Peppercorns. In fact “Pink Peppercorns” were banned from the United States for several years because authorities thought they were the same species as Brazilian Pepper. As for using the Brazilian Pepper berries as spice, clearly some people can do so without any problems. Other people get extremely sick trying them just once. Some people can use them for a few days or weeks without a problem and then get ill. As I tell my students in foraging classes, you’re on your own with this one. So what am I going to to with them? Making one test gallon of wine, and,  to flavor a two gallons of mead (as they make a nice honey.) 

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

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

Lion’s Mane is tasty and medicinal. Photo by Green Deane

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

Gooseberries and currants come in several colors and flavors.

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

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

Foraging Classes: We may have to dodge November hurricanes but it is a good time of year to forage. 

Nov 4th Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion near the Dog Park

Nov. 5th Red Bug Slough , Sarasota. 9 a.m. Because of renovations, we have to meet at a different location at Red Bug Slough in Sarasoata. Normally it is at 5200 S. Beneva Road. Instead we will have to park at Gypsy Street and South Lockwood Ridge Road. Gypsy can be reached by Camphor Ave which runs south of Proctor west of Beneva.

Nov 11th Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  Meet at the bathrooms, 9 a.m.

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

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

You get the USB, not the key.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

Finally, a physical copy of the book.

Now in print is EatTheWeeds, the book. It has 274 plants, 367 pages, index, nutrition charts and color photos. Several hundred have been pre-ordered on Amazon.  Most of the entries include a nutritional profile. Officially it will be published December 13th (to suit the publisher publicity demands) and apparently to appeal to the winter market.

This is weekly newsletter #578. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

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

Some years the seasonal changes happen with regularity. This year has been irregular. Though cooler weather has yet to arrive locally Wild Mustard and Ringless Honey mushrooms are ahead of schedule. Indeed, the mustard is blossoming, and the mushrooms are weeks ahead of their usual time. Conversely, edible persimmons are late this year. That all makes one wonder how the winter weather might vary from the usual this year.

Blossoms can range from yellow to white. Photo by Green Deane

Mustards in the warm south likelate fall they do and I usually start writing about them in late November. In season you can see Wild Mustards and Wild Radish not only along roadsides but in various fields from farm land to ignored citrus groves. The two species are used interchangeably and look similar. However Wild Radishes tend to be serpentine rather than straight and tall like Wild Mustard. They also have lumpy seed pods, or, more lumpy than mustard seed pods. Usually you will find a stand of one or the other. I don’t recall ever finding both in the same patch. Blossom colors can range from yellow to white with streaks of purple. But the leaves always have the biggest lobe on the end farthest from the plant. Look for them in sunny areas with fertile soil. Not native they came from Eurasia in the 1700s. And note the seeds can remain viable in the soil for up to 60 years. To read more Wild Radish go here, and for Wild Mustard, here.  

These hibiscus blossoms never open. Photo by Green Deane

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

Tropical Almond’s “kernel” photo by Green Deane.

Tropical Almonds are now on Mother Nature’s dining table and we ate some during our recent foraging class in West Palm Beach. Terminalia catappa, which is really subtropical and not at all an almond, produces edible fruits for a few months. The ripe rind is edible as well as the “almond” inside which is really a little embryonic tree. It tastes like coconut9 blended with almonds. The only problem is the buoyant dry shells are quite tough and require a hammer or a couple of rocks to crack open. (For those who don’t know Florida does not have rocks. You can’t just rummage around and find a pair of rocks to break seed shells with.) There is some labor involved with eating Tropical Alomonds but they are still calorie positive. I usually have a couple of pieces of concrete hidden near this particular tree to get to the treat. To read more about the Tropical Almond go here.

Can two people independently come up with the same bad idea? The answer is yes when the idea is Daylight Savings Time, which we leave Nov 5th. A bug collector and a golfer in different parts of the world came up with the idea of Daylight Savings Time, and were correctly ignored until World War I. We flip forth and back every spring and fall though it now costs us more than it saves… Daylight Wasting Time or Daylight Slaving Time, take your pick… Only the government would cut a foot off one end of a blanket, sew it on to the other end and call the blanket longer. Personally I loathe the flipping and stopped doing so some 25 years ago. I stay on solar (standard) time and ignore Daylight Savings Time. So in a few days we will agree again. Not flipping is easy. I don’t change when I eat, go to bed, or feed the animals. I just ignore it. To read more about  time change click here or here.  Florida wrongly voted to stay on daylight savings time to avoid the flipping. But, as DST is a federal program the state needs congressional approval to opt out. Whereas no congressional permission is needed to stay on standard time. Hence, DST will haunt us again next spring. 

We’ve also been digging up a lot of wing Yam roots (Dioscorea alata.) While there are six species of “yams” locally the Winged Yam is the biggest caloric payoff. And it is a true yam not a variety of sweet potato (Ipomoea) which are improperly called “yams” and sold in cans and whole in grocery stores. Also called “Yam A” on my website   we are interested in eating its root not its distinctive dark brown “air potatoes.” The plant’s root can grow to many pounds — 30 unattended, 150 cultivated —  and is right below the surface usually. Boil it like a potato first then use like a potato. Its dark brown, misshapen “air potatoes” are quite visible this time of year hanging on the vine making it easy to find. As it’s seasonal demise is triggere by daylight hours you should be able to find it for a couple of more monhts. You can read more about the Winged Yam and others  here.

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

Foraging Classes:  The Wekiva Trail class also visits the Little Wekiva Rive Saturday.

Oct 28th, Seminole Wekiva Trail, Sanlando Park, 401 West Highland St. Altamonte Springs, Florida 32714.  9 a.m., meet at first parking lot on right.

Oct 29th  Blanchard Park,  2451 Dean Rd, Union Park, FL 32817 9.a.m. met at the pavilion by the tennis courts.

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

You get the USB, not the key.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

Now being printed is EatTheWeeds, the book. It should have 275 plants, 350-plus pages, index and color photos. Several hundred have been preordered on Amazon. And it is being printed now. Most of the entries include a nutritional profile. Officially it will be published December 5th (to suit the publisher publicity demands) and apparently to appeal to the winter market.

This is weekly newsletter #577. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

Persimmon leaves are ultra high in vitamin C. Photo by Green Deane.

It is the bountiful time of year. This past week, we ate ripe persimmons, creeping cucumbers, winged yams, drying sea grapes, purslane, cocoaplums, sugar berries, fire bush, wild coffee, yellow pond lilies, podocarpus arils, ringless honey mushrooms, milk caps, and a couple controversial Armatillo (solanum diphyllum) 

The star right now is persimmons. Locally they can ripen as early as late August, as late as January though October is prime time. Usually the best ones are on the ground but as the end of the season approaches, sweet non-astringent fruit can be found on the trees. The ringless honey mushrooms are pushing the season, locally they are a common sight the second week in November. (Just remember to first eat just one cooked as a test, not all digestive systems like them.) 

