Search: smilax vine

A native and an ornamental Gammagrass is widespread. Photo by Jim Allison. 

The odd thing about Gammagrass is that while it is a native I rarely see it in the wild. It’s almost always — locally — a planted ornamental grass. Thus Gammagrass is fairly easy to find in landscaping. We saw some blossoming in Port Charlotte during a foraging class last Sunday. It’s odd to think of grasses as blossoming but they do and that is one of the things

Tripsacum dactyloides at Willowbrook Reach

that makes Gammagrass stand out (see photos above.) Gammagrass also has, if not a boatload of names, then a hayload of names, around a dozen. Perhaps the oddest is “Ice Cream Grass” because cattle like the grass so much it’s like ice cream to them. In landscaping Gammagrass is usually a border species with several large clumps in a row. It can get quite tall — nine feet — and flowing but in landscaping Gammagrass is usually trimmed to a couple of feet and bristly. Unlike cattle we humans are usually interested only in either the unusual “blossom” or the hard, yellow grain. Best use is to pop the grain like popcorn or used like wheat berries. You can read about Gammagrass here.

Time Change Misery

Now is the time for my semi-annual rant about time change. I’ve written two article about it. I will freely admit I do not like time change and that I ignore it. For eleven years I have refused to “spring forward” or in autumn “fall backwards.” I stay on standard time. I do not change my clocks, my eating habits, my animals’ eating habits or my bed time. Why? I am out of sorts for weeks if not months. (I have the same long-term problem with travel. When I lived in Japan it took me nearly two months to get used to the 13-hour difference.) For the next several months I just have to remember that when I need to interact with the outside world they think they are an hour ahead of me. That is one reason why my foraging class this week is on a Saturday, to avoid on Sunday first-day problems time changes cause.  One article is Daylight Slaving Time and the other is It’s About Time. 

Classes are held rain or shine.

Foraging Classes: Except for hurricanes foraging classes usually are held as scheduled. We’re hungry when we are cold and wet so foraging classes are held when it is wet, when it is cold, and when it’s hot.

Saturday, March 11th Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817, 9 a.m. We meet at the tennis courts next to the WMCA building.

Sunday, March 19th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. 9 a.m. We meet just north of the science center.

Sunday, March 26th, 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.

Sunday, April 2nd, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233. 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 9th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park (turn right after entrance, go 1/4 mile, dog run on right, parking at run or on previous left.)

Saturday, April 29th, 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 foraging classes go here.

Perhaps Caesar Weed has more uses than we knew.

Foraging is treasure hunting for adults. It’s also constant learning. One is always adding little bits of knowledge here and there. Recently three tid-bits came my way. At the Florida Herbal Conference I was chatting with Andy Firk about the ginger family. He had an impressive presentation on said. I knew the leaves of the Alpinia zerumbet (Shell Ginger) were dried, powdered and used to treat high blood pressure in areas such as India. I learned from Andy that food is cooked in the leaves to add a cardamom-like flavor. That was a factoid I needed to store away.  Later this week I received an email for a lady here in Florida whose house is covered with Creeping Fig. It barely makes it into the edible realm. However she reports the vine reduced her summertime electricity bill by 50%. Interesting though I wonder what the vines tendrils might do to the structure it is hanging on to. Then I heard from Joshua Buchanan who mentioned reports of using Caesar Weed seeds for flour. That was new to me. I checked one of my book references and indeed the seeds have been used to thicken soups and the like. Not sure that stretches to other flour uses. Publications that often mention that something is edible don’t report how that is made so. Caesar Weed seeds — just a few millimeters long — are arranged like a small cocklebur. They catch on your clothes (and fur.) So, I’m not sure how the seeds are extracted. It’s something new to investigate.

The Nine-DVD set includes 135 videos.

Now’s the time to get a jump on spring. All of Green Dane’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 the 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. 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. They make a good birthday gift for that forager you know. Individual DVDs can also be ordered. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right of this page or you can go here.

Mayflowers. Photo by Christie Orr

It’s unusual to smell Mayflowers in March. At least that’s what I thought in 1977. I moved from Maine to Florida in January of that year and it snowed in Florida the day I arrived. What a welcoming present. And then in March I smelled Mayflowers… but they weren’t Mayflowers. It was citrus blossoms. To my nose the aromas are very similar though I doubt I could ever get a Mayflower and a citrus blossom together to compare. Mayflowers blossom in May, at least in New England.

My springtime as a child was measured by three plants: Pussy Willows, Mayflowers and Lilacs. Lilacs always blossomed about two weeks before school let out for the summer. Exactly when that was depended on how many snow days we took off from school that year. A few were always built in. But did get a full 90 days off. As for Lilacs, they are edible. Nearly everyone had at least one Lilac planted in their yard. They won’t grow in warm Florida so Crape Myrtles are the landscaping substitute.

Lilacs meant school was out soon.

First to “blossom” in the spring were Pussy Willows. So called because the blossom can remind someone with an imagination of the pads on cat’s feet. They were always out even when there wasn’t green leaf to be seen or there was some snow here and there. Mildly medicinal and a famine food, when you saw Pussy Willows (Salix discolor) winter might not be over but then was in sight.

Pussy Willows were always the first to brave spring.

Pussy Willows were followed by mud season. That when the frost in the ground melts during the daytime making dirt roads a mire of mud that froze into ruts at night. That’s also when we’d go picking May flowers on local hill and mountains. The normally green slopes would be covered with leafless trees making the rocks easier to see when walking. And the Mayflowers would be in the leaf litter and on mossy rocks.

My mother, Mae Lydia Putney, learned to forage from her mother. Photo by William L. Putney.

My mother picked Mayflowers because her mother did because her mother did and so forth on back no doubt. Yet somewhere along the line the part about them being edible must have been forgotten, not mentioned, or became secondary to their fragrant statement of spring. My mother said she liked to pick them because they were the first spring flower and sign the winter was over. No doubt some hungry people thought the same about them in the past. And perhaps because they were edible Mayflowers were also the only flowers my mother would allow in the house. She had a superstition about flowers inside the house and folks dying. Somehow Mayflowers were excluded from that ban. You can read about them here.

Can you identify these edibles? You would if you read the 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. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

EatTheWeeds Time Capsule: 2010

Smilax Syntax

From thefe roots while they be new and fresh being chopt into fmall pieces & ftampt, is strained with water a juice that maketh bread, & alfo being boiled, a very good fpoonmeate in manner of a gelly, and is much better in tast if it bee tempered wih oyle.

