Search: wisteria

Wisteria in DeLand. The species is usually invasive. Photo by Green Deane

The weather may be chilly still it’s a hot time of year for foraging as many wild fruit species ripen this month. A species  blossoming now and rarely covered is Wisteria. The blossoms are edible raw or cooked but the rest of the plant is toxic (though that varies from species to species.) With some two seeds can kill a child. While most Wisteria is considered Asian there is a native species in the Americas, W. frutescens. You can read about Wisteria here.  

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

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

“Deer Mushrooms” are edible. Photo by Green Deane

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

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

Foraging classes: Many species, especially wild fruits are coming into season. 

Saturday, April 6th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park. 9 to noon.

Sunday, April 7th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. meet just north of the Museum, 9 a.m. to noon. 

Saturday, April 13th, Red Bug Slough 5200 S. Beneva Road, Sarasota. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the parking lot.

Sunday, April 14th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Meet at Ganyard Rd and Bayshore. 9 a.m. to noon.

Saturday, April 20th, Blanchard Park,  2451 Dean Rd, Union Park, FL 32817, meet beside the tennis courts, 9 a.m. to noon.

Sunday, April 21st, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL, meet at the dog park. 9 a.m. to noon.

Saturday, April 27th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  Meet at the bathrooms. 9 a.m. to noon.

Sunday, April 28th, Colby-Alderman Park: 1099 Massachusetts Street, Cassadaga. Fla. 32706. meet at the bathrooms, 9 a.m. to noon.

Saturday, May 4th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park. 9 to noon. 

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

Mild in flavor Betony roots have a radish-like texture. Photo by Green Deane

Found this week, east of Tampa, Florida betony roots. Tasty raw, boiled or pickled, the roots are distinctive and easy to identify. While one can find them in lawns they also like sandy pastures with a thatch layer.  Millions of dollars are spent every year trying to poison these into submission. Why not eat them? You can read about Betony here. 

Green Deane Forum

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

You get the USB, not the key.

172-video USB would be a good end of spring present and is now $99. My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out. The USB videos are the same videos I have on You Tube. Some people like to have their own copy.  Most of the 172 USB videos have to be copied to your computer to play. If you want to order the USB go to the DVD/USB order button on the top right of this page. That will take you to an order form. 

Finally, a physical copy of the book.

Now in its second printing is EatTheWeeds, the book. It has 275 plants, 367 pages, index, nutrition charts and color photos. It’s available in many locations including Amazon.  Most of the entries include a nutritional profile.  It can also be ordered through AdventureKeen Publishing.

This is weekly newsletter #595. If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

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

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

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

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

“Deer Mushrooms” are edible. Photo by Green Deane

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hydrilla is used as a supplement. Photo by Green Deane

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

Wild Garlic will be cloving soon. Photo by Green Deane

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

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

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

Green Deane Forum

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

This is weekly newsletter #450 If you want to subscribe to this free newsletter you can find the sign-up form in the menu at the top of the page.

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Pawpaws (or papaws per Random House) can be among the most difficult and easy wild fruits to find. Finding the blossoms are easy. We saw some in Melbourne this past weekend. Finding the fruit, however, is more challenging. They like to hide and woodland creatures like to eat them making it difficult for us. The easiest way to locate pawpaws is find them when they’re blossoming and they are blossoming locally now.

The most common place to spy pawpaws is and around pastures. Grazing livestock don’t eat the plants, blossoms or fruit. Look for bushy shrubs around five feet tall with magnolia-like cream-colored blossoms, or much smaller foot-size shrubs with dark ruby blossoms.

I can remember the first time I found a pawpaw. It was along a walking trail in Longwood, FL. At first I thought I had found a lumpy green pear but it was an unripe pawpaw. Interestingly pawpaws change greatly from hot Florida to the Smoky Mountain area. There, pawpaws are small trees.

There are two caveats: A chemical in pawpaws is still used to control head lice. And some people have a severe allergic reaction when eating them which is the prime reason they have not become a commercial fruit. That is, it’s not a significant health threat to the population at large but it is enough to give the lawyers fits. To read more about pawpaws, or papaws, click here.

I am often asked: Can you eat grass. The simple question has a complex answer: Yes, no, maybe.

Strictly speaking we eat a lot of grass, but in the form of grain: Wheat, rice, rye, barley, millet et cetera. What most folks want to know is can you eat the culms and blades (stems and leaves.) What you just saw is also one of the impediments to learning about grasses, an argot all their own, a specific vocabulary more complex than even mushrooms and often identifying characteristics can only be seen with a dissecting microscope.

Humans are not multi-gastric (or in theory large-gutted). We aren’t designed to break down the cellulose in grass. Cows have a four-chambered stomach for that purpose, horses have a huge large intestine, even the gorilla has a gut that can accommodate large amounts of vegetation. We don’t. However, what we can do is dry the grass, grind it into a powder and use it as a bulking agent in food, such as breads, soups and stews. We don’t get much nutrition from grass prepared that way but it does add to the sensation of satiety and reduces hunger. Then there is the issue of cyanide.