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

Foraging Classes: rain become less of an issue for classes as we move into fall, but cooler weather makes itself known.

Oct 21 Bayshore Live Oak Park, Port Charlotte, 9 a.m., meet at the parking lot at Byshore Drive and ganyard Street. 

Oct 22nd Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  Meet at the bathrooms, 9 a.m.

Oct 28th, Seminole Wekiva Trail, Sanlando Park, 401 West Highland St. Altamonte Springs, Florida 32714.  9 a.m., meet at first parking lot on right.

Oct 29th  Blanchard Park,  2451 Dean Rd, Union Park, FL 32817 9.a.m. met at the pavilion by the tennis courts

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

Nustoc is an uncommon find.

Besides the Armatillo, another controversial discussion this week involved nustoc. It is best describe as large green algae one finds in fields or the like, often dried. It can contain a lot of potential cyanide. About the only way to tell if your nustoc is edible is that people locally have been eating it for centuries, as is the case in China and Peru. It is part of some famous Asian cuisine, and is sold commercially. I’ve never had the courage to eat the species I’ve found locally. Worse, scientists think not all of the potential forms of the cyanide is known, thus lab testing won’t prove a species is edible. It’s a case for now of look but don’t eat. 

In the old cartoon series BC, Wiley, a peg-legged curmudgeon, was the strip’s philosopher. One day he opined: “The bravest man I ever saw was the first one who ate an oyster raw.” He could have easily penned “who ate nostoc raw.”  

Nostoc can resemble a pile of disintegrating dog scat. Not exactly appetizing. If you add that there are some 300 hard-to-identify species Nustoc barely creeps into the realm of edible. As one might presume in parts of the world where there are billions to feed they eat it.  Perhaps the easiest place to find locally it is on the ground cover one walks on in nurseries. Apparently it is the cause of much slipping and falls. In the wild I see it now and then in high and dry ground with much water nearby and moisture in the air. It is particularly common near Haul Over Canal on the northwest scrubby side.

Nostoc was a mystery for centuries as folks thought it was alien and was seen after a variety of celestial events. We now know it is an algae plumped up by passing rain. Some flies like to lay eggs in it, apparently with bad effects. An article in the 2008 Journal of Ethnopharmacology reported in the Peruvian highlands Nostoc commune, when eaten as food, can produce the neurotoxic amino acid BMMA. From the Abstract:

Is Nostoc a no-no? Photo by Green Deane

“In the mountains of Peru, globular colonies of Nostoc commune (Nostocales) are collected in the highland lakes by the indigenous people, who call them llullucha. They are consumed locally, traded for maize, or sold, eventually entering the folk markets of Cusco and other neighboring cities. Throughout highland Peru, Nostoc commune is highly salient as a seasonal dietary item, being eaten alone, or in picante — a local stew — and is said to be highly nutritious. Nostoc commune has been known to produce unusual amino acids, including those of the mycosporine group, which possibly function to prevent UV damage. We analyzed 21 different Nostoc commune spherical colonies from 7 different market collections in the Cusco area for the presence of beta-N-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA), a neurotoxic amino acid produced by diverse taxa of cyanobacteria, using four different analytical techniques (HPLC-FD, UPLC-UV, UPLC/MS, LC/MS/MS). We found using all four techniques that BMAA was present in the samples purchased in the Peruvian markets. Since BMAA has been putatively linked to neurodegenerative illness, it would be of interest to know if the occurrence of ALS, Alzheimer’s, or Parkinson’s Disease is greater among individuals who consume llullucha in Peru.”  This was echoed in a Chinese study pondering its possible involvement with Alkzheimer’s.

Some have argued this is also why you should also not eat Alfalfa or Black Medic because of BMAA. Other studies disagree, such as “Toxicity and bioaccumulation of two non-protein amino acids synthesised by cyanobacteria, β-N-Methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA) and 2,4-diaminobutyric acid (DAB), on a crop plant.” (Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, 15 January 2021.)  All that said there is a general rule about algae and that is never eat blue-green algae. Green yes, blue-green never. A nitrogen fixer, you can read more about  Nostoc here. 

Has toxic seed oil.

Is it edible? Yes, no, maybe… The Chinese Tallow tree is both banned and championed. It’s edibility is also linked to why it’s even in the United States to begin with.  The tree was imported by none other than Ben Franklin (well… he sent some seeds to a friend.)  The purpose was to use the white external seed fat for making candles which beef suet, tallow, was once used for. Hence the tree’s name in English. In theory that small coating of saturated fat on the outside of the seed is edible. It is also very stable. But there are two problems. It can be very difficult to remove and inside the seed there is an oil toxic to humans. So the fat and the oil should not mix. Some people have experimented with crushing the entire seed and heating the mash thus melting the saturated fat along with releasing the toxic oil. When they settle the edible fat and the non-edible oil are separated.  In China, where the tree is valued, they steam the white saturated fat off. The tree, while an invasive species in some areas of North America — such as Florida — is being considered as a good candidate for bio-fuel. You can read my article about it here about it here. A later magazine article about the species is here.   

Caesarweed is in the hibiscus group.

Caesarweed is a common sight locally but right now it is being a seasonal extrovert and blossoming profusely. Like the Chinese Tallow tree above, Caesar Weed is another plant intentionally imported for industrial use, in its case making fiber for burlap bags and the like. It’s not strong enough to make a sturdy rope like Skunk Vine (which is also blossoming now and was imported to make rope.) But if thrown in water and allowed to rot for a few weeks long blast fibers are left over. The tasteless flowers are edible, the seeds can be ground and used like corn starch, and the leaves have medicinal uses besides being a famine food. Young sprouts are edible raw. Mature leaves are hairy and upset the tummy. You can read about Caesar Weed here or see a video I did on it here.

Young iguana: photo by Green Deane

Seen but not tasted in West Palm Beach were iguanas. This little one watched us as we looked at some deadly Rosary Pea. Iguanas are quite edible and there are several way to capture them. One is to wait for cold weather, they will fall out of trees in front of you. Just don’t do what one hungry fellow did a couple of winters ago. He collected several cold adult  iguanas and put them in his car. As he drove home the heat in the car warmed them into defensive activity. To read more about them my article, Ignite of the the Iguana is here. 

You get the USB, not the key.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

Now being printed is EatTheWeeds, the book. It should have 275 plants, 350-plus pages, index and color photos. Several hundred have been preordered on Amazon. And it is being printed now. Most of the entries include a nutritional profile. Officially it will be published December 5th (to suit the publisher publicity demands) and apparently to appeal to the winter market.

This is weekly newsletter #576. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

The root of the winged yam. Photo by Green Deane

It was an air potato weekend. During our Jacksonville class we dug up several pounds of Winged Yam (Dioscorea alata) roots, a yam that taste similar to potato but with a smoother texture.