While that is close to my spelling the report was written by astronomer Thomas Hariot in 1590 about the root of the smilax (bona nox.) Thom was the fellow who introduced the potato to Ireland. He was in Virginia with Sir Water Raleigh’s expedition to have a look around some 420 years ago. Translated he wrote:

From these young, chopped and crushed roots you get a liquid to make bread, and after being boiled, it’s a good jelly-like soup, too, but it tastes better if oil is added.

Smilax tip. Photo by Green Deane

That the tips of many smilax is a tasty green is well-known. And a starch can be settled out of the root, but it requires far more energy to get the starch than calories one gets out of it. Ten pounds of mature roots produce one pound of starch after many hours of work over several days. A better guess by the ethnobotanists is the Amerindians — or who I like to call the First Foragers — used the starch not to make bread but as a thickener, like corn starch. In that case it was the use not the calories that was important.

Few folks, however, know you can also eat the very young roots cooked as is. Simply roast or boil them. As they age they get woody and tough. But when young and tender they make, as Thom said, very good fpoonmeate.

This is issue 247.

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

Dwarf Plantain is edible raw or cooked and is medicinal as well. Photo by Green Deane

There are Plantains that look like tough bananas and there are Plantains that are low and leafy plants. No relation. Just two different groups with the same name. Plantains can be native or non-native. The one pictured above is native, the Dwarf Plantain. As a genus the plants are well-known. The leaves are edible raw when young. As they age they become more bitter and stringy. Cooking makes them palatable up to a point. Then they move into the astringent medical realm. They are used on bites, stings and to help puncture wounds heal. Seeds are edible once produced and are the source of the commercial dietary fiber, psyllium. When finely ground the seeds are sold under the brand name Metamucil. There are numerous species of Plantagos (Plantains) with at least four common locally, P. virginiana, P. major, P. lanceolata and P. rugelii the latter which strongly resembles P. major. They are all used the same way.

Oakleaf Fleabane are NOT edible.

One problem beginning foragers have is confusing young Oakleaf Fleabane leaves for Dwarf Plantain leaves (they are both rosette-ish, low-growing green leaves, hairy with fibrous threads in the stem.) But the Dwarf Plantain is essentially a long skinny leave with a few teeth. The Oakleaf Fleabane is much fatter and has lobes and does resemble oak leave found on more northern species. You can read about the Plantains here.

Silverthorns are blossoming. Photo by Green Deane

Sometimes successful foraging involves identifying the food ahead of time. Around Valentines Day locally the fruit of the Silverthorn is ripe, give or take a few days either way or weeks if the distance is greater. Silverthorn’s blossoms are not extroverted. They are hidden in the shrubbery, odd-shaped and not showy. But over the next six to eight weeks they will turn in to bright red, elongated berries that are sweet and full of the antioxidant lycopene. The edible seeds have Omega 3 fatty acids. Silverthorn is a fairly easy landscaped (and escaped) shrub to find. Its leaves are usually moderate to dark green on top and waxy. The underside of the leaf is an unmistakable silver color with rusty freckles. You can read about them here.

Smilax berries are barely edible. Photo by Green Deane

Cut and paste foraging books (and websites) reveal themselves when they pass on poor information. Smilax berries is a common example. Smilaxes are “climbing shrubs.” We eat their growing tips when we find them, sometimes the young roots. Smilax are a favorite foraging food in spring. This time of year, though, many of them can be seen decked out with fruit. These berries can range for green to bronze to shiny black or shriveled like dark raisins. Many foraging books and sites say they berries are edible and that they “Indians” used them like chewing gum. Authors who say that have never tried the berries. From green to shiny black these berries are usually astringent (and that color change can take up to a year and a half to happen.) They are puckery every day of the way. There is virtually nothing gum-like about them at all that I am aware of. In fact they are not pleasant to eat until they look like raisins, and often not then. So yes, the berries are edible but are best when they resemble raisins on a vine. Usually the birds beat you to them. To read more about Smilax, go here.

Brazilian Pepper is a maybe edible. Photo by Green Deane

And now a few words about Brazilian Pepper. It’s in profusion right now. The curse of the Native Plant Society, Brazilian Pepper it is highly regarded by bee keepers and makes outstanding honey. Some people use the red fruit for seasoning. This is a questionable practice. What that means is if the consumed berries don’t bother you they are apparently good to use for decades. For others it is like poison ivy: Some get sick after using them a few times and some get sick immediately on the first use. As one can see, individual response is across the board, from long-term use and no problems to first use and hospitalization. Botany Professor Julia Morton wrote a long monograph about the species in the journal of Economic Botany. Interestingly she warns people to not consume the berries but adds they are used to wine. This raises several possibilities. The offending chemical(s) might not be water or alcohol soluble. Or perhaps wine makers use the blossoms — like bees do — instead of the berries. I do not know. It’s a species whose use — or not — you have to work out on your own.

Classes are held in sunshine and rain.

Foraging Classes: Except for hurricanes foraging classes usually are held as scheduled. We’re hungry when we are cold and wet so foraging classes are held when it is wet and when it is cold.

Saturday, January 7th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. We meet by the tennis courts.

Sunday, January 8th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, 2200 East Lake Road, at Ganyard Road, Port Charlotte. 9 a.m.

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

Sunday, January 15th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335. 9 a.m. We meet at the dog park inside the park.

To learn more about the classes, go here.

The Nine-DVD set includes 135 videos.

All of Green Deane’s videos are available for free on You Tube. They do have ads on them so every time you watch a Green Deane video I get a quarter of one cent. Four views, one cent. Not exactly a large money-maker but it helps pays for the 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. They make a good Christmas gift. 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. They make a good gift for that forager you know. Individual DVDs can also be ordered. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right of this page or you can go here. If that link is not working — there have been some site issues — you can use a donation link and email me your order and address.

Do you know this plant that’s just starting it seasonal run? You would if you read the 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. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

This is Newsletter 236.

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

A Live Oak with Spanish Moss and Resurrection Ferns in Winter Park, Florida. Photo by Green Deane

Acorns may be coming into season but they are not a settled foraging topic. There are many areas of disagreement.

Brown acorns and green ones that have let go of their cap can be used. Photo by Green Deane

When can you harvest acorns? Generally they are ready in the fall — now — but a more helpful answer is when they are on the ground and or when they will let go of their cap when you pick them. This means you will get a mixture of brown and green acorns. But as long as they have or will let go of the cap you can use them. Which species are better is a matter of great debate, or even which family. Are the red oaks better than the white? Which family has more tannins? There are wide variety of opinions. We do know red oak acorns stored for a few years than white oaks. One other difference that no matter how long you leach them red acorns will still retain a bit of pinkness.