I have read and been told by two professors that all North American grasses are non-toxic. At the most basic level the means one has to know if the grass is native, which also requires identification, and I’ve already mentioned that group of plants can be a pain in the grass to identify. “Natives” would also include a lot species in the Andropogon family which I have never heard of having any use except perhaps making brooms. And some grasses have cyanide in them. Johnson Grass, a sorghum, is a good example. The large blades are full of it. Crowfoot Grass is another. We eat the grain of the latter but only after the plant has turned brown and the seeds are easily picked. Quite a few toxic grasses from Africa and Asia are naturalized in North America.

Personally I stick to a few grains, Sand Spurs, Barnyard Grass, and some Panicums. But then there is Timothy.

Permit me to reminisce on this rainy March day a week after both my parents’ birthdays: One of the books in my foraging library is A Guide to Florida Grasses, by Walter Kingsley Taylor, not the first book in my collection from this august author. I spent an afternoon recently browsing through the guide and noted his entry on Timothy Grass. The picture alone erased more than 50 years and took me back to summers as a boy when I was impressed into service to harvest hay for our five horses, most of it Timothy, Phleum pratense, a grass originally from Europe. We “hayed” nearly every summer for some 20 years, usually putting into the barn ten to 15 tons of loose hay. (There is some irony in that most of the hay we got every year came from the Hayward Farm.)

The main machine for cutting this hay was a horse-drawn sickle mower though in later years we moved up to a tricycle tractor. Instead of two horses the mower’s tongue was extended four feet and was pulled by a stripped-down WWII Jeep, which I got to drive. As soon as I was old enough to reach the pedals I drove and Dad operated the mower.  By the time I was legally old enough to get a driver license I had already driven thousands of miles in hayfields and across country roads in a four-wheel drive stick shift. Most of my annual summer “vacation” was spent haying and driving. It wasn’t time off.

The problems of haying became common. The cutter bar would break a tooth which is a triangle-shaped replaceable cutting edge held on by rivets, which we replaced red hot from our own forge. At least once a season, more depending upon how thick the grass was, the piston arm would break, as it was intended to do. It’s a piece of ash called a pitman that pushed the mower blade back and fourth being moved by gears turned by the wheels of the mower (turning forward motion into side motion.) When stresses got too much the wooden piston would break saving the rest of the machine from damage. Two other problems were common:

Often the cut hay would wrap around each of the Jeep’s drive shafts, build up like a wad of cotton candy, get hot and catch on fire, not far from the gas tank. This required quick stopping, crawling under the hot vehicle, putting out the fire, then removing the tightly wound hay, often, ironically, with a blow torch. The other issue, beside unpredicted rain, was ground hornets. The Jeep, pulling the mower, would run over a ground hornets’ nest — at least one per field. They were never pleased about that. The hornets would instantly swarm under the Jeep, then emerge between the back of the jeep and the mower where they would find both of us and attack. It was an excuse to change gears and drive like hell…

In places where the terrain was too wet or hilly my step-father, who was built like a heavy-weight boxer and did box, would take out a scythe and cut it by hand. He had two grim reaper scythes. One with a long thin blade for hay and one with a short thick blade for brush. Once the hay was cut and sun dried we would winnow it with a Jeep-adapted horse-drawn rake. Then it was loaded loose onto a hay wagon I would drive home.  As the hay was lifted into the barn — a hay fork pulled by the Jeep which my mother drove — my job on those oh-so-hot summer nights was to go up in the high rafters of the barn with 100 pounds of salt for each ton of hay. As each forkful of hay was dumped into the barn I salted it to absorb any moisture thus preventing it from rotting, getting hot and starting a fire in the barn. And then… then throughout the winter I had to shovel and cart the recycled hay to the manure pile. No wonder I was a skinny kid. I don’t know which I shoved more of growing up: Manure or snow.

And all the time — driving or shoveling — I had a stem of Timothy Grass in my mouth, chewing away enjoying the mild sweetness. It is a grass I would dry, powder, and use. Being a farm kid and chomping on Timothy was part of the same existence. It’s one grass that I know beyond any doubt. Timothy was unintentionally introduced to North America in 1711 by one John Herd. He called it “herd grass.” Clever. He talked it up and it was grown in southern Canada, the New England area and New York. In 1720 a Timothy Hanson moved from New England to Baltimore and began to cultivate the seed and sell it.  He was the first person in the new world who grew, bagged and sold hay seed. George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were admirers of the grass and Franklin is credited with calling it “Timothy Seed.” The name was shortened to Timothy and it stuck. It’s found nearly everywhere in North America and even in Greenland. I chew it when I hike the Appalachian Trail. I sometimes wonder what my youth would have been like — and adulthood — had Messers Herd, Hanson and Franklin not known good grass when they saw … or chewed it.

Foraging Classes: As the weather warms up the classes get larger and fill up sooner. This week I have a class in Orlando and southwest Florida in Port Charlotte.

Saturday, March 23rd, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. Meet near the tennis court near the YMCA building.  9 a.m. to noon.

Sunday, March 24th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the parking lot at the intersection of Bayshore Road and Ganyard Street.

Sunday, March 31st,  Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. 9 a.m to noon. Meet just north of the science center in the north section of the park. 

Saturday, April 6th, Florida State College,  south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246.  9 a.m. to noon. We will meet at building “D”  next to the administration parking lot.

Sunday, April 7th, Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St.,  Gainesville, FL 32641. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the picnic tables next to the pump house. 

