Wild Rice: Male flowers droop, the female flowers are erect.

Love and marriage, horse and carriage, Zizania and canoe… not exactly lyrical but you get the idea. If you want Wild Rice you have to go where the Wild Rice is, and that’s in water, not greatly deep water, but water nonetheless. Emergent is the word.

Truth be known Wild Rice, Zizania aquatica, is not rice and often not wild particularly if you buy it in a store. But those are quibbling points. It’s a popular and delicious grass grain, fairly easy to collect — if you know the technique — and nutritious as well. It was the staple of many Native America tribes, particularly in northern climates.  They fought wars over it. Wild Rice is one of my favorite wild foods though locally we are on the very end of its range.

Zizania palustris

There are at least three species of Zizania maybe four. Botanists argue over that (think of it as a swamp turf war.)  Z. aquatica is along the Atlantic Coastal plain from right here — Central Florida — to the northeast end of North America. From that same northeast land’s end west and southwest along the Great Lakes one finds Zizania palustris (which is either a separate species or a variation of Z. aquatica.)  Both of those are annuals. Zizania texana is found only in Hays County, Texas, in the San Marcos River area, and is a perennial. There’s also a perennial Wild Rice in Japan, Taiwan, China and much of eastern Eurasia called Zizania latifolia. Incidently the latter becomes infected with  Ustilago esculenta which causes the lower stem to swell. The Chinese parboil the stem then saute it with meat or other vegetables.

The entire flower on Giant Cut Grass Droops

Locally the object de forage is Zizania aquatica, see top photo, not to be confused with Zizaniopsis miliacea, Giant Cut Grass, left, which also grows here. Z. aquatica is a very large grass to ten feet tall. Its stems are thick and spongy. Leaves are strap-like up to four feet long and two inches wide, smooth. The leaf’s edge is sharply toothed. The inflorescence is erect, very large up to two feet long and a foot across with spreading branches. The lower branchlets (male) droop, upper branchlets (female) are stiff and upright. Numerous spikelets and flowers, grain ovoid, yellow to reddish, up to an inch long. The flower is the quick key to separating the Zizania from the Zizaniopsis which resembles Wild Rice. The entire inflorescence — male and female parts — droop on the Zizaniopsis. The female parts of the flower on Wild Rice are stiff and point up.

Zizania texana

Several first foragers use the Zizania species. Captain John Smith of Pocahontas fame said of the Wild Rice that it “groweth as our bents do in meadows…. seed is not much unlike rye, though much smaller… this they use for dainty bread buttered with dear suet.”  Most folks don’t realize that Smith was a close friend of the king’s gardener and was in North America to basically find plants. His prowess with the barely pubertic Pocahontas seems to have captured historical fame more than his penchants for pokeweed. Smith was a swashbuckling kind of guy and probably the most famous of men who share his common name. He’s the first among John Smiths and was going to be executed when the ship he was on landed. However, papers labeled ‘only open in North America’ put him in charge of everyone including the captain who was going to execute him. That has to be the world’s sweetest reprieve.  The “bent” he was referring to is probably some speices of Agrostis.

As for the Wild Rice, the Menominee, who take their name from the plant in Ojibwan, manoomin, cooked the grain with deer broth, pork, or butter and seasoned it with maple syrup. The Ojibwa used it to make muffins as well as stuffing for duck and other birds. They steamed it to fluff it up and had it for breakfast with sugar and cream. Popping it was common. And… prepare yourself for this… No, I really mean it. Steel thyself, ’cause this ain’t pretty: TheOjibwa also boiled it with rabbit excrement and considered the concoction a delicious luxury. Other tribes that consumed the grain included the Dakota, Meskwaki, Omaha, Ponca, Thompson, and Winnebago.

Several early writers mentioned how the grain was harvested with the use of two sticks and a canoe. Basically the plant is leaned over the canoe with one stick and brushed with the other. After parching some tribes trod on the grain to winnow it. Not the best method as even just a little grit makes the grain difficult to consume. Sand is not an edible. Incidentally, the Zizaniopsis miliacea has edible seeds as well and the growing tips of its white rhizomes are edible cooked . Zizaniopsis means looks like Zizania. Miliacea is millet-like.