If you can identify the winged Yam you will always have food to eat. Digging them up after the vine dies back for the season requires some hand scrounging to feel the telltale top. (This is always a bit fraught with danger as much soil has broken glass in it. It is safer to identify the root by the vine while in season then dig it up later. You can read more about this staple here. 

Chanterelles have wrinkles not gills.

This weekend also unintentionally was a mushrooming weekend, with several pounds available at our usual Orlando Mushroom Group location. We usually have a large mushroom flush around May but it seemed to hold off until now. We collected several pounds of Milk Caps and Chanterelles. While they can be often be found this late in the season, a huge flush of them this time of year is unusual. Perhaps we will find some in Jacksonville. Saturday.

Sida has ephedrine. Photo by Green Deane

Is it Sida (SEE-dah) or is it Sida (SIGH-dah)? Either either it would seem… There are several members of the Sida genus locally and they blossom nearly all year. This weekend, however, Sida cordifolia was particularly happy. Taller and softer than some of the other genusmates, it’s a plant with a little bit of legal history. Plants in the genus tend to have ephedrine in them to varying amounts. Sida cordifolia, however, is the only Sida species mentioned in the Florida Statutes. If you make a pill using the plant it cannot be given to anyone under the age of 18. I doubt the problem is bootleg diet pills but rather youthful experimenting with ephedrine. Adults can apparently do what they want with the plant.  S. cordifolia is not native. The species I see the most often is S. rhombifolia, which means diamond shape. The lower part of the leaves of that species do not have teeth on them. You can read more about Sida here. 

Winged Sumac. Photo by Green Deane

Our Sumacs are happy. Everywhere you go now they are sporting terminal clusters of garnet-colored berries. It is time to harvest Sumacs for use today or later. There’s a wide variety of Sumacs. Perhas 325 in the genus.  Locally it’s the “Wing Sumac.” In other areas of the country it can be the Staghorn Sumac which I grew up nibbling in Maine. 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 the acid off the acid and make a lemonade-like drink. The berries can be dried, their coating knocked off then ground and used as a spice. Surprisingly Sumacs are high in the B vitamins, including B12, but rather low in ascorbic acid which is nature’s form of vitamin C. I currently have three gallons of Sumac wine working. I hope to bring some to classes next fall. In the springtime the shoots can be peeled and eaten raw or cooked. If you are worried about Poison Sumac 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.

Classes are held rain or shine or cold…

Foraging Classes: If you attending the Gainesville class Saturday the weather forecast suggest you dress for nippy weather. 

Oct  7th Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St.,  Gainesville, FL 32641. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion near the pump house

Oct 8th Red Bug Slough , Sarasota. 9 a.m. Because of rennovations, we have to meet at a different location at Red Bug Slough in Sarasoata. Normally it is at 5200 S. Beneva Road. Instead we will have to park at Gypsy Street and South Lockwood Ridge Road. Gypsy can be reached by Camphor Ave which runs south of Proctor west of Beneva.

Oct 14th Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405, 9 a.m. meet just north of the science center. There might be a hurricane that weekend. 

Oct 15th  Blanchard Park,  2451 Dean Rd, Union Park, FL 32817 9.a.m. met at the pavilion by the tennis courts.

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

In his book Edible Plants of North America, Francois Couplan writes on page 384: “the leaves of the S. lyrata, Eastern North America, contain an acrid principle and should not be ingested. They have been used to remove warts.” That said I know an herbalist who makes a tea from the leaves and a foraging instructor who cooks the young leaves and eats them. I’ve heard other reports of them being eaten. That can leave a person in a tough spotas to what to do with the plant. To eat or not to eat, that is the question.

This sage made me wretchedly ill.

Another example is also a sage, Salvia coccinea, also known as Tropical Sage. A small piece of the blossom of this species — a very tiny piece, 1/8 inch square — made me horribly sick for several weeks. It attacked my stomach with viciousness and I was go-to-the-emergency room miserable. Coca-cola syrup and Pepto-Bismol combined were my salvation from doubled-over pain.  I was actually “field testing” this plant for edibility at the time, one reason why I am very opposed to field testing. Yet, I know of two people who have eaten the young leaves with no problem. Perhaps it was a personal allergy on my part. I don’t know. But I do know I will never eat any part of that plant again. Ever. Lesson painfully learned. Yet it might be edible, or maybe some folks really do have cast iron stomachs. I know I don’t. Eating this Sage is one of those “you’re on your own” kind of things.

Richardia is generally not edible.

A third plant that falls into the crack between edible and not edible is Richardia scabra, aka Florida Pusley. It is in a genus that has species used to make you throw up. In fact one is called Richardia emetica. That is not encouraging. Some people mistake R. scabra for chickweed, which is a Stellaria, a totally different genus.  The plants vaguely resemble each other if one ignores several details and that fact that real chickweed only grows here in the winter time. R. scabra is a species for which I have never found any ethnobotanical references to regarding edibility. In fact it is one of three common plants that seems to have either not been used by the natives or somehow were not reported. The other two are Amaranthus australis and Hibiscus moscheutos. I know from modern reports that A. australis is edible but as for the H. moscheutos I have no idea though it comes from a very edible genus. Thus R. scabra is not on my site as an edible because I can’t find any historical reference to its use. Curiously the internet now calls it “edible.”  I do know two people who mistook it for chickweed and ate it for quite a while. And I know two people who did not mistake it; they know it is a Richardia and they eat it from time to time. That might be a key element. Without any ethnobotanical reference perhaps a little now and then is okay but a steady diet of it is not. It is one of those unknown things. Sometimes eating little bits of this or that do not rise to the level of making you ill. I know a person who mistook Oak Leaf Fleabane (Erigeron quercifolius) for for Plantago major and ate some for quite a while without an apparent problem. And I have personally seen someone eat a leaf of Oak Leaf Fleabane against my advice. She was still standing at the end of class. While there are some edible wild plants, and there are some that are definitely not edible,  and there can be some fog in between.

You get the USB, not the key.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

Now being printed is EatTheWeeds, the book. It should have 275 plants, 350-plus pages, index and color photos. Several hundred have been preordered on Amazon. And it is being printed now. Most of the entries include a nutritional profile. Officially it will be published December 5th (to suit the publisher publicity demands) and apparently to appeal to the winter market.

This is weekly newsletter #575. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Unripe ackee fruit, Do not eat. Photo by Green Deane

The ackee pictured above is not ready to eat. In fact at this stage it can kill you. Some 5,000 people died from eating ackee between 1886 and 1950 leading to it being banned from import to the United States. 

Ackee has to open (yawn) naturally to be edible.