Saturday, April 27th,  Red Bug Slough Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233.  9 a.m. to noon.

All foraging classes are at least three-hours long, some closer to four depending on location, time of year and size of the class. To learn more about the foraging classes go here.

 Don’t even consider trying to eat the blossom of the Salvia coccinea, the Scarlet Sage. While it blossoms year round it’s currently responding to the warm weather with wonderful displays of scarlet red blossoms. They look like they would be bright additions to a salad but my personal experience is they are not. The Scarlet Sage is the main reason why I’m opposed to “field testing.” Several years ago I thought the blossom might be a good salad addition. I researched the species extensively. It’s a native and has been exported around the world for 400 years. There were no reports of toxicity, only one medicinal report, and came from a good family, the sages. I decided to field test the plant under very controlled conditions. That’s means I had researched the plant well, knew exactly what I was doing, was NOT in an emergency situation, had good health insurance and a hospital nearby. Those are the only acceptable conditions, in my opinion, for “field testing.”

I began the field testing in stages. On the appropriate day of the schedule I ate a piece of the red blossom that was 1/8 of an inch square, which was as exact as I could get with my Exacto blade and the delicate blossom. I ate it. It was peppery. Forty minutes later my head spun into space and my stomach twisted into a cramp and I was ill for three weeks. I was close to going-to-the-emergency room ill within the hour. By day two I was just sick. Pepto Bismo calmed the stomach and Coca-cola syrup (both from the pharmacy) controlled the nausea. For those three weeks I consumed little food and downed too much Pepto Bismo and Coca-cola syrup. I was truly miserable.

Imagine if I were not intentionally testing the plant under optimum conditions? What if it had been an emergency, that I was responsible for others and I took it upon myself to “field test’ an unknown plant as, unfortunately, far too many “survival” books recommend. I would have been out of commission, useless, of no help to any one exactly when needed the most. You can function hungry, it’s much harder to function when you’re sick. And if you “field test” the wrong plant you could be more than just sick. The next time someone starts to teach you the “field testing” method ask them one question: What plant do you eat now that you discovered by field testing? The answer is always “none.” Then ask: “have you actually ever field tested a plant?” The answer is usually “no.” A lot of folks are teaching something they have never done. I turned down a lucrative fee to go to a convention and teach “field testing.”  I don’t think “field testing” should be done in the field. Just the opposite: If ever field testing should be done under very controlled conditions after a lot of research and with medical facilities near by and not during an emergency. Tropical Sage and Pineapple Sage look much alike but the latter smells like pineapple, the former does not. (There’s another picture of the non-edible Salvia coccinnea here on my “don’t eat this” page.)

This is a good opportunity to talk about an edible blossoming now and discuss a little botany as well. Wisteria are blooming but only for a week or two. Outside of some mushrooms very few wild edibles have such a short seasonal run. Only the blossoms are truly edible and they are here for a very short time. This also makes them difficult to study. You almost have to harvest them when you see them. If you go back a few days later they are often gone for the year. Looks for vines now with large aprays of lilac-colored blossoms. As for the botany…

A Spike and a Raceme are similar inflorescences (blossom) but they have a distinct difference. First an inflorescence is a flowering system that has more than one blossom. A Dandelion is NOT an inflorescence. A Black Cherry blossom, which has many flowers, is an inflorescence. Both a Raceme and the Spike have multiple blossoms along a stem. However, the Raceme blossoms have short stems of their own (called petioles) that attach to the main stem. The Wisteria, above right, is a Raceme, many blossom on the main stem and each blossom having its own short stem. Blossoms on a “spike” attach to the main stem directly. They do not have short stems (petioles.) The common Gladiolus, below left, is a spike, and a rather large one. Those blossoms do not each have a stem of their own. The Gladiolus blossoms attach to the main stem directly

Note on both the Raceme and the Spike older flowers are larger than the newer flowers which are near the end, quite obvious on the Gladiolus. Usually ripening of the fruit or seed on both also proceeds from nearest the plant towards the end away from the plant. Both Gladiolus and Wisteria blossoms are edible. To read about Gladiolus click here, to read about Wisteria click here.

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

All My 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 this newsletter. If you want to see the videos without ads and some in slightly better quality you can order the DVD set. It is nine DVDs with 15 videos on each for a total of 135 videos.  Many people want their own copy of the videos or they have a slow service and its easier to order then to watch them on-line. The DVDs make a good gift for that forager you know especially as spring is … springing. Individual DVDs can also be ordered or you can pick and choose. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right hand side of this page (if your window is open wide enough.)  Or you can go here.

Donations to upgrade EatTheWeeds.com have gone well. Thank you to all who have contributed to either via the Go Fund Me link, the PayPal donation link or by writing to Green Deane POB 941793 Maitland FL, 32794.  

This is weekly issue 347.

• 475
• His name was Will Endres and he was a North Carolina herbalist…Poison ivy, foraging classes, horse mint, ground cherries, foraging USBs, the Green Deane Forum, Southern Wax Myrtle, https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-475-september-21-2021/474

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-474-september-14-2021/

  Chance happens in foraging. 

  Coralwood, Kudzu, Foraging Classes, Favolus Mushrooms, learning edibles,  foraging USB, the Green Deane forum, aroma and cyanide

  473

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-473-september-7th-2021/

  It would be convenient if Pindo Palms fruited regularly. 