Aquatica means in the water, palustris means in the swamp, texana in Texas and latifolia wide leaf. Zizania is a bit more involved. It’s from the Greek word ζιζάνια  (zee-ZAH- nee-ah) or singular in modern Greek  ζιζάνιο (zee-ZAH-nee-oh.)  It was a weed that inflitrated wheat fields. In Dead Latin it is said zye-ZAY-nee-ah. The word in modern Greek also means dissension or a mischievous person or tare (said tear which is a vetch.) Linguistically you have a choice: You can use Dead Latin and say zye-ZAY-nee-ah or use Living Greek and call it zee-ZAH-nee-ah. I’ve made my choice…

Nutrionally Wild Rice is about 77% carbohydrates and between 15 and 17% protein. The grains are rich in glutelins and essential amino acids, especially lysine and methionine. It is a good source of B vitamins and is low in amylose, only 2%.

Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile: Wild Rice

IDENTIFICATION: Zizania aquatica: Annual, erect, aquatic grass  to ten feet. Stems hollow; leaves flat, to four feet long, two inches wide, leaf-markings purple with thick midrib often nearer one leaf side than the other. Flowers cross-fertilized and wind-pollinated, large, open, terminal panicles, two-feet long a foot wide. Male flowers on lower portion of the flower droop; female parts of the flowers are stiff and erect, twisted barbed awns; kernels (seed) closely adhering to thin brown hull, shallow-grooved the entire length of one surface, long, nearly cylindrical, purplish-black when ripe. Roots slender, fibrous, penetrating shallowly.

TIME OF YEAR: Late summer, mid-August into mid-September. Grains are collected by using two sticks the length of your arm. One is used to bend the plant over the canoe. The other stick is used to gently brush the plant to knock off ripe seeds. Successive visits to the same plant are possible as not all the seeds ripen at the same time. Harvesting can start as early as after 4.5 months of growth. Grain is harvested when the plants are still green. If they are brown, you’re too late. Collected grains should be sun dried for at least a couple of days. An alternative is parching the grains which is heating them in an open pan, stiring until they are dry. Hull parched rice immedately or they will remoisten. Keep away from sand. A little grit goes a long ways.

ENVIRONMENT: Wild Rice is completely absent from strongly alkaline waters and avoids stagnant water. The current must not be perceptible but a constant change of water is desirable. Fresh water plant, not growing successfully in water with a salty taste, thrives in brackish water in low marshes bordering tidal rivers, and in no more than two feet of water, and where the annual change of water level is not more than two feet. Grows wild in shallow freshwater lakes and edges of lakes and streams. It requires slow-flowing water through the rice bed or field, with depth of water from one to four feet with constant or slightly declining water levels through the growing season. Raising water uproots the plant.

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Cleaned grains are usually boiled. They can also be popped or ground into a flour used with other flours or added to stews as a thickener.

Colorful as well as edible

Forget-Me-Nots, Calamint, Mimosa Silk Tree, Clary Sage, Petunia x hybrid, Balloon Flower, Yarrow, Corn Poppy, Daisy, Sweet Alyssum

Foreget-Me-Not

The story I heard from my mother, not the best source of romantic literature, was that he was in Alaska and braved rushing waters to get some wild flowers she requested. He got the flowers but was swept away by the current and as he was about to meet his watery fate over a falls he yelled “Forget Me Not.” Hmmmm… Guy dies, woman doesn’t get flowers, has to walk home alone where she meets a Paul Bunyan type… Let’s start with the fact Forget-Me-Nots aren’t native to Alaska but they are in England and… In exile from England in 1398 Henry IV adopted the flower as his symbol and retained it when he returned from the hinterlands a year later. Perhaps that is why historically Forget-Me-Nots represent faithfulness and enduring love. They are found sporadically in the wild in the northern half of North America and cultivated elsewhere. As most folks see them only in gardens we’ll call them cultivated though surprisingly they are invasive in Wisconsin. Botanically Forget-Me-Nots are Myosotis sylvatica, which means Mouse Ear of the Woods. Properly they are Wood Forget-Me-Nots. Five petals, flat face, a yellow eye, usually blue but can be pink to white.  The blossoms are added to salads as a garnish and make excellent candied blossoms. However, the plant does contain some pyrrolizidine, a chemical not to eat a lot of so use only occassionally and not to excess.