You will find this tree either wild or intentionally cultivated in Central and South Florida also the Caribbean Islands. The toxin in the fruit is hypoglycin A, an amino acid unnatural to our bodies. It causes a severe drop in blood glucose. The arils are toxic before the fruit naturally opens called “yawing.” The seeds are always toxic. If even a tiny part of seeds are left in the ripe arils it can make you sick. The rind has saponin and is used to poison fish.

The amount of hypoglycin A in an ackee fruit usually depends on how ripe it is and if it was allowed to ripen naturally. A naturally ripened ackee fruit will have high levels of hypoglycin A in its seed and rind, but low levels in its arils. However, a green unripe ackee fruit has high levels of hypoglycin A in all its parts about 1000 parts per million. If ackee has more than 100 parts per million of hypoglycin A, It is considered unsafe to eat.

A national dish of Jamaica, if you are going to eat ackee do not eat fresh achee that has not ripened naturally. Do not cook ackee that has not ripened naturally. Do not eat the seeds or rind of any ackee. Do not prepare raw ackee unless you have been trained to do so. Make sure any frozen or canned ackee is from a U.S. government approved supplier.  The raw ackee I’ve eaten tasted and smelled like a mild cheddar cheese.  Some ripe ackee arils have a buttery texture and flavor.

Simpon Stoppr fruit tastes similar to orange marmalade. Photo by Green Deane

The Simpson Stopper can flower and fruit anytime of year though it can favor late summer and early fall. We saw several shrubs of it in heavy fruit last week in Largo.

The fruit is edible and the leaves can be made into a tea with various application. (Usually branch tips are used.) Such infusions medicinally have been used respiratory problems, inflammations of the throat and the gums, tonsillitis, stomatitis and various yeast infections. A leaf tea was used to stop diarrhea.

In it’s native Ecuador the fruit is used to make aromatic liquor, jam, jelly and eaten as is. It is also simmered into Colada morada (strained purple) Which is a traditional drink for November 2, the Day of the Dead or All Souls Day.

Chinese elm bark, photo by Green Deane

From a foraging point of view downed oaks don’t provide much windfall. Only the ones that were masting are of interest and they were already dropping acorns. But there are a couple of tree species worth investigating if they are blown over. One is pines. It’s an opportunity to harvest cambium and or nearly ripe cones for their seeds. It’s fairly easy to strip “fillets” off downed limbs or young trunks. And one does not have to climb the tree for the cones. A second tree worth investigating is the Chinese Elm. It’s used in landscaping intensely. During the Great Depression of the 1930’s they were planted by the millions and perhaps are the most intentionally planted tree outside of the lumber industry.  A windfall of this species brings not only young leaves and samaras within reach but also provides easy access to the tree’s cambium which is edible. Every tree’s cambium grows differently and is the “living”part of the tree. It grows in two directions at once, in and out. The inner cambium become the wood of the tree. The outer cambium becomes the bark of the tree. This gives each tree it’s distinction wood and bark. And on the Chinese Elm (all Ulmus actually) and the pine (all Pinus) the cambium is edible.

Is it edible? Yes, no, maybe… The Chinese Tallow tree is both banned and championed. It’s edibility is also linked to why it’s even in the United States to begin with.  The tree was imported by none other than Ben Franklin (well… he sent some seeds to a friend.)  The purpose was to use the white external seed fat for making candles which beef suet, tallow, was once used for. Hence the tree’s name in English. In theory that small coating of saturated fat on the outside of the seed is edible. It is also very stable. But there are two problems. It can be very difficult to remove and inside the seed there is an oil toxic to humans. So the fat and the oil should not mix. Some people have experimented with crushing the entire seed and heating the mash thus melting the saturated fat along with releasing the toxic oil. When they settle the edible fat and the non-edible oil separate on cooling.  In China, where the tree is valued, they steam the white saturated fat off. The tree, while an invasive species in some areas of North America — such as Florida — is being considered as a good candidate for bio-fuel. You can read my article about it here about it here. A later magazine article about the species is here.

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

Foraging classes: Trying to avoid future hurricanes is a tough call and why my classes are favoring certain parst of the state on a given weekend. Heading to Gainesville and Orlando this weekend.  

Sept. 30th Florida State College, south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246. 9 a.m. We meet at Building A next to the administration parking lot.

Oct 1stst Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  Meet at the bathrooms, 9 a.m.

Oct  7th Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St.,  Gainesville, FL 32641. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion near the pump house

Oct 8th Red Bug Slough , Sarasota. 9 a.m. Because of rennovations, we have to meet at a different location at Red Bug Slough in Sarasoata. Normally it is at 5200 S. Beneva Road. Instead we will have to park at Gypsy Street and South Lockwood Ridge Road. Gypsy can be reached by Camphor Ave which runs south of Proctor west of Beneva.

Oct 14th Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405, 9 a.m. meet just north of the science center.

Oct 15th  Blanchard Park,  2451 Dean Rd, Union Park, FL 32817 9.a.m. met at the pavilion by the tennis courts.

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

Fall is a good time to look for Yellow Pond Lilys. While they fruit rather continuously these pond residents are putting forth a crop now. Plants may not have a brain they can have a strategy, or at least so it seems. Many of them protect their seeds in various ways until they are ready to germinate. The Persimmon Tree comes to mind. The fruit is astringent until the seeds are mature enough to germinate. Then the fruit turns sweet attracting various animals to eat it — those that can taste sweet — and spread the seeds around. The Monstera deliciosa has the same saccharin strategy. The seeds are acrid until ready to germinate then they turn sweet. They have a flavor reminiscent of pineapple and/or wild chamomile. The Yellow Pond Lily works in a similar fashion, almost. It does not turn sweet but the bitterness goes away. Seeds that are not ready to germinate are bitter. As the plant dies the floating seed pod rots over a three-week period. When the seeds are ready to germinate the protective bitterness is removed by enzymatic action. This also makes the seeds edible. Of course we humans can take advantage of the system by collecting the seed pods ourselves and controlling the rotting process. Then we get the seeds and dry them for use in various ways. You can read more about the Yellow Pond Lily here. 

True Turkey Tails. Photo by Green Deane

Turkey Tails are fairly easy to identify medicinal mushroom.  For a common type of mushroom I don’t see them that often… two or three times a year. I see False Turkey Tails far more often. More on that later.  A seven-year study funded by the National Institutes of Health found Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor) boosted the immunity in women who had been treated for breast cancer. Researchers at the University of Minnesota and Bastyr University conducted the study in women with stages I-III breast cancer who had completed radiation therapy or chemotherapy. Results showed that immune function was enhanced in the women who took daily doses of Turkey Tail in pill form. They reported that the improved immune response was dose dependent and that none of the subjects suffered any adverse effects. Trametes versicolor can be chewed whole, eaten ground, or made into a tea, or a tincture. The question that always follows such comments is are False Turkey Tails, Stereum ostrea, medicinal?  Informally one hears herbalists saying False Turkey Tails can be used but there are few specifics though it has a long herbalism history.  A study in 2007 found that water extracts of Stereum ostrea were antibacterial and antifungal. That’s not cancer fighting or immune system stimulating but useful nonetheless. You can read that article here. 