Method of preparation varies greatly with some camps hostile to other views. Entire books have been written just on how to rid the acorns of their irritating tannins. You can use cold water, hot water, fast running water even lye. You can bury them in a river bank or find trees with almost tannin-less acorns. (I know of one in Lecanto, Fl. at the Greek church there. )

Acorn grubs are edible raw or cooked. Photo by Green Deane

Generally one prefers larger acorns to smaller one because you get more nut meat for about the same amount of work. Also the more orange the acorn’s flesh the more tannins it will have and the more work will be needed to leach it. What I find interesting is that it is apparently difficult if not impossible to get create a species of oak with acorns without tannins. I have heard reports of such species now and then but very little that is credible. More to the point humans have lived off acorns for so long if it were possible to create a tannin-less acorn it probably would have been done long ago. You can read more about acorns here.

Creeping figs from China. Photo by Green Deane

Many years ago I was coaxed into getting a beer at a small eatery in Tampa’s Ybor City. The beer was not memorable but the brick wall on one side of the outdoor patio was. It had a vine I had never noticed. It took awhile but I identified it as a Creeping Fig (and many other names.) It is also something of a chameleon: The young vine on first glance does not look much like the old vine so one can indeed find it and not know you have found it. Also given the right support — such as a strong fence — the vine can cover the entire fence to the extent the vine looks like a long line of shrubs. But then it produces green fig-like fruit. Only the sap of them makes it barely into the edible realm. To read more about the Creeping Fig go here.

Talinum paniculatum, photo by Seed And All.

A few times every year one discovers another wild edible. Often it’s an ornamental imported to fancy up flower beds or landscaping. But I leaned of a new one lately from a friend — thank you Janice —and the species is also native to the warm areas of the United States: The Jewels of Opar, Talinum paniculatum. (tah-LINE-uhm puh-nick-you-LAH-tum.) One source, Cornucopia II, calls it the Caruru and Flameflower and says: “The leaves and stems are blanched and used in green salads, cooked in soups, or eaten like purslane.” This make sense as it is related to purslane. Surprisingly the highest concentration of the species is in central Florida. I need to go look for it (but I also know a backyard where it’s growing so I can study it there before finding it in the wild.) Unfortunately it’s reporting is sporadic, a few counties here, a few counties there, from South Carolina to Texas. No doubt it is more wide-spread but has not be officially found by an official botanist and approved by an official botanical committee.

Classes are held rain or shine.

Upcoming Foraging Classes:

Sunday, October 2nd, Bayshore Live Oak Park, 2200 East Lake Road, Port Charlotte, 9 a.m. Cross street Ganyard.

Sunday, October 9th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. 9 a.m.

Sunday, October 16th, Florida State College, south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd., Jacksonville, 32246. 9 a.m.

To learn more about the classes go here. 

Last week some friends and I visited Fort Desoto Park in St. Petersburg to check it out as a possible location for foraging classes. The first thing you should know about the park is that it is smothered in poison ivy. It is virtually everywhere there is not a road, path, lawn or beach. Do not reach for anything anywhere without first looking for poison ivy. It’s the most dense concentration of the species I have ever seen.

Green Deane testing a chaya for stinging quality. Photo by Nermina Krneta

We started at the only fishing pier and the first thing you notice is a mother load of fruiting Sea Grapes. Large, small, short and tall. You can still find some now but next August put it on your calendar to visit the park and gather sea grapes in abundance. Also in abundance are sand spurs and they cover most of the upper beach along with the famine food Beach Morning Glory aka Railroad Vine aka Goat’s Foot, Ipomoea pes-carpae. Sand spurs are sandlot sadists — take needle nose pliers with you — but if prepared correctly are nutritious and tasty. The cooked root, stem and leaves of Beach Morning Glory can be eaten in small quantities. Otherwise they become medicinal.

Ground cherries are sweet but must be tested for bitterness.

Among other edibles we saw were some ground cherries in season, Smilax, Sea Oats, , native Blue Porterweed, Crowsfoot Grass, Panic Grass, fruiting Opuntia, and a blown over cultivated Chaya Tree, which is related to our Spurge Nettle. It was a cultivated Chaya because the leaves did not sting me.  Half the leaves can be removed from a Chya and it will survive. The wild ones do and some of the cultivated ones as well. But there are some cultivated Chaya which do not sting. The most unusual find of the day was a persimmon hurst. I have in some 30 years of foraging in Florida seen only one other stand of persimmons.

Do you know what edible this is? You would if you read the Green Deane Forum. Photo by Green Deane

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 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.  You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

The Nine-DVD set includes 135 videos.

All of Green Deane’s videos are available for free on You Tube. They do have ads on them so every time you watch a Green Deane video I get a quarter of one cent. Four views, one cent. Not exactly a large money-maker but it helps pays for the 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. 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. They make a good gift for that forager you know. Individual DVDs can also be ordered. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right of this page or you can go here.

This is Newsletter 226.   

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

You can still find fruit Black Cherries. Photo by Green Deane

This newsletter will have a “black” theme this week starting with Prunus serotina, or the Black Cherry.

It’s been mentioned a couple of times earlier this season and that’s the reason for it being mentioned now: The season. Its fruiting season seems to be longer this year. I saw trees picked free of fruit months ago but just this last week saw one heavy with fruit in Clermont (photo above.) A Black Cherry was also still fruiting in Jacksonville this past weekend during a foraging class. It is safe to say Black Cherries look better than they taste. There is an initial cherry sweetness but then a residual bitterness takes over. They are much better processed into wine and jelly (or medicine.) Do not eat the seeds. To read more about the Black Cherry go here.

Black Gum fruit is better and sour when ripe blue. Photo by Green Deane

Do you know why the Sweet Gum tree is called that? Because while it tastes mighty bad it is not as bad as the other “gum” trees, one of which is not season yet but is fruiting, the Black Gum.You have to like sour and bitter to like the Black Gum tree.  If you don’t the fruit is offensive and elicits comments that cannot be printed in wholesome publications. This did not stop settlers from adding a lot of sugar to the fruit and making jelly out of it. The seed itself is easy to identify in that under the pulp there are vertical striations covering the seed. We saw a specimen this weekend in Jacksonville. The tree usually looks gangly and has branches that are often on a 90-degree angle to the trunk.  To read more about the Black Gum and its nearly-offensive but edible relatives click here.

Peppervine is controversial.