  Pindo palms seeds, Canna, Foraging classes, Ghost Pipes, Labor Day, Tallow Plums

  472

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-472-august-31-2021/

  Are there any Shiitake mushrooms locally? 

  Train Wrecker, Chicken of the Woods, Foraging Classes, Dogwood, Hackberries, Kudzu, foraging DVDs and the Green Deane Forum 

  471

  A white Water Hyacinth was seen recently in the Little Econ River east of Orlando. 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-471-august-24th-2021/

  Water hyacinth, Foraging Classes, Wild grapes, Tumble Weed, Goldenrod, Swamp Mallow, Foraging USBs, the Green Deane forum, Donations  

  470

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-470-august-17th-2021/

  One way northern and southern climates differ is the greater array of non-native species that are constantly being imported and or found in southern climates.

  Torell’s Eucalyptus, Chaya, Guavas, Java Plum, Ground Cherries, Coco-plums, Natal Plum, Dragon Fruit, Podocarpus, Persimmons, Foraging USBs, Green Deane Forum, Donations, the Two-Leaf Nightshade 

  469

  Plants remind one that weather is less dependable than we might think. 

  Jambul, Chanterelles, Cactus Fruit, Sugarberry, Doveweed, Foraging Classes, Isabelline, Foraging USBs, the Green Deane Forum, and Donations

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-469-august-10-2021/

  468

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-468-august-3-2021/

  Yes, there are land crabs in Florida and the rest of the gulf coast.

  Land crabs, Foraging classes, Grapes, Podocarpus, Horsemint, Saw Palmetto, Goldenrod, Russian thistle, USBs, Green Deane Forum, donations. 

  467

  Candyroot, Foraging Classes, Wild Grapes, DVDs, Green Deane Forum, Donations, Saw Palmetto, Barnyard Grass, Brookweed 

  Is it the season or is it the rain?

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-467-july-27th-2021/

  466

  This summer’s foraging classes at Putney Farm in Honea Path South Carolina are now history

  Foraging in South Carolina, American Beech, Sourwood, Birches, Moringa, foraging Classes, Sumac, Country Wine, Saw Palmetto, foraging USB, Green Deane Forum, and Donations

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-466-july-20th-2021/ 

  465

  Newsletter #465, July 13th, 2021

  Kousa Dogwood, Sassafras, Wild Carrots, Birches Apples

  Apples, Mushrooms, Podocarpus, Foraging Classes, Knotweed, Cactus, Peppervine, Foraging DVDs, the Green Deane Forum, donations, 

  464 

  In real estate it is location, location, location. 

  Blue Indigos, Milk Caps, Jelly Fungus, Strawberry Guava, Foraging Classes, Pandamus Grass, Smilax, Foraging DVDs, Green Deane Forum and Donations

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-464-july-6th-2021/

  463

  Podocarpus are not fickle but they are slightly unpredictable. 

  Podocarpus, Java Plum, Stillwater Canoe, Mushrooms, Foraging classes, Atamasco Lily, foraging USBs, the Green Deane Forum, and donations  

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-463-june-29th-2021/

  462

  If you think you are not allergic to poison Ivy …

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-462-june-22-2021/

  Poison Ivy, Socks and Pythons, Black Cherries, Pokeweed, Yuck, Foraging Classes, Cashews, USBs, the Green Deane Forum, Donations.  

  461

  Sycamores, bacteria, Foraging Classes, Beautyberries, USBs, the Green Deane Forum, Donations, Sweet Acacia

  Sugar maples are famous for their syrup but how many species of trees can you actually tap?

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-461-june-15th-2021/

  460

  What can be said about the Jambul Tree?

  Jambul, Foraging Classes, Maypops, Pindo Palms, Chaya, Foraging USBs, Green Deane Forum, Donations, 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-460-june-8th-2021/

  459

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-459-june-1st-2021/

  For more than 60 years I have associated Lilacs with June.

  Lilacs, American Lotus, Foraging Classes, Chinese Tallow Tree, Eastern Hemlock, foraging USBs, the Green Deane Forum, Donations, toxic Atamaso Lilies. 

  This week’s debatable question is “can you eat elderberries raw?”

  Elderberries, Two-leaf Nightshade, Foraging Classes, Morning Glories, foraging USBs, the Green Deane forum, donations, Jack in the Pulpit 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-458-may-25th-2021/

  457

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-457-may-18th-2021/

  Acres of wild blackberries….

  Blackberries, foraging is illegal, Sea Blite, Foraging classes, Sea Purslane, foraging videos on USBs, the Green Deane Forum, 

  456

  The Bunya Bunya and Norfolk Pine are closely related.

  Bunya Bunya, Norfolk Pine, Allergic reactions, foraging classes, Chickasaw Plums, Blue Mushrooms, cattails, foraging videos on USBs, and the Green Deane Forum, 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-456-may-4th-2021/

  455

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-455-april-27th-2021/

  Is it edible? 

  Evening Primrose, False dandelions, Yucca, Foraging classes, foraging videos on USBs, the Ghreen Deane Forum, 

  454 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-454-april-20-2021/

  Pineapple Guava, Hercule’s Club, Usnea, Miner’s Lettuce, Foraging Classes, Paper Mulberry, Where do you forage, Foraging Videos, the Green Deane Forum, Brookweed, 

  Perhaps no ornamental has been championed as much as the Pineapple Guava

  453

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-453-april-13-2021/

  It’s about time to make a prediction.