You get the USB, not the key.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

Now being printed is EatTheWeeds, the book. It should have 275 plants, 350-plus pages, index and color photos. Several hundred have been preordered on Amazon. And it is being printed as I write. Most of the entries include a nutritional profile. Officially it will be published October 5th (to suit the publisher publicity demands) and apparently to appeal to the winter market.

This is weekly newsletter #574. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Monarda punctata, Horsemint, Beebalm. Photo by Green Deane

We’ve mentioned it a few times in recent newsletters but it bares repeating: Horsemint — see above — is in season and very easy to find now. Look in grassy sandy places or along paths in always dry areas. The pleasant side of the plant is that it smells nice and makes a Thyme-like spice. The naughty side of the species is that it contains Thymol which is a relaxant. Made into a tea it calms you down. How much it calms you down depends on how much you use and your personal response to it.  You can also hang some in your house as an air freshener. You can read about Horsemint here. 

Crowfoot Grass seeds are gluten free. Photo by Green Deane

Crowfoot Grass, which is ripening now, is not native to North America. It’s from Africa where the species is used to make unleavened bread and a frothy beer. While crowfoot grass is easy to harvest — when ripe — the grains are tiny, eye of a needle size. You can collect about two quarts an hour — making them calorie positive —  and they can grow in large colonies making harvesting easy. Usually you collect the grains while sitting and using window screen plastic as a strainer.  The grains have a small amount of cyanide in them but drying and cooking drives that off. Though minute botanically they are a mouthful: Dactyloctenium aegyptium. That means ‘little comb fingers from Egypt.’ You can find Crowfoot Grass from Maine to California skipping the upper northwest side of the country.

Pandanus Fruit, also called screw pine because it twists as it grows.

The question every time you see one — left —  is which species is it? There are some 600 of them in the genus and several are edible one way or another. The one to the left is in Dreher Park. Sometimes it has a little bit of calcium oxalate in the fruit and sometimes doesn’t. So one has to taste it carefully. What you do is take a section, which is a cluster of smaller parts, and chew it. The goal is to get the juice out of it more than anything else though some pulp is edible. Last year this particular growth lightly burned my lips enough to notice but not bothersome. The young white base of the fronds are also edible Three species are commonly known as edible: Pandamus amaryllifolius, Pandanus fascicularis, and Pandanus tectorius. The latter is the most consumed of all and would be a good find. One of the more interesting things about the Pandanus is how it burns when lit. A dried Pandanus stalk can smolder for days like a baseball bat-sized cigarette. It was how some of the Aboriginals of Australia carried fire from one place to another.  Among other speces we can find in Dreher Park in the park are Coco-plums and Simpson Stoppers asl well as Java Plums. The Sea-grapes were still green. They ripen around the first of September.  The Mahoes were not yet in blossom. They are unusual in that their blossom is yellow in the morning then turn red in the afternoon. Botanist tell us that is to attract different pollinators. The blossoms also have more antioxidants in the afternoon.  

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

Foraging Classes: My deceased Miata has been replace and I’m on the road again. 

Sept 23rd, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte. Meet at the parking lot at Ganyard and Bayshore, 9 a.m.

Sept 24th Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion near the Dog Park

Sept. 30th Florida State College, south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246. 9 a.m. We meet at Building A next to the administration parking lot.

Oct 1st Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  Meet at the bathrooms, 9 a.m.

Oct  7th Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St.,  Gainesville, FL 32641. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion near the pump house

Oct 8th Red Bug Slough , Sarasota. 9 a.m. Because of rennovations, we have to meet at a different location at Red Bug Slough in Sarasoata. Normally it is at 5200 S. Beneva Road. Instead we will have to park at Gypsy Street and South Lockwood Ridge Road. Gypsy can be reached by Camphor Ave which runs south of Proctor west of Beneva.

Oct 14th Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405, 9 a.m. meet just north of the science center.

Oct 15th  Blanchard Park,  2451 Dean Rd, Union Park, FL 32817 9.a.m. met at the pavilion by the tennis courts

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

White Beautyberries. Photo by Green Deane

Are the berries to the left edible or not? Ninety-nine plus percent of white berries are not edible. White berries are a huge warning flag saying stay away. But there are exceptions.  I can think of a few wild white berry species in the world that are edible, some in North America and one in Africa. But what of the berries pictured left? They are white American Beautyberries. Usually they are magenta when ripe. These are stark white. I have eaten a few. They taste like the colored ones. A few years ago I had a woman in New Jersey write to me and report she eats them all the time and makes jelly out of them. That’s not an official endorsement but it is about as close as one can get to knowing if they are edible. There are at least four species of Beautyberries that can spontaneously produce white berries, and there might be a man-made cultivar or two. The shrub at left had magenta colored berries for several years then went one for one year then back to colored berries. To read more about them click here. 

The nose doesn’t always know.

The aroma of a wild food is the most flexible of all descriptions. This is for two reasons: Noses differ and plants differ. Taste is also quite flexible but aroma variations beat taste out. When you read in a foraging guide, or even in my articles, that a plant smells like such-and-such know that the description is quite subjective. There are several local species that elicit different descriptions even when noses are whiffing the same sample. One low-growing fruit — the Gopher Apple — has been described as smelling like pink bubble gum, a new plastic shower curtain, or no aroma at all. The smelly spice Epazote ranges in opinions from citrusy to floor varnish to industrial cleaner. Even among non-edibles the olfactory estimations can vary such as with the toxic Laurel Cherry. Some think its cyanide smells like almonds, other think they smell maraschino cherries, some can’t smell the cyanide at all (it depends on your genes.) In guide books a reported aroma is just that, a guide. It is not always for certain by any means. There’s room for aromatic latitude.

Carl Linnaeus had a dirty mind.

Plant Pronunciations: What’s really important is knowing the plant and whether you can eat it or not. What you call it is secondary. Common names are okay as long as you know many plants can have the same common name. “Indian Potato” comes to mind. There are two problems with common names. You and someone else could be talking about the “Indian Potato” but actually be talking about two different species. Also every plant — in theory — has one botanical name but can have virtually dozens of common names. Many times it is just easier to remember the one botanical name. Dead Latin was chosen for the naming plants because … well… it’s dead, non-changing, non-evolving. Perhaps it was also chosen by academics as a way to keep Latin from disappearing completely. Another possibility was they wanted to use naughty descriptions and if in Latin most wouldn’t know how lewd some names are. But know even when Latin was spoken it had regional accents and far flung Latin became French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian. At home it became Italian. There is no etched-in-granite correct way to pronounce botanical names. Hmmmm…. take Vagus. It can be said like the city, Los Vegas, or vah-GOOSE. It means literally “wandering.” And of course there are different pronunciations botanical names in American English vs British English such as with the pine genus (PINE-us, vs. PEEN-iss.)