Calamint

Think mint. Now think oregano. Put them together, mint and oregano and you have the Lesser Calamint. Important to Italian cooking, it’s an Old World plant found in flower gardens and a smattering of states from the Old South northeast to New York.  A hardy perennial to two feet, it is said to be indispensable in bean and mushroom dishes. The regular Calamint also has edible blossoms as well though its flavor is a cross between mint and majoram, read not quite as strong. They have been cooking with it in Rome since the Romans, particularly meat dishes. Toss the pink to lavender blossoms in salads or use to flavor dishes.

Mimosa Silk Tree, Albizia julibrissin

The Mimosa Silk Tree, Albizia julibrissin, is native to southern and eastern Asia. From there it was carried to Europe by the mid-1700s. Soon after it was introduced to North Carolina by the French botanist Andre Michaux. From there it spread north to New England, down around the Old South west to California and up the west coast, all except the northern plain states.  I have a separate article on site. To read it click here. Young leaves are edible cooked or dried to make a tea. The blossoms are edible like a vegetable or crystallized.

Clary Sage

Clary sage has been in the medicinal bag of tricks for at least 2,400 years. Theophrastus in the 4th century BCE wrote about it. Dioscroides did in the first century CE as did Pliny.  A native to the Old World it is naturalized in 14 states and Ontario with no apparent reason to the distribution. Like many edible flower it is found mostly under cultivation. It’s called “clary” because the sticky seeds were used to help get small foreign objects out of the eye, to help on see clearly.  Young and tender leaves are dipped in cream and fried, often eaten with an orange sugar sauce. They can also be dipped in an egg batter and cooked into fritters. The pleasant-flavored flowers are sprinkled on salads.

One wouldn’t think so but there is an edible petunia species. Petunias are in the solonace family which has some famous edibles and poisons members. This is not just any petunia but Petunia x hybrida first sent to Paris from South America in 1823.   The P. hybrida was created out of several Petunia species and comes in two types, grandiflora (larage flowered) and multiflora (many flowered.) Grandiflora have trailing stems and tend to spread with blossoms up to five inches.  Multiflora petunias are bushier and have smaller flowers from two to three inches in diameter.  Many colors and patterns are available. The mild-tasting flowers are used  in salads or as a garnish. The blue one is shown here because experts think if man did not continue to hybridize them only the blue species would continue.

Balloon Flower and Bee

Let’s start at the bottom and work up. Our next plant is known for its root. In the greater Campanula clan, the root of the Balloon Flower, Platycodon grandiflorus, is very popular in Korea where it is cut into strips, seasoned with chili’s, vinegar, sesame oil and soy  sauce and eaten as a salad (which also tells one you can can get the root still alive in Korean markets, plant it, and get blossoms.) It is also used in soups, stews, dishes with vinegar, and is one of the ingredients in Toso, or sweet Japanese sake. Boiled young leaves are eaten in salads. Its blossoms are sweet in taste, have a bit of texture, and are used in salads, stuffed, candied or dipped in butter. The Balloon Flower is so called because before the petals open are fused at first making the blossom look like a balloon.

Yarrow

This plant is used so much it’s surprising the flower has managed to put itself nearly everywhere, field and farm. Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) is found throughout North American and many parts of the world. Young leaves are eaten in salads, or cooked as a vegetable, or added to soups and stews. The leaves and flowers are brewed into a tea. Sometimes in beer making it is substituted for hops. An oil from the flowers is used in flavoring a variety of commercial drinks and alcoholic beverages. Yarrow’s primary use for our purposes is blossoms to make tea.

Corn Poppy

They used to be far more common than they are now, paper red poppies around Veterans Day, sold to raise money for disable veterans and the like. Aside from the veteran connection, mention Poppy and opium is usually the next topic mentioned. That’s a different poppy so hold the email please.  Our poppy is Papaver rhoeas, common name is Corn Poppy, sometimes Flanders Poppy.  From Athens Greece to Athens Georgia, you can find Corn Poppies. In fact, they are the flower of profusion about the Agora down from the Acropolis.  Young leaves are cooked and seasoned like spinach, or used for flavoring in everything from soup to salad. Syrup is made from the red petals is used to add flavor and color soups as well as wine. The seeds are used in confections and bread and the oil is an excellent substitute for Olive Oil. Originally from Eurasia they are found in most areas of North America.