  Ringless Honey Mushrooms, Eastern Coral Bean, Foraging Classes, Watercress, Marlberries, Foraging Videos, Green Deane Forum, Donations, 

  452

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-452-april-6th-2021/

  On the east coast of my native state of Maine about seven miles south of Portland is the Town of Scarbrough.

  Paper Mulberries, Foraging Classes, Deer Mushrooms, Hercules Club, USB Videos, Green Deane Forum, Donations.

  451 

  Which tree has more life, the Mulberry or the Moringa? 

  Mulberry, Atamasco lily, Foraging Classes, Blueberries, Huckleberries, Watercress, Foraging USBs,  the Green Deane Forum, Smilax, 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-451-march-30th-2021/

  450

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-450-march-23-2021/

  wisteria, Cherokee Rose, Deer Mushrooms, Foraging Classes, Hydrilla, Garlic, video USBs, Green Deane Forum, Donations

  The weather may be chilly still it’s a hot time of year for foraging. 

  449 

  It’s not June that’s busting out all over but rather Vacciniums, mostly blueberries.

  Vacciniums, groundnuts, evening primroses, foraging classes, video USBs, Pawpaws, Florida Pennyroyal,

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-449-march-16-2021/

  448

  The Greeks were perhaps the first people to call things what they were such as “yoke mate” for spouse or “shiny leather” for the Reishi mushroom.

  Bottlebrush tree, Candyroot, Loquats, Mulberries, Foraging classes. USB, the Green Deane Forum 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-448-march-09-2021/

  447

  Fireweed, Latex Strangler Vine, Foraging Classes, Clover, Bacopa, Violets, USBs, Cashews 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-447-02-march-2021/

  Fireweed/burnweed has a flavor chefs love. 

  446

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-446-feb-23-2021/

  Loquats, Loquat wine, Wild Garlic, Foraging Classes, Chickweed, Lamb’s Quarters,  Toxic Butterweed, Bulrush, USBs, and the Green Deane Forum, 

  While driving around have you seen a tree with large, dark green leaves and yellow fruit?

  445

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-445-feb-16-2021/

  Can you eat red mangroves?

  Mangroves, foraging classes, plantagos, Passion Flowers, Black Medic, USBs&DVDs, Alligator pendent, and the Green Deane Forum  

  444

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-444-february-9th-2021/

  Young and tender describes them best: Elm leaves we nibbled during our foraging class in Gainesville Saturday.

  Elms, Eastern Red Bud, Foraging Classes, Ragweed, Cattails, Coquina, Mole Crabs, USBs & DVDs, the Green Deane Forum, nickerbeans, alligator tooth. 

  443

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-443-february-2-2021/

  If you look across local lakes now you will see ruby red splotches on the horizon. 

  Maples, Drymaria, Foraging Classes, Seaweed, USBs & DVDs, the Green Deane Forum, Jabuticaba, 

  442

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-442-january-26-2021/

  Violets, False Hawk’s Beard, Foraging Classes, Stink Horns, Weed Seeds, USB & DVDs, the Green Deane Forum 

  A common blossom that’s easy to identify is the wild violet. 

  441

  Our mighty stinging nettles are up.

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-441-january-19-2021/

  Stinging nettles, Sow Thistle, Foraging Classes, Chickweed, Wild Geraniums, Silverthorn, USBs & DVDs, and the Green Deane Forum 

  440

  The Western Tansy Mustard is one of our shortest-lived wintertime forageables. 

  Western Tansy Mustard, Eastern Gamagrass, Begonias, Foraging Classes, Spiderworts, USBs&DVDs, the Green Deane Forum, 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-440-january-12th-2021/

  439

  Our tasty winter green chickweed is in its glory. 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-439-january-05-2021/

  Chickweed, Sheep Sorrel, Oxalis, Latex Strangler Vine, Pellitory, Black Medic, Geranium, Horsemint, Henbit, Shepherd’s Purse, Plantain, Wild Mustard Radish, Canna, Cattails, Foraging Classes, Botany Builder #12, USB & DVDs, and the Green Deane Forum

  438

  What difference can 172.4 miles make?

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-438-december-29th-2020/

  Goji berry, Sea Rocket, Black Medic, Harlequin Glorybower, Foraging Classes, Nagi Tree, Glasswort, USBs & DVDs, the Green Deane Forum 

   

  437

  At what point does a “wild” plant become an edible plant?

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-437-december-22-2020/

  Florida Thatch Palm, Sleepy Hibiscus, Cereus, Bauhinia, Foraging Classes, Cockroach Berry, Silverthorn, USBs and DVDs, the Green Deane Forum 

  436 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-436-december-15th-2020/

  Usually we see Christmas Berries about April. 