Pedanius Dioscorides

Many “Latin” plant names are mangled Greek. Take the genus Dioscorea, the true yams. Dead Latin has it dye-oh-SCORE-ree-ah. That makes my ears hurt. It’s named after a Greek physician, Dioscorides, 40-90 AD. So I prefer thee-oh-score-REE-dez which closer to the Greek way of saying it. The only time the botanical name is truly important is to make sure the two of you are discussing the same plant. This happened recently when I received an email from Singapore about how to use the Skunk Vine.  There are several Skunk Vines (like Indian Potatoes, Hog Plums et cetera.) As we were exchanging information about Paederia foetida without the botanical name that would have been difficult. Scientific names of any species can be a personal hurdle. And some times you don’t have a choice. The majority of mushrooms do not have a common names. You just have to bite the Boletus. 

You get the USB, not the key.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

Now being printed is EatTheWeeds, the book. It should have 275 plants, 350-plus pages, index and color photos. Several hundred have been preordered on Amazon. And it is being printed as I write. Most of the entries include a nutritional profile. Officially it will be published Dec. 5th (to suit the publisher publicity demands) apparently to appeal to the winter market.

This is weekly newsletter #573. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Tallow plums ripen to yellow, and sweeten. Photo by Green Deane

Though they have been mentioned several times they deserved to be repeated again. Now is the time to look for the yellow fruit of the tallow plum ximenia americana. At our last class in Melbourne we saw hundreds for ripe fruit on more than a dozen shrubs.  Everyone had a good opportunity to study the species and taste the fruit.

Ripe fruit is is golden yellow, some time redish yellow. Photo by Green Deane

In some part of the world Tallow Plum leaves are prime giraffe food (so I suspect our deer like them. I have found a fawn waiting for mom near tallow plums.) Eating the leaves is iffy for humans as they contain come cyanide though after long boiling are said to be edible. (I am not that hungry though I do eat the ripe fruit.) The ripe fruit are often used as a replacement for lemons in cooking. The seed oil (ximenyinc acid) has been used cosmetically. The oil when blended with kerosene can be used as a biofuel. The species has long been used in traditional medicine for treating measles, malaria, skin infections, veneral  diseases, diarrhea, muscle cramps and lung abscesses. The fruit in excess is used to treat constipation. You can read more about it here. 

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

Storm dodging this week we start with a class Saturday in West Palm Beach where the Jambul tress should be fruiting. Sunday’s class will be a hybrid event. It will be held in Lake Mary at a favorite mushrooming site. Whether there will be mushroom is difficult to predict. It is also a location which has thousands of persimmon trees though persimmons are not ripe yet. This walk is exactly a mile long. We share the path with mountain bikes, deer, bear tracks, and an occasional rattle snake.

Sept 9th,  Lake Mary, Fl, 8515 Markham Rd, Lake Mary, FL 32746. 9 a.m. to noon, meet at the bathrooms. Whether this is a plant class or a mushroom class (or more likely both) depends on whether the mushrooms are flushing. This location has produced chanterelles, puff balls, milk caps, boletes, russulas, ganodermas, and “white” chicken of the woods. Harvesting mushrooms in Florida is illegal so don’t be obvious such as carrying a mushroom basket. Paper bags in a backpack is less announcing.  

This class is cancelled because my car died. Sept 10th, West Palm Beach, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405, 9 a.m. to noon, meet just north of the science center.

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

Canna roots

When it comes to plants you can see something for a long time but not see it. That was my experience with Canna. In the late 80’s a friend of mine had Canna planted along her house. As she was from Taiwan I presumed — like most of the plants around her home — they were native to Asia. As it turned out I was just one in a very long line of people thinking this native of the Americas was actually Asian. I didn’t make the connection to local Canna because the two species have different blossoms, one skinny and red, the other fat and yellow. But then one day while fishing along the St. Johns River east of  Sanford I saw a large stand of “native” Canna and investigated. There are several edible parts to the Canna including the roots. The hard seeds, however, have been used as a substitute for buckshot… they are that hard. You can read more about this peripatetic beauty here. 

Ghost Pipes are a famine food. Photo by Green Deane

Several plants were called “Indian Pipes” where and when I was growing up. One of them is the Monotropa uniflora. Living more like a mushroom than a plant it sprouts up in various edibility conversations. It helps focus the issue on exactly what “edibility” means. Other than allergies, edibility does imply it will not kill you or harm you in any significant way. But “edibility” does not have to imply tasty. As forager Dick Deuerling used to say “there are a lot of edible plants. I only eat the good stuff.” There are also things that are just too woody or bitter to eat more than a sample of but are included in “edible.” And some plants have to be prepared correctly to be “edible.” Is the Monotropa uniflora edible? Yes. Does it taste good? Only if you’re really hungry. But that is understandable. The list of edible plants has to include everything from incredibly delicious food to only-if-I-were-starving food. Indian Pipes are closer to the famine food end of that list, the tops are more edible than the stems. You can read more about the Monotropa here.

In the olden BC days... before computers… Labor Day meant you went back to school the next day. School also let out sometime in June. Your release date was never exact because several “snow days” were built into the calendar every year. If they weren’t used up we got out in early June. If it was a bad winter then we got out mid-June. We also were not too far removed from harvest time on both ends of the school year.  

Harold Grandholm, a high school classmate, raking blueberries off the road I grew up on during “summer vacation.”

I walked to school daily, five miles round trip, and that was my preference. The wander took me past blueberry fields, Concord grape hedgerows, apple orchards and a great view of New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington some 60 miles away. I was scrumping every morning and afternoon for six weeks or so. This daily Too & Fro also included crossing the Royal River which was really more of a serf stream except during the spring floods. (Fished and fell into the Royal a lot. Found my first black pearl there and caught my first eel in the Royal.) All that wild fall fruit always ruined my supper but then again my mother was a horrible cook so it worked out well. Plants were also part of school letting out in spring. I noticed way back in sixth grade that when the (edible) Lilacs blossomed school was nearly out for the summer… and summer vacations were wrongly named: For most kids where I grew up it meant farm work until school started in September. For me it was three full months of working in the hay fields, a hot, dusty, hornet-punctuated job. My mother collected horses (and other farm animals) and they had to be fed so into the fields I went, indentured labor. There was also summer gardening, 70 days of it. I only escaped all that by volunteering for the Army in 1969 when Vietnam was hot…  young men can make stupid decisions… but I never hayed again.