Daisy blossoms are actually many flowers not one

If I remember correctly Jean Kerr titled one of her humerous books, “Please Don’t Eat The Daisies.” The daisy was Bellis perennis, or the English Daisy but now just called Daisy as it is the common flower of farm and field in North America, and South America. For a widespread plant in multiple uses it is not high on the flavor list, if not bitter. However, its leaves have been used as a cooked green, usually boiled or as a pot herb. Flower petals are eaten in salads,  remember bitter. Flower buds are eaten in sandwiches, soups and stews, or pickled and used like capers. The entire flower open in the day and closes at night. “Daisy” is from Day’s Eye, meaning open only during the day. And, while it looks just a center blossom with a lot of rays around it, each ray is a separate flower, and every tiny yellow section in the middle is a separate flower.

Alyssum

Mat-forming Alyssums recently underwent a genus and species name change. They were Allyssum lobularia and now they are Lobularia maritima. A native of the Mediterranean areas it has traveled far and is found 41 states most of Canada.The genus name lobularia comes from dead Latin and means small globe, referring to the shape of the flower cluster. Maritima refers to its habitat, meaning it likes to grow near the seashore and is somewhat salt tolerant. Leaves, young stems, and flowers are used for flavoring in salads or any dish where pungency is desired. The flowers candy well.  The blossom are honey-scented.

See Edible Flowers Part Thirteen

Edible Flowers, a cheery way to start the day

Coral Vine, Citron Melon, Milkweed Vine, Dayflower, Evening Primrose, Kudzu, Stock, Dame’s Rocket, Freesia, Dendrobium phalaenopsis

Coral Vine Blossoms must be cooked

The Coral Vine has dozens of names, not only as a cultivated blossom but an escapee on the most noxious list. Botanically it is Antigonon leptopus. A native of Mexico it has edible roots, leaves and for this series, flowers. To read more about it go here. The vine can climb to some 40 feet and blossoms nearly year round in warm area.  Butterflies and bees like it (you’ve been warned) because over 40% of its blossoms are open at a time. The blossoms, like the leaves and roots, have to be cooked. The roots, while edible, are hard to find and dig up.

Citron Melon

The two plants non-foraging people ask about all the time are Society Garlic (covered elsewhere) and those small watermelon like fruit seen in old citrus groves and abandoned fields. The short answer is they are Citron Melons. They used to be cultivated for to make preserves and I have a separate article about that here. However, their blossoms are edible if they are not bitter. The blossoms should be cooked though usually one never sees the plant until the late fall and winter when one can see the fruit from the seasonal die back. The blossom might be edible raw, I just haven’t tired them.

Milkweed Vine, Morrenia odorata

By looking at the names of this vine and the attitude of the state of Florida one would never suspect most of it is edible including the flowers. It’s called the Milkweed Vine, the Latex Vine, the Strangler Vine, the latter because it tends to climb on trees and cover them. Botanically it is Morrenia odorata. Literally from the ground up this plant is edible and the fruit has more Vitamin C than citrus (an industry that fights to get rid of it.) The flowers are very sweet and floral and can be eaten raw. This vine is only found in warm areas. Don’t try confuse it with the cool climate Honeyvine, Cynanchum laeve, which is not edible. Also Hemp Vine (Mikania Scandens) before it blossom looks vaguely similar as well.

Dayflower, a Commelina

My love affair with Dayflowers is over. They don’t like me anymore. Well, the raw stems don’t. The raw blossom still do. In the Commelina clan there’s quite a few of them and while the blossoms are fine to toss in a salad, candy or use as a garnish — just like their relative the Spiderworts,  I am beginning to think the stems and older leaves are overrated. Raw they irritate my tummy these days.  The blossoms can vary in size depending on which species and can have three blue petals, two blue petals and one small white petal or two large blue petals and one smaller blue petal. Their flavor is an inoffensive green. The Yellow Commelina, Commelina africana, is edible cooked. They both are closely related to the tiny Doveweed.

Evening Primrose, Oenothera biennis

Every climate has its good and bad points and one of the bad points locally is that the tall, northern Evening Primrose does not grow here. I think the the most amazing specimen I ever saw was in Vathia, Greece (Vathis is literally the end of the road on the central peninsula of southern Greece, deep in The Mani.)  The Evening Primerose was at least six feet tall and totally covered with flowers. Here in Florida we have a very scraggly ground hugging one. I have not tired its flowers. On my list of things to do. However, the common Evening Primrose of northern climes does have edible blossoms. They are sweet and can be used in a variety of ways raw or cooked if you prefer, salad to soups to garnish. They can even be pickled.