  Christmas Berries. Foraging Classes, Sow Thistle, Mustards & Radishes, Black Calabash, USBs & DVDs, and the Green Deane Forum  

  435

  Our first sighting of one of our winter comestibles happened Saturday

  Chickweed, Ringless Honey Mushrooms, Foraging Classes, Henbit, Wild Geraniums, Peltate, Is this Plant Edible? foraging USB & DVDs, the Green Deane Forum,  

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-435-december-08-2020/

  434 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-434-december-01-2020/

  Winter Podocarpus, Acerola, Foraging Classes, Chufa, Redflower Ragweed, Weeds of Southern Turf Grasses, foraging USBs &DVDs, the Green Deane Forum.

  Actually there’s nothing wrong with the photo per se, it’s the time of year that’s different.

  433

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-433-november-24-2020/

  Every April of so we go looking for Wild Garlic…

  Wild Garlic, Big Caltrop, Foraging Classes, Ghost Pipes, Balm of Gilead, USBs & DVDs, Green Deane Forum 

  432 

  We are shifting mushrooms seasons from terrestrial to trees or ground to wood.

  Lion’s Mane, Gooseberries, Foraging classes, Sea Purslane, Foraging in urban areas, USB and DVDs, the Green Deane forum 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-432-november-17th-2020/

  431

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-431-november-10-2020/

  While looking for the yellow-blossomed Dandelions…

  Dandelions, Mustard and radishes, Plantains, Foraging Classes, Brazilian Pepper,Skunk Vine, USBs & DVDs, the Green Deane Forum 

  430

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-430-november-3-2020/

  During our foraging class in West Palm Beach Sunday we saw inch-high sprouts of the winter edible Pellitory.

  Pellitory, Poor Man’s Peppergrass, Foraging classes, Seaweed, Jelly Fish, Southern Wax Myrtle, Stinkhorns, Jack Ol Lanterns, USBs & DVDs, the Green Deane Forum. 

  429

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-429-october-27-2020/

  During our foraging class Sunday in Gainesville we dug up a couple of Winged Yams. 

  Winged Yams. Tropical Almond, Foraging Classes, Roses, Bay Leaves, Citron Melon, the Honeycomb Mushroom, USBs and DVDs, the Green Deane Forum.

  428

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-428-october-20-2020/

  Country Wine, Foraging Classes, Chinese Tallow Tree, Caesarweed, Cambium, USBs and DVDs, the Green Deane Forum, and Ceibas

  Three reasons prompted me to resurrect my wine-making past. 

  427

  Mother Nature has her own schedule.

  Ringless Honey Mushrooms, Golden Rain Tree, Foraging Classes, Dragon Fruit, Partridgeberry, DVDs & USB, the Green Deane Forum

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-427-october-13-2020/

  426

  Fall is a good time to write about Yellow Pond Lilys.

  Yellow Pond Lilys, Persimmons, Monstera deliciosa, Turkey Tails, Foraging Classes, Sida, sumacs, two sages and a pusley, USBs and DVDs, and the Green Deane Forum

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-426-october-6-2020/ 

  425

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-425-september-29th-2020/

  The question isn’t whether Reishi mushrooms grow in North America. 

  Reishi mushrooms, Wax Myrtle Berries, Foraging Classes, American Beautyberries, Sea and Wood Oats, Ground Cherries, Anoles, Chestnut Bolete, DVDs and USB, the Green Deane Forum. 

  424

  Horsemint is in season and easy to find. 

  Horsemint, Crowfoot Grass, Foraging Classes, Apples, the aroma of wild food, plant pronunciations, foraging DVDs and USB, the Green Deane Forum,  

  423

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-423-september-15th-2020/

  No one told the Ringless Honey Mushrooms it isn’t November.

  Ringless Honey Mushrooms, the Syzygiums, Foraging Classes, Heartwing Sorrel, Bacopa, Groundnuts, USB and DVDs, and the Green Deane Forum 

  422

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-422-september-8th-2020/

  Pindo and Queen Palms, Canna, Indian Pipes, Foraging Classes, Scrumping, USBs and DVDs, the Green Deane Forum. 

  421

  In the backwoods of Maine where I grew up Dogwoods were small.

  Perennial Peanut, Kousa Dogwood, Sugarberry/Hackberry, Foraging Classes, Ground Cherries, foraging DVDsUSBs, the Green Deane Forum. 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-421-september-01-2020/

  420

  Gracie gets the prize. 

  Black Trumpets, Persimmons, foraging classes, Kudzu, Wild Apples, the toxic False Parasol, foraging USBs and DVDs, and the Green Deane forum. 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-420-august-25th-2020/

  419

  Last Sunday’s foraging class — Haulover Canal — was a hot one with a lot of walking.

  Tallow Plums, Foraging Classes, Goldenrod, Saw Palmettos, White Spiderling, Sumac, foraging DVDS & USBs, 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-419-august-18th-2020/

  418

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-418-august-11-2020/

  There is probably some Syzygium in your kitchen.

  Bunya Bunyas, Syzygiums, Chanterelles,  Cactus Tuna, Sugarberry, Doveweed, Isabelline, foraging DVDs and USB, the Green Deane Forum…

  417

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-417-august-04-2020/

  Wild mints can be prima donnas.

  Horsemint, Russian Thistle, Foraging Classes, Goldenrod, Swamp Mallow, foraging videos, Green Deane Forum, Pindo Palms 

  416

  With apologies this newsletter is starting with the foraging class schedule.