Even ripe Jambul fruit is slightly astringent. Photo by Green Deane

We mentioned above that the Syzygiums might be fruiting in West Palm Beach. That mostly included S. cumini also known as the Java Plum and Jambul. I’ve made wine out of that. There are a few Jambuls in Orlando and certainly dozens in West Palm Beach. I know they also grow well in Sarasota and Port Charlotte where I think they are naturalized. Both Syzygium jambos and Syzygium samaragense are called the Rose Apple and Java Apple (and many other names as well.)  There also is a Syzygium in your kitchen is S. aromaticum. You know the dried flower buds as “cloves.”  As the species have been in foraging news lately I decided to bite the proverbial bullet and write a second article on the genus, or at least the latest one. You can read that article here and you can read about the Jambul here.

You get the USB, not the key.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

Now being printed is EatTheWeeds, the book. It should have 275 plants, 350-plus pages, index and color photos. Several hundred have been preordered on Amazon. Most of the entries include a nutritional profile. Officially it will be published Dec. 5th (to suit the publisher demands) apparently to appeal to the winter market but can be delivered by mid-October

This is weekly newsletter #572, If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Wild Apples can be bitter.

September approaches and that means wild apples. I’ve never met a bad wild apple. There are sweet ones — edible off the tree — and there are bitter ones, often very good after roasting like a root vegetable. Nearly all apples are edible and are clones, well, at least commercial apples are clones. The experts tell us no two apple seeds are exactly alike.  Granny Smith apple seeds will not product a Granny Smith apple. The first Granny Smith apple tree was a unique tree and was cloned, as were all the other named apples we buy in the store or grow at home. Cloning might not be exactly the right term: Cuttings were taken from that tree and grafted on to other apple trees. That’s why it took nearly a century for the Granny Smith apple to get from Australia to our markets in the United States.

Feral apples can be wild or ignored cultivars.

What I noticed as a boy was the great variety of apple trees there were around the fields, old homesteads, and roads where I grew up. Near the house, where our horses could raid it, was an old small wild apple that had green fruit tasting tart to bitter. We made pipes out of the wood.  But, the apples cooked well and the horses liked them as is, right off the tree with a few leaves. Just outside their fence there was a large (I suspect cultivated) tree with apples that tasted similar to a Golden Delicious. Across the dirt road from the house were five apple trees growing near the ditch, offspring of a tossed apple core and subsequent generations. And along a trail through the woods near a sand pit there was an old apple tree where one could usually find deer and or partridge feeding on the fallen fruit. 

I raid this apple tree every year near a general store in Valle Crucis, North Carolina.

I thought of these while hiking the Appalachian Trail. Feral apple trees were common and good. I harvested apples every time I saw a tree. Not one tree looked as if anyone had bothered to collect any apples from them (low-hanging fruit was still low-hanging.)  This latter observation is perhaps the most telling. Humans have been eating apples for some seven thousand years. They are one of the best known foods even among people who never forage. It is difficult to think of a food more recognizable than apples yet they remained unharvested along the trail and elsewhere. Even ardent must-get-back-to-nature types leave them alone. Maybe we are not as hungry as we think we are. I also see mangoes rotting on the ground often. To read more about apples, go here.

Classes are held rain or shine. Tropical storms and hurricanes are exceptions.

Foraging classes this time of year can be difficult to schedule because of pending storms. How much rain during a class is too much rain?  I study the weather a couple of weeks out when scheduling class locations. As Sunday might be wetter near the est coast than Saturday we’ll do the east side of the state Saturday and the middle Sunday. 

Saturday August 26th, Wickham Park, Melbourne Florida, 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the dog park.

Sunday August 27th, Blanchard Park, Orlando, 9 a.m. meet beside the tennis courts. 

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

Some goldenrod tastes like anise. Photo by Green Deane

In blossom now is Goldenrod. It is a bit of a treasure hunt and disappointment. The treasure hunt is that one species is better than all the rest for tea, Solidago odora. It does grow here, has an anise flavor, but is hard to find. It’s reported in most counties but is not common. Goldenrod grows in about half of the United States, southwest to northeast. Other Goldenrod species can also be made into tea, perhaps all of them particularly for herbal applications, but they don’t taste anywhere near as good  In fact, after the “Boston Tea Party” of 1773 halted tea imports colonialists drank Goldenrod tea and even exported some to China. It did not catch on. However, every time I see a Goldenrod I pull off a leaf and crush it hoping to detect the tell-tale anise smell. It’s a golden treasure hunt.The edible seeds and skinny roots taste like raw potato.

Saw Palmetto berries go from green to gold to black.

The “revolting” flavor of ripe Saw Palmetto berries will soon be upon us. I’m not sure they are an “acquired” taste or a tolerated one. You will either be able to eat them or not. Basically they tastes like vomit. To be a little more gracious they taste like an intense blue cheese with some burning hot pepper tossed in. Once you get used to them they are… endurable. But if you were hungry you would crave them in that they have all the amino acids humans need to be healthy. They are good for you even if you don’t like them and should be on the top of every vegetarians list of go-to plants. As with some fruit — Durian for example — the smell is enough to dissuade many people from eating them, hungry or not. Saw Palmetto berries will be ripening for the next few weeks. They start out green, turn to gold this month, then ripen to black, usually in September. If you are adventurous you have been forewarned. 

Boerhavia erecta, a Florida native.

As mentioned above foraging is like treasure hunting. While pedaling once in Apopka I had to stop at an intersection and noticed some Boerhavia diffusa. It’s a common barely edible probably from India or near there. One usually finds it in somewhat trashy ground such as sidewalk cracks, parking lots, and dumps. So when I stopped at the intersection it was no surprise to see Boerhavia growing there. But growing next to it was a white Boerhavia. That I had never seen. And the leaves were more pointed than the common species. A little bit of research suggests I found B. erecta, which surprisingly is a Florida native. It has spread to other parts of the world, however, and is reportedly edible and medicinal like B. difussa. After a bit more research I might have to update my article on the species. Until then you can read about the ruby-blossomed B. diffusa here.

Sumacs are in blossom. Photo by Green Deane

What is that? It’s a common question locally now that sumacs are in bloom. Their creamy terminal blossoms stand out looking somewhat exotic among the dark green foliage. The most common species here is Winged Sumac which is also one of the most widely-distributed sumac in North America.  It is also the only known plant source of B12, but only about 10 mg per kilo of fruit. Sumac found nearly everywhere though in different locales other species may dominate.  Where I grew up in Maine Staghorn Sumac was the common species and grew quite tall. I see them often when I visit North Carolina. The key to making sure you have an edible sumac and not toxic Poison Sumac or Brazilian Pepper is location of the blossom and subsequent fruit. Edible sumacs have terminal clusters of medium to dark red berries covered with fine hair. In this case “terminal” means they are on the very end of  the branch, like the blossom on the left. Brazilian Pepper has pink berries that are further down the branch. Poison Sumac, which only grows only in wet places, has dull cream to green-cream berries also further down on the stem. To read more about sumacs go here.