Kudzu’s blossoms smell like grapes

You never have to go looking for kudzu blossoms. When kudzu is in bloom there is no mistaking its scent. It is smells exactly like the cheap grape bubble gum kids chew. And intense? You can detected it on the wind from 100 yards away, or more. Kudzu is the bane of the Old South. Introduced by the government which paid farmers to use it for land reclamation, it can grow a foot a day and covers some 120,000 new acres every year. Goats love to eat it and all of it is edible except the seeds. The blossoms are quite edible recipes abound in their use, jelly to wine. While the smell like grape they do not taste like grape. They are sweet and have a flavor of their own.

Stock is bred in many colors

Some like it hot, and some do not, and Stock does not. It’s a fragrant, two-foot tall, attractive flower that likes full sun, good, well-drained soil, and temperatures under 75 F°. They can even tolerate a light frost. There are some 140 species of Stock. The one we are interested in is Matthiola incana, common stock as it were though it comes in many colors. It’s native along the Mediterranean from Greece to Spain and was a mainstay of European gardens in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Elizabethans called them “gillyflower” and the Victorian allowed them in their cottage gardens. Even Thomas Jefferson got some for Monticello in 1771 and in fact one can still buy seed from Jefferson’s stock…of Stock. Stock flowers are usually added to salads  raw or a garnish to sweet desserts. They can be candied. Their flavor is perfume-ish. The plant’s pods are edible as well. A common cultivated flower in North American it is naturalized in North Carolina, Illinois, Texas, California and British Columbia usually in a few isolated areas but rather well-distributed in coastal southern California and San Francisco. It is also called Tenweeks Stock.

Dame’s Rocket is a mustard

Dame’s Rocket is a declared invasive species in several places. It’s your civic duty eat the weed. Originally from Eurasia some 400 years ago it’s a mustard that at first glance looks like Phlox. Dame’s Rocket has the typical mustard family four petals, Phlox, five. It’s found essentially everywhere in North America except the Old South. Botanically known as Hesperis matronalis, it is cultivated, escaped and is included in wild bird seed mix. Young leave collected before flowering are eaten like cress. Seed pods can be added stews and soups. Seeds are a source of oil and can be sprouted and eaten. The flowers are used to add spicy flavors to fruit dishes and salads.

Freesia blossoms point the same way

As a forager one of the first things you learn is that there isn’t much to offer in the Iris family, or, if it is an Iris beware. Freesia is an exception.  A native of South Africa and Australia, it’s an Iris to about 18 inches tall and grows from a bulb. The stem branches once giving it a classic Y shape. One odd thing about the Freesia is that they grow in a helicoid, that is the flowers attach to the stem in a spiral fashion but they all point the same way.  Fragrance varies with the variety. And the usual debate is whether it’s a wild plant as it is in its native range or a cultivated plant as most of these readers will find it. I opted for cultivated. So far I have put only one flower in both wild and cultivated and that’s Dame’s Rocket. Freesias colors include white, purple, yellow, orange and red. In the language of flowers they represent “innocence.” The highly scented blossoms are used in salads raw or as a garnish. They are reported to be excellent infused with a sugar syrup, and are used in sorbets for flavoring.

Dendrobium phalaenopsis

If you go to a Thai restaurant often a Dendrobium phalaenopsis is put on your plate. No that not a creature, it’s an orchid unfortunately without a common name in English. Said Den-DROH-be-um fal-en-NOP-siss their flavor is light, if any, but they are pretty with a crisp texture. This also brings up the debate if all orchids are edible. Personally I think that is impossible for one person to say as there are more than 20,000 of them, maybe 26,000, in some 800 genera. Many do have edible roots. Edible flower information is sketchy. One would like to think orchids used as garnishes would be edible just to avoid liability. However garnish writers seem to skip over issues of orchid edibility. Kind of like writing about flying and leaving out the airplane. Dendrobium phalaenopsis comes in a variety of colors and are native to southeast Asia. They are not difficult to grow. Use in salads and as a garnish.