Putting on black fruit now is the controversial Pepper Vine, Ampelopsis arborea. It is closely related to the edible grape but also closely related to the toxic Virginia Creeper. It is one of those plants that some folks say is definitely toxic and others say definitely edible. My personal  experience is that it is not edible, but I know some credible foragers who say they have eating the ripe berries for a long time with no issue. No doubt the problem has to do with annual calcium oxalate production. In small amounts it’s tolerable.  In high concentrations it can cause skin problems or internally upset digestion. Pepper Vine (so-called because the fruit can give a pepper-like burn) apparently can make little to a lot of the chemical each year, varying greatly. Another possibility is method of preparation. It might be that when the berries are juiced and the juice is allowed to set in a cold environment that acid precipitates out leaving useable juice. That is not a fact, but rather speculation on my part. Lacking any definitive information it is a fruit best avoided  unless you know for certain your fruit is edible. If you do experiment and survive, let me know.

Wild Persimmons are astringent until fully ripe. Photo by Green Deane

Breaking with our theme — almost — we also saw a persimmon tree putting on fruit. They are green this time of year but the tree is the North American version of ebony. Persimmons are much maligned because they are astringent until extremely ripe. Or from the tree’s point of view it does not want the fruit carried away until the seeds are ready to grow. So the fruit says non-palatable to most creatures until the last moment. They seemingly turn sweet overnight. No frost is needed. The best persimmons are the ones you have to fight the ants for. They will be ripening around October, give or take a week or two. Remember, the place to look for persimmons are along edges…. edges of forests, edges of roads and rivers and paths. To read more about the persimmon go here.

Upcoming Foraging Classes: 

Sunday, Aug 14th, Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St., Gainesville, FL 32641. Meet at the picnic tables next to the pump house. We start at the park and on a small portion of the Gainesville-Hawthorne State Trail. 9 a.m.

For more information about the foraging classes go here. 

The Nine-DVD set includes 135 videos.

All of Green Deane’s videos are available for free on You Tube. They do have ads on them so every time you watch a Green Deane video I get a quarter of one cent. Four views, one cent. Not exactly a large money-maker but it helps pays for the newsletter. If you want to see the videos without ads and some in lightly better quality you can order the DVD set. It is nine DVDs with 15 videos on each. 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. They make a good gift for that forager you know. Individual videos can also be ordered. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right of this page or you can go here.

Do you know what this edible and medicinal plant is? You would if you read the Green Deane Forum.

Want to identify a plant? Perhaps you’re looking for a foraging reference? You might have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane and some 8,000 others from around the world — chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about, such as the one to the left. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. Recent topics include: Blolly or some kind of ficus? Pawpaw time in central Alabama. What is it? Edible Leguminous Tree. Subtropical Looks Like Winged Bean. Smilax? Roadside Plant. Weed In Garden. Those Special Places. Yellow Fruit Found Along River. Bee Humor. Pretty Purple Plant. Cultivated Apios Americana, Mushroom Identification Tips, Another Bolete: Edible? Wood Potato, Chocolate Mushie, Are All Crown Berries Edible? Keeping our cells young,  and Apple-like fruit on a vine,. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

This is Newsletter 220. 

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

My first sighting of Goosegrass of the season, and the right species, too. Oddly they are related to the coffee tree. To read more about them go here.  Photo by Green Deane

NEW SMYRNA BEACH: Christmas Day found me on the coast just south of Daytona Beach. It’s an area I have been visiting since the ’80’s when I regularly rented a beach house there. Living on the beach for several days at a time at different times of the year let’s you learn what wild edibles are there and where to find them.  My holiday present to myself was a visit to this old stomping grounds.

Finnding Christmasberries on Christmas is good foraging. Photo by Green Deane

What better find for the Yule Tide season than Christmasberry. While there are many “Christmasberries” this one is in the Goji group. An Asian Goji is much touted for its healthy fruit. Our local “Goji”  is  shrub that favors brackish water areas such as Florida’s inland coastal waterway. The plant itself does not resemble most Nightshades but the blossoms do. These berries were found at Turtle Mound, which is an ancient trash heap and tourist trap. I usually find Christmasberries later in the spring but these shrubs were on the west side of the mound where they get full afternoon sun in a protected environment. They were also at water’s edge. To read more about the Christmasberry go here.

Natal Plums are native to Africa. Photo by Green Deane

Another tasty find was Natal Plums. In fact, it was at the beach house some 30 years ago where I first saw Natal Plums. They were part of the houses’ landscaping and a good choice. The two-story house was right on the dunes (and since removed by the park service after the 50-year lease-back contract expired.) Natal Plums are not really plums but resemble them somewhat. The ripe fruit is sweet and slightly tart with a sticky latex. There are commercial varieties. Once established they are wind, salt and drought tolerant. They also have double sets of thorns so they also make a protective hedge. I’ve seen them in southern climates from Daytona Beach to San Diego. You can read more about them here.

Holly berries are toxic but the leaves make a caffeinated tea. Photo by Green Deane

Unlike the red fruit above the berries to the right are toxic. They will make you sick so we do not eat them. However, we can make the leaves into a caffeinated tea. No species in North America has more caffeine than Ilex vomitoria, aka Yaupon Holly. The tea also contains a good serving of anti-oxidants as well. In fact one company in Daytona Beach — Yaupon Asi Tea — sells the tea and is in competition with Yerba Marte, but at a much lower price. It’s a small company that will no doubt get larger. Earlier this year its brand could be found in 80 specialty grocery stores including Whole Foods, Lucky’s Market and Earth Fare stores. If you collect your own leaves roasting them in a slow oven or steaming preserves the most caffeine. To read more about the Yaupon Holly go here.

Bananas fruit their second year. Photo by Green Deane

The presence of an ocean moderates temperatures so bananas can live to two years old and fruit. You can eat the purple blossom, the unripe and ripe fruit, and the inner pith of the stalk. They way you harvest bananas is to keep an eye on them. When one begins to turn from green to yellow you cut the entire branch off (called a hand) and take it inside the house. I used to hang them from the ceiling by a plant hanger. They will ripen slowly inside from one end to the other. That’s way you protect them from rotting and insects and you get most of the bananas for yourself. Whether the world will run out of bananas is difficult to tell. They are mostly all clones and are being attacked by a similar  “Panama” fusarium disease as in the 1950’s. The variety of banana we eat today — Cavendish — is different and less tasty than the commercial one when I was a kid, which was the Gros Michel aka the “Big Mike.”  Now a new fusarium disease threatens to wipe out the “Cavendish.”  To read more about bananas click here.