You get the USB, not the key.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

is EatTheWeeds, the book. It should have 275 plants, 350-plus pages, index and color photos. Several hundred have been preordered on Amazon. Most of the entries include a nutritional profile. Officially it will be published Dec. 5th (to suit the publisher publicity demands) apparently to appeal to the winter market but can be delivered by mid-October

This is weekly newsletter #570. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Hawthorn berries are edible, but not the seeds. Photo by Green Deane

There are many botanical mysteries, Hawthorns are one of the prime puzzlements among green plants. No one knows exactly how many species there are, dozens? Hundreds? Perhaps thousands.  It’s a PhD waiting to happen. But we do know they are in the greater rose family, and the small fruit is applesque — so don’t eat the seeds. In hungrier times hawthorn jelly was popular particularly made from crataegus monogyna. It’s a no-cook jelly you can dry into a sweet snack. Although a European speciesI have seen crataegus monogyna growing near Boone, North Carolina, Hawthorn, now, is more known medicinally as a tea from the leaves and or fruit because they are an effective Beta Blocker for certain cardio vascular conditions. 

Devil Walking stick fruit is not edible.

We also harvested a lot of chanterelles during our Gainesville Class,  including some red chanterelles. They went well in an omelette. Also spied were the non-edible berries of the Devil’s Walking stick. Blossom and shoots are edible but not the fruit — which have a kind of Elderberry-on-a-bad-day flavor. It is irritating in foraging that some of the easiest things to identify are not edible.

American lotus seeds ready for cooking. Photo by Green Deane

Seen twice this past week in Gainesville and Winter Garden were blossoming American Lotus. The first time I saw a small lake of these blossoms was when an old dry lakebed was deepened and reflooded for a housing development. The next spring suddenly what was for decades a dry lake was full of American Lotus blossoms. This is because the seeds can stay viable some 400 years, or so the experts report. Talk about a survival food! There are multiple edible parts on the American Lotus but I prefer the seeds. I also think when collecting by hand the seeds proved to be the most calories for the least amount of work. The roots are edible but digging them up can be a messy, laborious job. Locally American Lotus are easy to find now: Just look for a lake with large yellow blossoms on long stems. Further north and west they are a favorite sight on rivers such as the Mississippi. To read more about the American Lotus go here.

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

Foraging Classes: Accompanying me in my foraging class this Saturday in Mead Garden is the publicity side of my book publisher, Keen Adventure. Sunday’s class will dodge thunderstorm in Largo. 

August 12th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789. Meet at the bathrooms 9 a.m. This class will be attended by representatives of the company publishing my book. (See below) 

August 13th, Eagle Lake, Largo fl. Meet at the dog park pavilion, 9 a.m.

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

Cereus cactus fruit is wild Dragon Fruit. Photo by Green Deane

One of the joys this time of year is that cactus tunas are ripening: Cactus fruit are called Tuna. There are two or three general types of cactus locally, Opuntia and Nopales and a third with edible fruit, the Cereus, which is more an ornamental Dragon Fruit.  How do you pick a Tuna (or cactus pad?) In a word carefully. 

Sweeping glochids off is another option.

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 many years. In one case smoke from burning desiccated Euphorbia 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, Nopales, or Cereus) 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 and Tuna 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 and get ya. Hint: Young pads, the ones we want anyway, often have not developed glochids. The Tuna have them so pick with tongs and sweep, wash or burn the painful spines off. 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.  The fruit, Tunas, are also edible after ridding them of glochids. They can have a raspberry flavor. The seeds are edible, too, but are extremely tough. You have to grind or roast them To read more about cactus click here.

Hackberries, or sugarberries, are usually burnt orange in color.

There is a tree you should be scouting for now so when the fruit ripens next month you’ll have some already located. As in real estate so in foraging: Location, location, location. Hackberries (also widely know as Sugarberries) like to be near but not in fresh water. You can often find them about 10 feet above the local water table but I’ve seen them as low as three feet. Usually you can find them up the bank from the water. Older Hackberry bark will often be warty, sometimes heavily so. Leaves have uneven shoulders, and on the back side of the leaf notice three prominent veins at the base, unusual for tree leaves. The small-pea sized fruit is green now but will ripen this month or early September into a burnt orange. The entire fruit is edible though the seed is hard. To read more about them go here.

asdff

Doveweed, Murdannia, might be the smallest non-floating edible plant in the United States. Barely known, easily overlooked, yet very invasive. It pays to be small. For some young Doveweed is prime for soups, others view it as famine food. I can understand that. It’s closely related to a genus that gives me an upset stomach, the Commelinas (Dayflowers.)  I use only Doveweed blossoms in my salad. To anyone used to finding Dayflowers the Doveweed will look familiar but only a few inches tall. It also has a lot of common names around the world including “Micky Mouse.” To read more about the Doveweed, go here.

Isabelline wheateater

To my knowledge I’ve never met anyone named Isabell. So when the word “isabelline” cross my optical path about plants I had to look into it. “Isabell” means “God’s promise” presumably a positive one. It was very popular girl’s name in the 1880s, all but disappear until 2003 whereupon it had a resurgence in popularity until 2007. Now it is on the wane again. But what is isabelline?  There are three application of which I have also apparently never heard of.  One is what we could call Spanish Gothic Architecture. King and queen Ferdinand and Isabella got Columbus launched then turned to building cathedrals and the like. That style is called Isabelline, properly capitalized. I’m surprised they didn’t called it Ferdinine. The second use is a color: Isabelline. A color? Yes, and the word has been in use for at least 400 years so it is not a paint-store invention like “Baby Fawn” or “egg blue.”

A Himalayan Brown Bear (Ursus arctos isabellinus.)

Isabelline “means a light yellow-gray and used mostly to describe mushrooms, animals and birds. There is the Isabelline Wheateater, see above left, the Isabelline Shrike, and the Isabelline Bear, right. Horses that are a cross between a Golden Palomino and a Champagne Palomino are also called Isabelline. Now, what of the third use? Well… ahem….Isabelline is also a reference to faded underwear. The story comes from when Philip II of Spain laid siege to the berg of Ostend in 1601. His daughter, Isabella, Archduchess of Austria, made a rather presumptuous vow not to change her underwear until the city was taken, thinking dad would be home by supper, lunch by Sunday for sure… Unfortunately for Isabell — and those around her — the siege took three years. Thus the color of dingy underwear is “isabelline.”

You get the USB, not the key.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

Now being printed is EatTheWeeds, the book. It should have 275 plants, 350-plus pages, index and color photos. Several hundred have been preordered on Amazon. Most of the entries include a nutritional profile. Officially it will be published Dec. 5th (to suit the publisher publicity demands) apparently to appeal to the winter market but can be delivered by mid-October

This is weekly newsletter #569. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.