See Edible Flowers: Part Twelve

Tangy mustard and sweet violet flowers

Alliums, Oregano, Pinks, Peas, Okra, Galium, Ginger, Scented Geraniums, Primrose, Mustard/Radish

Onion Blossom

The author of “Florida’s Incredible Wild Edibles” Dick Deuerling, now in his 90s, taught me decades ago: If it looks like a garlic and smells like a garlic it is a garlic and you can eat it. If it looks like an onion and smells like an onion you can eat it. They must have both, however, look and aroma. We have a lily here in Florida, for example, that looks like an onion but no aroma, and raw it can be deadly.  Look and aroma, like horse and carriage and love and marriage. Together. Alliums can also be deceptive. Locally the “wild onions” (read really garlics) grow their cloves on the top of the plant, not underground. And if I remember correctly, an onion always has a singular bulb per plant where as the garlic has sectioned cloves. At any rate there are some 400 species if you include onions, garlic, chives, sallots, and closely related ramps/leeks, the latter having wide leaves. Usually the flowers have a stronger flavor than the leafy parts, and the developing seed head even stronger flavor. Blossoms are usually white but can also be pink. Onion stems are round, as are chives but smaller. Garlic leaves are flat. And since you know what those look like I’ll put up a picture of ramps, unfamiliar to some.

Honey Bee and Oregano Blossom

Where would Greeks be without oregano, or the rest of us? And is it a wild plant or cultivated? In most of the New World it is a cultivated plant. In the land of my ancestors it grows wild, particularly on the lopes of Mt. Taygetos (said tah-EE-gah-tos) south of Sparta in The Mani (and from where we get the word “maniacs” in English because of how the Maniotes fought.) Taygetos means “joy of mountain.”  Oregano is similar. It’s from two Greek words, oros, which means mountain, and ganousthal meaning delight in. “Delight in the mountain is” translates into good eats and where the oregano prefers to grow. There should be some truth to that because oregano also grows in Sanmaria Gorage on mountainous Crete, where I love to hike. We are told Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, created oregano as a symbol of happiness. Ancient Greeks would crown newlyweds with garlands of oregano to bless happiness on their marriage.  Oregano’s blossoms are a milder version of the plant’s leaves Incidentally, marjoram is in the same genus as oregano. Oregano is Origanum vulgare, and marjoram is Origanum majorana. Think of marjoram as oregano lite and used the same way. In many place in the Mediterranean area oregano is called Wild Marjoram.

Pinks

Carnations (Dianthus caryophyllus) were covered earlier in this series but let’s revisit the genus Dianthus’ miniature versions such as Pinks and Sweet William, respectfully Dianthus plumarius and Dianthus barbatus.  Dianthus means God Flower… Hmmm… would diandros be godfather? Anyway… These little carnations don’t like heat or alkaline soil which made them perfect for the cold acidic landscape of Maine’s summer. They don’t even like to be mulched. Curiously the name “Pink” does not refer to the color but a 14th century verb “to pink” meaning to perforate or create a punched patten. Apparently I grew up in the Dark Ages because it was a verb I heard around the home and every seemstress had pinking shears. Why Sweet William is called that is anyone’s guess but the term for the flower first showed up in 1596. (There were no King Williams at the time but William Shakespeare was mid-career… it’s a guess.) To use the blossoms cut away the bitter white base. The petals are sweet with a clove or nutmeg like scent.  Often used in salads, aspic and soups.

Garden Pea Blossom

There is a progression, I think. When  you are a kid you hate to eat your peas. You get past that then run into your first pea pod, usually at a Chinese restaurant. You get past that when you eat your first pea blossom. Note, eating pea blossoms will reduce your production of peas but a pea blossom here or there is pleasant. They are crunchy, slightly sweet, and taste like peas. That does vary some with what variety you have planted. Also the pea shoots and tendrils are edible as well. All usually consumed raw though you could cook them. A word of caution. I am referring to edible peas, the genus Pisum, not ornamental peas. Those can be toxic.