Nicker Bean pods and seeds are NOT edible but they are interesting. Photo by Green Deane

These strange seed pods are not edible. In fact nothing about the nicker bean is edible. But it does have some medicinal qualities. I’ve included it because not only does it grow in the brackish water (near Turtle Mound) but when people see it they want to know what it is thus it is the subject of a lot of email. If I remember correctly there are two different species and they are native to Florida. The seed pods and gray seeds are used in flower arrangements. A quinine- like drug is derived from the plant. Like the Smilax it is also classified as a “climbing shrub.” I have struggled for years to exactly understand what a “climbing shrub” is. It looks more like a vine but is not a vine or more specifically a liana which is a long woody vine. The difference between a shrub and a tree is height and number of main trunks (tree one, shrubs many.) So it is woody, and has many trunks… that’s still doesn’t help much. To read more about the Nicker bean go here.

Ground Cherries fruit twice a year locally. Photo by Green Deane

Locally Ground Cherries fruit at least twice a year, and the seasons can be long or short depending on the weather.  As you can see this one is in blossom on Christmas Day. The blossoms can be lemon yellow or lemon yellow with a ruby throat or just the hint of a ruby throat. They will develop into a husk with a green fruit inside. The fruit eventually turns yellow then golden and sweet. They can be eaten out of hand or made into pies and jellies and the like.  But you should always try one first and wait about a minute to tell if there is any latent bitterness. A little is okay. A lot means try cooking them first. If still bitter we don’t eat them. To read more about the Ground Cherries go here.

Sea Purslane is tasty raw or cooked. Photo by Green Deane

A visit to the beach would not be complete without one of the prime dune builders, Sea Purslane. Besides edible raw it can be boiled, broiled and fried.  I like young and tender branches grilled for a few minutes. Put them on when everything else is done. Five minutes later they’ll taste great. The way they build dunes is by slowing down the wind. When the plant slows the wind the wind drops the sand it’s carrying. That builds and the plant just grows up with the dune. While edible all year I think they are best in the cooler months. To read more about Sea Purslane click here.

Seablite, my favorite coastal plant. Photo by Green Deane

This wispy plant on the left is one of my favorites. If I could nominate any wild plant to become a commercial crop this would be it: Sea Blite. While one might not think so it is in the Goosefoot family and related to Lambs Quarters. It’s seasonal and will be growing for the next three or four months. Very mild in flavor, slightly salty, wonderful texture, I eat a lot of it through the season. Again, like most of the plants above, it tolerates brackish water and is usually found along intercostal water ways. It’s not a plant usually found on the beach. Edible raw or cooked, I like to stuff a fish with it then roasting the fish. You can read more about Sea Blite here.

Coral Bean blossoms are hard to miss. Photo by Green Deane

One of the temporarily more colorful shrubs of the coastal region is the Coral Bean. For a few months it sports these long red blossoms to attract butterflies and humming birds. The blossoms themselves are edible raw or cooked but are usually cooked. Interestingly the beans these blossoms make are toxic so we do not eat the beans, only the blossom. The distinctive young leaves are also edible cooked but the leaves are not a wild food  one seeks out a second time. When you cook the blossoms — usually by boiling — they turn green. The boiled blossoms are traditionally mixed with scrambled eggs. I don’t know why but that is comfort food down through Central America. To read more about the Coral Berry aka Cherokee Bean, go here.

Gracilaria is one of the tastier and attractive seaweeds. Photo by Green Deane

No report from the beach would be complete without a mentioning of seaweed. If the water is not polluted nearly all seaweed is edible. There are a couple in North American waters, however, that are not. One in northern waters has sulfuric acid and a blue-green one in southern waters is linked to the disease Ciguatera. The main problem with all the seaweeds that are edible is that they don’t taste that good. Some, like sea lettuce, taste best fresh and raw. Others, like Sargassum, are much better dried.  Seaweed did not evolve with mammal palates in mind so taste was low on the plant’s list of important things. Seaweeds that are anchored should be harvested when anchored. If they are floating around they are probably degrading. However some seaweed is free-floating and they should be harvested while free floating, not on the shore, or at least not on the shore for long. I think I have five seaweeds on my main site. You can read about one of them here.

Upcoming foraging classes:

Foraging classes held rain or shine except for hurricanes.

Sunday, January 3rd,Bayshore Live Oak Park, 2200 East Lake Road, Port Charlotte, FL. 9 a.m.

Sunday, January 10th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, FL. 9 a.m.

Sunday, January 17th, 2016, Sunday, Nov. 15, Mead Garden, 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, Jan. 24th, George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, Jan. 31st, Jervey Gantt Recreation Complex, 2390 SE 36th Ave., Ocala, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, Feb. 7th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, Feb. 14, Mead Garden,1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, March 6th, Florida State College, south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd., Jacksonville, 9 a.m.

Sunday, March 13th, Mead Garden, 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL, 9 a.m.

Saturday, March 19, Colby-Alderman Park: 1099 Massachusetts Street, Cassadaga, 9 a.m.

Saturday, March 26th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 3rd, John Chestnut County Park: 2200 East Lake Road, Palm Harbor, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 10th, Wekiva State Park, 1800 Wekiwa Circle, Apopka, Florida 32712. 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 17th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, 2200 East Lake Road, Port Charlotte, FL. 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 24th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 9 a.m.

To learn more about the foraging classes go here. 

All of Green Deane’s videos are available for free on You Tube. They do have ads on them so every time you watch a Green Deane video I get a quarter of one cent. Four views, one cent. Not exactly a large money-maker but it helps pays for the newsletter. If you want to see the videos without ads and some in lightly better quality you can order the DVD set. It is nine DVDs with 15 videos on each. 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. They make a good gift for that forager you know. Individual videos can also be ordered. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right of this page or you can go here. 

Do you know what this plant is? You would if you read the Green Deane Forum.

Want to identify a plant? Perhaps you’re looking for a foraging reference? You might have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane and others from around the world — chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about, such as the one to the left. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. Recent topics include: So Much Free Food! Berries! What Kind Of Shrub Is This? Oxalis Corymbosa. Water Hyssop Recipes. Where To Get LUS Groundnut Strain? Is This Lambs Quarters? Small Herb, Solanum americanum, Winter Fruits in Sanibel, Are These Plants Related to Canavalia maritima? Lawn Weed, Wild Cucumber, Melothria Pendula, Edibility of Flowers From Landscape Hibiscus, Primitive Survival Class, Which Agave? Gallium or Carpetweed? and Dichotomous Key:   You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

This is newsletter 189, and  Happy New Year! 

To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter or website click here.