  Wild Grapes, foraging class schedule, Pepper Vine, Podocarpus, Country Wine Update, Sumacs, Saw Palmettos, Foraging Videos, Green Deane Forum, Black Gum

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-416-july-29th-2020/

  415

  July is passing and that means many different things to foragers depending upon your location on the rotation.

  Forked-tendril grapes, pindo palms, cactus, foraging classes, the false roselle, barnyard grass, strawberry guava, foraging DVDs & USB, the green Deane Forum, 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-415-july-21-2020/

  414

  It’s called Pandanus and Screw Pine and a lot of other names as well.

  Pandanus Grass, Smilax walteri, Foraging Classes, Knotweed, Pineapple Weed, Tamarind, Toe Biters, foraging videos on USB, and the Green Deane Forum 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-414-july-14th-2020/

  413

  Is it time to rethink Magnolias? 

  Magnolias, Foraging Classes, Podocarpus, Florida Wine, Bread and Beer, Foraging Videos on USB, Green Deane Forum, Strawberry Guavas

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-413-july-7-2020/

  412

  First an apology to those who showed up for a class last Sunday at Haul Over Canal to find, like me, the road closed.

  Chamberbitters, foraging classes, Grapes, Magnolias, videos on USB, Green Deane Forum, and Bacopa 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-412-june-30th-2020/

  411

  What can be said about the Jambul Tree? 

  Jambul Tree, Foraging Classes, Morning Glories, Boletes, Poke Sallet, Tindora, Foraging Videos on USBs, and the Green Deane Forum 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-411-june-23-2020/

  410

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-410-june-16th-2020/

  Sugar maples are famous for their syrup but how many species of trees can you actually tap?

  Tapping trees, grapes, foraging classes, American Beautyberries, Creeping Fig, Richardia, videos on USBs and the Green Deane Forum 

  409

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-409-june-9-2020/

  There’s an old song “what a difference a day makes.”

  Mushroom class, foraging classes, Natal Plum, Surinam Cherries, Foraging videos on USBs, the Green Deane Forum. 

  408

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-408-june-2-2020/

  Yellow ponds, that’s how I think of it, or in some places, yellow rivers.

  American Lotus, Jack in the Pulpit, Black Cherries, a toxic lily, Chinese Tallow Tree, Foraging Classes, Maypops, Videos on USBs, and the Green Deane Forum.

  407

  In the realm of plant populations there is endangered, threatened then rare. 

  Candyroot, American Lotus, Foraging Classes, Eggs, USBs and the Green Deane Forum 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-407-may-26-2020/

  406

  This was a “Prunus” foraging week. 

  Chickasaw Plums, Indigo Milk Cap, Black Medic, Foraging Classes, Cattails, Foraging Videos, Podocarpus, Wine Making, Blue Porter Weed, Green Deane Forum, Wild Pineapple. 

   https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-406-may-19-2020/

  405

  We are in between mushroom seasons, so to speak.

  Boletes, Society Garlic, Gopher Apples, Foraging Classes, Foraging DVDs/USBs, Botany Builder #28, Maypops, Toxic Cherry Laurel, Cochineal Dye, and the Green Deane Forum. 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-12-may-2020/

  404

  This week’s debatable question is “can you eat elderberries raw?”

  Elderberries, Grapes, Common Plant Names, Redflower Ragweed, Fakahatchee Grass, Ground Nuts, Foraging Classes, Foraging videos, Wild Coffee and Coralberry, the Green Deane Forum. 

   

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-05-may-2020/

  403

  Now is a good time to go looking for blackberries. 

  Blackberries, Pineapple Guava, the Bacopas, Foraging Classes, Foraging Videos now on USB drives, Eastern Coral Bean, Coquina, Green Deane Forum, and Cotton 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-28-april-2020/

  401-402 

  At one time there were just Opuntias.

  Cactus, Gopher Apples,  Deerberries, Foraging Classes, Mushrooms, Foraging DVDs, Persimmons, Avocados, Paper Mulberry, Pawpaw, Smartweed, Green Deane Forum and YUCK!, 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-april-14-21-2020/

  400

  Watercress grew in a ditch behind an apartment complex I lived in near Sanford, Florida…

  Watercress, Wild Garlic, Marlberries, Chokeberries, American Nightshade, Chamberbitter, Green Deane Forum, Donations, DVDs 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-7-april-2020/

  399

  Blossoming this time of year is the Eastern Coral Bean, sometimes called the Cherokee Bean.

  Eastern Coral Bean, Sea Blite, Foraging Classes, Pineapple Guava, Foraging DVDs, Variegated Mahoe, Australian Pine, Bananas, Green Deane Forum, Donations, Making Wine 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-31-march-2020/

  398

  If you have an established ivy gourd…

  Ivy Gourd, Swinecress, Foraging Classes, Cashews, Henbit, Purslane, DVDs, Green Deane Forum, Donations, Basswood, 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-24-march-2020/

  397

  A common blossom that’s easy to identify is the wild violet.

  Violets, Seablite, Loquats, foraging classes, Redflower Ragweed,  Latex Strangler Vine, Green Deane Forum, Donations, DVDs, Ivy Gourd 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-17-march-2020/

  396

  Fireweed/Burnweed has a flavor chefs love.