Okra Blossom

While we’re raiding the garden let’s not forget about okra blossoms. Like many edible flowers already mentioned it is in the hibiscus clan. I have grown okra in my garden and there are dozens of  cultivars to choose from that produce some variety of blossom colors.  Like most hibiscus blossoms they are shy on taste but add color and texture to salads as well as an attractive garnish. Of course you could also let them go on to produce okra which is a kitchen vegetable of many uses. In fact, growing okra is for the blossoms is perhaps the quickest and easiest way to get lovely large blossoms to your table quickly. And there are “dwarf” version for patio pot use. One word of warning, some okra plants have spines… big spines.

Sweet Woodruff

Several Galiums grow here in Florida, one of which can be used for dye, Galium tinctorium, and one of which is edible, Galium aparine. It’s easy to sort out the two. If you can find whorls of five leaves or less it is the G. tinctorum. If you can find whorls of seven leaves or more, its the G. aparine, among other characteristic. Their blossoms are really too tiny to attend to but edible. The favored Galium, however, does not grow here but I have run into it elsewhere, Galium odoratum. Imported from Eurasia and now naturalized it grows roughly in the northeast quadrant of North America and is commonly called Sweet Woodruff, or Wild Baby’s Breath. It’s been used a lot in Europe as a flavoring particularly in German May wine. Its flavor is sweet and vanilla-like which brings us to a warning. One of the chemicals that gives it a sweet smell is coumarin. Taken in large quantities it reduces the blood’s ability to clot. Flavoring and a few blossom here or there is not a worry unless you are in frail health and already taking blood thinners.

Ginger Blossoms

Right outside my kitchen window grows ginger, the kind we get ginger root from and use in cooking, Zingiber officinale. I planted it several years ago and when I need ginger for cooking, I did up a piece.  The word ginger comes from French gingembre which was borrowed from Medieval Latin ginginer which was bastardized from the Greek: zingiberis (ζιγγίβερις). Going back further it comes from the Indian subcontinent word inji ver. We just call it good, and a home remedy for motion sickness. Ginger blossoms are gingery and fragrant. They can be eaten raw.

Lemon-scented Geranium

Because of an early botanical screw up — among the first of many — the Geranium group can be confusing. Initially all Geraniums were in one group. But by the late 1700s it was decided they were in two different genus but both were called commonly Geraniums. Got it? Folks have been trying to keep it straight ever since. Generally speaking they fall into two groups, bitter Geraniums usually not consumed, though some can be, and scented geraniums, whose flowers we can use. The latter genus is Pelargonium. The name comes from the Greek word πελαργός, pelargós, which means stork because part of the flower looks like a stork’s beak. Scented geraniums have different scents, among them almond, apple, coconut, lemon, nutmeg, old spice, peppermint, rose, and strawberry. The flowers tend to agree with the plant’s name. They are used in salads, desserts, and drinks.

Primrose

The Primrose suffered the fate of several plants. Petty, edible and showed up very early in the spring after folks had spent a long winter with no fresh food. This wasn’t an issue when there were more primroses than humans. The primrose as been so harvested in the wild that it is illegal in many of its native places in Europe to pick it. However, it is also a common garden flower and a commerial product so getting some primrose legally really isn’t an issue. In the genus Primula the Primula vulgaris blossom reminds me very much of a small magnolia blossom. Several colors are available now. Also know as Cow Slip the blossoms are bland in flavor but sweet. They can be added to salad, the bud pickled, or cooked as a vegetable. They have even been used to make wine.

Radish Blossom

Perhaps I have been remiss in these last 99 blossoms to not mention mustards more. But they are a huge family and have been touched upon, such as with arugula. They all have yellow to white blossoms, sometimes pink, usually a simple cross which is there the family names Cruciferae comes from. They range from the mustard that produces the seed that makes the condiment to the radish in our salad to the plant that produces what eventually is cleaned and deodorized into Canola oil. In northern climates they are a spring and summer plant, here in Florida they are wintertime fare, showing up after Thanksgiving and usually totally gone by St. Patrick’s day. Wild radish and wild mustard look similar but have small differences. One is that mustards grow tall, radishes like to serpentine. Radish blossoms cluster and have noticeable veins, mustard blossoms are singular and the veins are not obvious. The seeds pods are different as well. Mustard’s pod is smooth, the radish jointed and why the mustard is called the charlock and the radish the jointed charlock. Their blossoms are both peppery and mustardy. They work best in cold salads or hot soups, the latter they can be tossed in just before serving. And of course mustard and radish leaves can be cooked up as greens.

See Edible Flowers: Part Eleven