Fruiting Tamarind trees in West Palm Beach. Photo by Green Deane

“What tree is that?” The answer was “I don’t know.” That’s something I don’t say as much as I used to but when you don’t know you don’t know. Fortunately a couple of people in the class did know: Tamarind.

The fleshy inner parts of the pods are edible raw or cooked. Photo by Green Deane

We were in Dreher Park in West Palm Beach. That explained a lot as Tamarind, Tamarindus indica, is from warm Africa. Today it is commonly found in South Asia and Mexico. India is the world largest producer of the legume… hmmmm… pod. And the two trees were heavy with ripe pods. It was the first time over several years I was at the park at the right time to see them. Timing is often everything.

Tamarind’s nutritious pods are consumed raw and cooked and is one of the current flavor darling of many avant-garde restaurants. The flavor is distinctive, both sweet and sour. The tree itself is slow-growing and long- lived. Without the pods it’s just another pea tree, of which there are so many here in Florida. But the next time I’m asked “what tree is that”  I’ll have an answer.

Tropical Almonds are invasive but delicious. Photo by Green Deane

While on the topic topical I carried a couple of Sea Almond seedlings home with me from West Palm Beach. They won’t survive the winters here unless taken inside so I put them in moveable pots. As such I don’t think they’ll be much an invasive threat here. Two hundred miles to the south it’s a different story. Though an attractive edible it’s on the state’s hit list. The seeds float up from Central and South America and are a common beachcomber find. During class this last week we cracked several of the “almonds” and enjoyed the tasty seed inside.  The unripened green seed pods are also reported as edible but I haven’t been able to make them so as of yet. Also called the Tropical Almond, to read more about the tree click here.

Silk Bay leaves are bronze on the back. Photo by Green Deane

As a new disciple of recumbent biking I rode 30 miles on the West Orange Trail one morning last week taking pictures from a closer-to-the-ground perspective. While there was the usual foliated forest to see a couple of plants did stand out. One was a persimmon jumping the ripening season by three months. They usually don’t golden up locally until around October, which is also long before any frost. The other plant was the Silk Bay, Persea humilis. I have personally seen it growing only on the Central Florida Ridge. (Yes there is a Central Florida Ridge, low as it is. Interstate 4 travels along a good portion of it as do most of the disruptive sink holes.) Like two other relatives, P. palustris and P. borbonia, the leaves of P. humilis can be used like a bay leaf. What makes the Silk Bay striking, and easy to identify, are the back of the leaves: They are bronze-colored. To read more about the Bays go here.  You can also read more about bike trip and pictures on the Facebook page: The Green Deane Machine.

Upcoming Foraging Classes:

Foraging classes held rain or shine except for hurricanes.

Saturday, July 25th, Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St., Gainesville, FL 32641 9 a.m. 

Sunday, July 26th, Jervey Gantt Recreation Complex, 2390 SE 36th Ave., Ocala, FL, 34471, 9 a.m.

Saturday, August 1st, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335, 9 a.m.

Saturday, August 8th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, 23000 Bayshore Rd., Port Charlotte, FL 33980, 9 a.m.

Saturday, August 29th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789, 9 a.m.

Saturday, September 5th, Colby-Alderman Park: 1099 Massachusetts Street, Cassadaga. Fla. 32706, 9 a.m.

To learn more about classes go here.

Do you know what it is? You would if you read the Green Deane Forum.

Need to identify a plant? Looking for a foraging reference? Maybe you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane — chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. There was a recent link to the newest list of edible insects. Recent topics include: Fern? Elderberry Blossoms. Edible Insect PDF. Eggs in the Hopper. Holes in Blackberry Leaves. Removing Urushiol (Poison Ivy.) Great Ragweed, Another NJ Tree, Tree South NJ, Cultivated Flowers, Pawpaws Almost Ripe, Cross Wine, Quite the Taproot, Venation is Plantago-esque,  Sumac? Unknown Ornamental, Pipsissewa uses? Artemisia douglasiana, Smilax, Yet Another Vine, Is This Cilantro or some kind of nettle? Mulberries as far as the eye can see and Becoming a Wild Food Expert. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

Pellitory is picky about how much shade and sun it gets. Photo by Green Deane

Are the seasons changing? Whether there is global warming and whether it is man-made will probably be arguments we will hear for decades. But one thing seems to be so, and that is the seasons are changing though perhaps irrationally. Two plants come to mind. One is the Podocarpus, a common hedge plant locally. I used to be able to count on it having fruit in August. Now I can find it as early as June and as late as December. More shocking is Pellitory. It was a cold-season crop, much like stinging nettles. I would start looking for it around Thanksgiving and it would disappear around St. Patrick’s Day. Saturday, July 18th, I found some in West Palm Beach. Not only out of season, but in a warm area of the state. Then again, it was growing under a Banyan, the same tree I found Honey Mushrooms growing under about a month ago, again out of season. These might be normal variations or perhaps things are changing though the effects are a bit unusual. To read more about Pellitory go here. 

This is newsletter #170. To subscribe to Green Deane’s weekly  EatTheWeeds newsletter, go to the upper right side of this page.

One of the Portulacas above is edible, I doubt the other is. Photo by Green Deane

Are all Portulacas edible? My personal experience says no.

In the picture above, growing side by side, are two Portulacas found locally,  P. oleracea with yellow blossoms and P. pilosa with reddish pink blossoms. The yellow one is called the “Common Purslane” whereas the other’s informal names are Pink Purslane and Kiss-Me-Quick.  The Common Purslane is probably native to India or thereabouts (though that is debatable) and is found nearly around the world. Pink Purslane is native to the Americas.

Pink Purslane is not on my edible list.

That Common Purslane is edible is not in doubt. Nearly everywhere it grows all above-ground parts are on the menu except in the United States. Why Purslane is not on  main stream grocery store shelves in this country is a mystery. I see it growing everywhere and a lot of it goes home with me for supper or transplanted into the garden. It’s not known for taking up bad chemicals so often all it needs is to be rinsed off.  Portulaca pilosa is another matter. To be blunt raw it burns my throat a little and upsets my tummy some. The discomfort never reaches the level of needing any attention beyond reminding myself not to try it again. The family is not a toxic one unless you are a grazing animal. (There have been some report out of Australia that farm animals can eat too much Portulaca overdosing on the oxalic acid it contains.  These are perhaps isolated cases.) My experience with it raw has led me to never try it cooked.

As for the commercial varieties one sees in nurseries and the like I have no idea if they are edible or not. They tend to have large or double blossoms and a range of colors including orange, red, yellow and pink.  When I asked Forager Emeritus Dick Deuerling about them 20-some years ago he said he didn’t know if the commercial ones were edible either and was not inclined to personally find out. To read more about Purslane go here. 

The Winged Yam, Dioscorea alata. Photo by Green Deane

Which yam is it? Now that summer is here one can go looking for yams vines so later in the year we know which roots to dig up. We have to wait until around now to go scouting because two local yams sprout at different times. The dreaded Air Potato can be found shooting up in March or April.  The yam with the preferred edible root — the Winged Yam — is always a few weeks if not a month or more later. It just likes warmer weather. Now that both are up it is easy to spot the Winged Yam, as we did in a foraging class this weekend in Orlando.  There are several key things to look for: A square stem, pairs of leaves, a twist which at eye level goes from your lower left to your upper right, and a leaf that is longer than wide. To read more about the Winged Yam, which is the largest caloric payoff locally, click here.

Elderberries are used for food and medicine. Photo by Green Deane

While Elderberries are supposed to fruit all year here they favor the spring time and can ripen into early summer. There doesn’t appear to be much organization to their ripening in that one can find ripe bunches in one area then move a few miles and fine unripe ones. But generally this weekend all we saw were dark, ripe Elderberries. Our local species is edible but farther north there are red elderberries were present a challenge to the forager: The pulp is edible but the seeds are not. This did not stop many natives from processing Red Elderberries but it does highlight how important they were to their survival. It was a lot of work but a necessary food source. To read about Elderberries, go here.

Upcoming Foraging Classes:

Sea Blight is a tasty seaside vegetable.

Saturday July 18th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. 9 a.m.

Saturday, July 25th, Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St., Gainesville, FL 32641 9 a.m. 

Sunday, July 26th, Jervey Gantt Recreation Complex, 2390 SE 36th Ave., Ocala, FL, 34471, 9 a.m.

To learn more about classes go here.

After a quick tutorial about lift controls bee keeper Phil Robertson ascends 40 feet to collect some 50,000 bees.

Foraging can include honey if you know what you’re doing. This past week I helped (in a minor way) a friend collect a wild bee hive from a dying tree that had to be cut down. The plan was (for him) to put the hive in a large trash can where upon I would drive the 50,000 or so bees in my van to their new home, a nice box in a back yard. That was the plan. The very night before the weather knocked much of the hive down about 20 feet to lower branches. This required collecting from two spots. Altogether the hive was larger than a 50-gallon trash can and the bees were not pleased about being abused by Mother Nature or moved. Fortunately they were not Africanized bees and only chased us unsuited ones a few times. I had visions of a vehicle accident and tens of thousands of bees looking for someone a few feet away to blame but they were transported safely. No one got stung.

Is it edible? If you read the Green Deane Forum you’d know.

Need to identify a plant? Looking for a foraging reference? Maybe you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane — chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. Recent topics include: Great Ragweed, Another NJ Tree, Tree South NJ, Cultivated Flowers, Pawpaws Almost Ripe, Cross Wine, Quite the Taproot, Venation is Plantago-esque,  Sumac? Unknown Ornamental, Pipsissewa uses? Artemisia douglasiana, Smilax, Yet Another Vine, Is This Cilantro or some kind of nettle? Mulberries Mulberries as far as the eye can see. What Kind? tincture or tea? Becoming a Wild Food Expert, Latex Strangler Vine in Blossom, Seminole Pumpkin Squash, Removing Oxalates, and I Believe This Is a Tulip Tree. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

This is newsletter #169. To subscribe to Green Deane’s weekly  EatTheWeeds newsletter, go to the upper right side of this page.

You won’t find Paper Mulberry fruit on sale, at least not on this side of the world. Photo by Green Deane

When trees from temperate forests are moved south they often don’t fruit because the winters are not cold enough. They need chill hours. This appears to be the case with the Paper Mulberry which is fruiting in the northern part of the state but I’ve never seen it fruit in the central part. Once you know what the tree is, it’s easy to identify though I will admit it took me a few years to ID it because of the fruiting issue. It has large fuzzy leaves and orange pompom fruit. The large seed in the middle is not eaten. This is not a fruit that travels well so it is usually eaten on site or as soon as you get it home. They should be fruiting for a few more weeks. To read more about the Paper Mulberry go here.

Ripening Pindo Palm Fruit.

Cactus and palms share some misconceptions. Mention cactuses and most northerners dismiss them as a warm-weather inhabitant. However cactus are native to 46 of the 50 states (the states they are not native to might surprise you.) Palms are not as wide spread but they can grow in more places than one might expect, such as Washington D.C. and points south. A palm that can grow that far north was once favored for home use but since the proliferation of manicured lawns is considered trashy. The Pindo Palm, however, is one of my favorite. Most southern homes used to have one planted somewhere nearby. One can usually make jelly from the fruit without adding pectin or sugar. I would add this is probably true for those who have jelly-making skills.  As confections are not my forte I alternated between Pindo jelly and Pindo syrup. The reason why it is considered “trashy” is that it drops a lot of edible fruit on neat lawns… that ferment… and smell like wine… To read more about the Pindo Palm, click here.

Yaupon Berries are NOT edible.

In foraging circles botanists often get a bad rap because they are not interested in wild edibles and most of their job is about getting rid of plants (edible weeds) and promoting (non-edibles) ornamentals. Sometimes botanists can get it right as in 2009 when they recommended Yaupon Holly become a commercial crop again. It used to be a favorite pick-me-up drink in centuries past. Well-supplied with caffeine, it’s the North American version of Yerba Mate. A company in Daytona Beach, Yaupon Asi Tea, have successfully put their organic yaupon tea on the market. The company is offering six brands, all high in anti-oxidants: Traditional Timucua, Roasted Osceola, and, four flavored blends; Lavender-Coconut, Cinnamon-Apricot, Chamomile-Mint, and Chocolate Chai. You can visit their site here.

As an aside … naming a tea after the Timucuan Indians reminds me of marketing decisions. The Timucua natives certainly drank the tea, both as a mild-flavored pick-me-up and as a strong ritual emetic. Their name is said tim-MUCK-ah-wah, yes, with a big harsh MUCK in the middle. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue and has the native guttural sound to it. An upscale housing development near here decided to name itself after these Florida natives but didn’t like how the name sounded so they invented a new, genteel pronunciation: TIM-ah-quan. Copywriters might like the smooth assonance but it’s far from authentic.

Paw paw look strange but taste good when ripe.

If any native North American fruit deserves to be classified as strange to bizarre it is the papaw, AKA pawpaw (which is an old confused mangling of papaya.)  It is ripening in its southern most ranges but further north won’t be edible until late August or September. Also the farther north one goes the larger the species members grow. Locally they are bushes, in their northern range trees. Though they grow in northern climes I never saw one until I moved south. I can remember the first time I spied one because it looked like nothing else I knew so it had to be a pawpaw. To read more about them go here.

Building a Library

Collecting ones personal reference library can be an on-going project. This can involve new and used publications if not an occasional disk or DVD. I personally prefer books because all I need to read them is daylight but I will admit to owning some Ray Mears videos. I have well over 100 foraging-related books — some rainy day I might do a video on them — but I still visit used books stores looking for relevant publications. If they are not too far out of date they usually have good information. In fact, the recipes on my site on how to use Yaupon Holly came from a crumbly old book published in the 1930s. The only significant problem with older books is often botanical names have changed so you have to update those. Recently I visited a book store in Ocala and picked up for a few dollars: Wild Flowers of the Rocky Mountains, Wildflowers of the Western Plains, Cacti of Texas, Forest Trees of the United States and Canada and How To Identify Them, and an extra copy of Florida Wild Flowers.

Upcoming Foraging Classes:

Teaching on a foggy morning. Photo by Kelly Fagan.

Saturday, July 11th, Florida State College, south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd., Jacksonville, 32246, 9 a.m.

Sunday July 12th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789. 9 a.m.

Saturday July 18th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. 9 a.m.

Sunday July 19th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, 23000 Bayshore Rd., Port Charlotte, FL 33980, 9 a.m.

Saturday, July 25th, Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St., Gainesville, FL 32641 9 a.m.

Sunday, July 26th, Jervey Gantt Recreation Complex, 2390 SE 36th Ave., Ocala, FL, 34471, 9 a.m.

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

Do you know which sample is normal? You would if you read the Green Deane Forum.

Need to identify a plant? Looking for a foraging reference? Maybe you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane — chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. Recent topics include:Pawpaws Almost Ripe, Cross Wine, Quite the Taproot, Venation is Plantago-esque,  Sumac? Unknown Ornamental, Pipsissewa uses? Artemisia douglasiana, Smilax, Yet Another Vine, Is This Cilantro or some kind of nettle? Mulberries Mulberries as far as the eye can see. What Kind? tincture or tea? Becoming a Wild Food Expert, Latex Strangler Vine in Blossom, Seminole Pumpkin Squash, Removing Oxalates, I Believe This Is a Tulip Tree, Virginia Creeper Again. Edible but too small, Here’s One I saw near the office, and Transplanted Tree Root Structure. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

By the way, the states cactus are not native to are Hawaii, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Yes, there are cactus native to Alaska.

Newsletter #168. To subscribe to Green Deane’s weekly  EatTheWeeds newsletter, go to the upper right side of this page.

Seasonal Sea Blite might be the best coastal foraged food. Photo by Green Deane

Several salt tolerant plants are worth foraging for and they don’t all grow near the shore. There are six locally, three growing most of the year and three seasonal. Of those prime for harvesting now is Sea Blite, Suaeda linearis.

You can find tuffs of Seablite along the shore.

Closely related to Lamb’s Quarters, Sea Blite is a wild green that many would like to make into a commercial crop or at least cultivated for consumption on a large scale. It’s nutritious, mild in flavor, and has a nice texture. Because it is salt tolerant it’s a good candidate for arid countries with a lot of sandy sea coast. It’s one of my favorite plants to use for seasoning other food such as stuffing a squash or a fish. The cooking moderates the saltiness and flavors what it’s cooked in.  Away from the coast most salt tolerant plants are called seepweed because they grow near salt licks and the like. To read more about Sea Blite go here.

Glassworth or Sea Beans?

Another coastal plant is raising a small tiff in the foraging community. Glasswort (Salicornia bigelovii) has been used for food for a long time and in the production of glass. Unlike Sea Blight above, it can be found most if not all year although there is seasonal growth. Young green Glasswort is tender and flavorful. Older, reddish, plants are used for salt (which was their use in glass making.) Glasswort is segmented and easily cut or broken into what size you’d like. At least one restaurant in New England is serving it but they are calling it “sea beans.”  To anyone living along the southern Atlantic or Gulf coast that’s sounds silly. “Sea Beans” are tropical seeds that wash ashore from central and South America. Many peple make collecting them a hobby. But as Glasswort can be cut into about the same size as young string beans and are green the association has been made. Thus internet writers are beginning to call them sea beans though it was just a marketing idea from a single restaurant. That’s how nonsense gets proliferated on the internet. Most foragers are sticking with Glasswort. To read about it  go here. 

Not all figs are edible, but the juice can be. Photo by Green Deane

What is it? The answer is barely edible. Many years ago while sipping a beer at an outside bar in Tampa I saw what looked like a large green fig. I was reasonably sure it wasn’t a product of the beer so some research was in order. The main problem with the Creeping Fig — besides barely making it into the edible realm — is growth pattern. The leaves and vines of the species when young are very small then at some point the plant transforms itself into a large vine and with leaves with little resemblance to what it used to be. Then it produces green fig-like fruit. The fruit basically is not edible. But the expressed juice jelled in water is. That’s a bit strange. To read about it, go here.

Foraging classes held rain or shine except for hurricanes.

Foraging classes:

Saturday, June 27th, Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St., Gainesville, FL 32641 9 a.m.

Sunday, June 28th, Jervey Gantt Recreation Complex, 2390 SE 36th Ave., Ocala, FL, 34471, 9 a.m.

No classes over the 4th of July holiday weekend. For more information or to sign up for a class go here. 

Do you know if this is edible or not? You would if visited the Green Deane Forum

Need to identify a plant? Looking for a foraging reference? Maybe you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane — chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. Recent topics include: Foraging for Reals, Unknown Ornamental, Pipsissewa uses? Artemisia douglasiana, Smilax, Yet Another Vine, Is This Cilantro or some kind of nettle? Mulberries Mulberries as far as the eye can see. What Kind? tincture or tea? Becoming a Wild Food Expert, Latex Strangler Vine in Blossom, Seminole Pumpkin Squash, Removing Oxalates, I Believe This Is a Tulip Tree, Virginia Creeper Again. Edible but too small, Here’s One I saw near the office, Transplanted Tree Root Structure, cultivated Apios Americana: Groundnut, My First Pokeweed, Yaupon Holly? Plantain? and Sand Toads? You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

Newsletter #167. To subscribe to Green Deane’s weekly  EatTheWeeds newsletter, go to the upper right side of this page.