  Fireweed/Burnweed, Clover, Foraging Classes, Waning Weeds, Fungi, Creeping Cucumber, Bacopa, Pennyroyal, DVDs, Green Deane Forum, Donations 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-10-march-2020/

  395

  A few newsletters ago it was mentioned the Mulberries were in blossom.

  Mulberries, foraging classes, Pawpaws, Time Change, Dandelions and False Dandelions, Winter Plants and Wintergreen, Green Deane Forum, DVDs, Donating, and foraging photo #19 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-3-march-2020/ 

  394

  Species in the Rumex genus can be difficult.

  Rumex, Foraging Classes, Citron Melons, Loquat, Clover, Green Deane Forum, Foraging DVDS, Donations, 

   https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-25-february-2020/

  393

  What are those white blossoms?

  Plums, Hawthorns, Pawpaw, Foraging Classes, Blewit, Wild Garlic,  Plantagos, Green Deane Forum, DVDs, Donations, Botany Builder #38.

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-18-february-2020/

  392

  It’s time for my annual warning about Butterweed

  Butterweed, Bulrush, Foraging Classes, Wild Pineapple, Red Powder Puff, DVDs, Creeping Indigo warning, Green Deane forum, donations, 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-11-february-2020/

  391

  Most trees in the Pea Family are toxic but not all of them.

  Eastern redbud, Cattails, Pines, Foraging Classes, Coquina and Mole Crabs, Acorns, Plantagos, DVDs, the Green Deane Forum 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-04-february-2020/

  390

  While driving through the middle of the peninsula this week I noticed Lambsquarters in their most common seasonal place: Citrus groves.

  Lambsquarters, Foraging Classes, Passifloras, Doveweed, Axils, Jelly Fish, DVDs, the Green Deane Forum, Donations 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-28-january-2020/

  389

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-21-january-2020/

  Cladonia is a large genus of edible but not tasty lichen.

  Lichen, foraging classes, Botany Builder 28, Wild Lettuce, Removing Invasive Species, Botanical Names, Black Medic, Foraging DVDs, the Green Deane Forum, Donations

  388

  It’s rather obvious that wintertime foraging varies where you live.

  Winter Foraging, Chickweed and edible friends, Foraging classes, Sublimed sulfur, A cheap foraging book, Details and Solanum Americanum, Oyster Mushrooms, DVDs, Donations and the Green Deane Forum. 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-14-january-2020/

  387

  Eastern Gamagrass, aka Fakahatchee Grass, is an edible you don’t see and then you do.

  Eastern Gamagrass, Ivy Gourd, Foraging Classes, Teas, Botany Builder #10, Carpetweed, Donations, Foraging DVDs, the Green Deane Forum 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-7-january-2020/

  386

  There’s no reason to buy mustard greens now.

  Wild mustard and radish, Butter and Ruby Boletes, Foraging Classes, Edible Blossoms, Surinam Cherries, toxic Creeping Indigo. 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-31-december-2019/

  385

  It’s a good time to mention the toxic Butterweed and Rattlebox.

  Butterweed, Foraging Classes, Roses, Hawthorns, Euell Gibbons and Nutrition, Rattlebox 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-24-december-2019/

  384

  Plants give you something to look forward to especially if you know where and when to look.

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-17-december-2019/

  Wild Garlic, Chickweed, Goosegrass, Sow Thistle, Stinging Nettles, Dandelions, Sycamore, Foraging Classes, Tar Vine, Desert Horse Purslane, Green Deane Forum, DVDs, Go Fund Me, Urban Crawl

  383

  Mother Nature can be fickle and it’s almost always tied to weather.

  Grapes, Swinecress, Silverthorn, Foraging Classes, False Hawk’s Beard, Jelly Ears, Botany Builder #31,  Cactus, the Green Deane Forum, Foraging DVDs, Go Fund Me 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-10-december-2019/

  382

  Pyracanthas are furious in the fall.

  Pyrachanthas Chinese and Siberian Elms, Silverthorn, Foraging Classes, Drymaria, Botany Builder #30, Magnolia Blossoms, Ginkgo, Foraging DVDs, the Green Deane Forum, Go Fund Me, Pollination in a word, and Remembering Nefertiti

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-3-december-2019/

  381

  This time of year two wintertime foragables come up, one quite esteemed the other barely edible.

  Henbit, Wild  Geraniums, Foraging Classes, Chickweed, Horse Nettle & Tropical Soda Apple,  Bananas

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-26-november-2019/

  380

  wild Mustards and radishes, Toxic Water Hemlock, Smartweed, Foraging Classes, Golden Rain Tree, Skunk Vine, Scat Contamination, Lady Bugs, and Lion’s Mane 

  Many foraging books are what I call “Ohio-centric.”

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-19-november-2019/

  379

  Dandelions, Seaweed, Foraging classes, Jellyfish, Wax Myrtle Berries, the Stinkhorn and Jack O’Lanterns, Mustards and Radishes, the Green Deane Forum, Donations, and foraging DVDs  

  Dandelion blossoms, ten pounds of sugar, and two cakes of bread yeast became my first batch of wine.

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-05-november-2019/

  378

  Edible Mushrooms, Foraging Classes, Tie Change, Blue and Red Sages and Oakleaf Flea Bane, Chinese Elm, Christmasberries, Wild Mustards, donations, DVDs, the Green Deane Forum. 

  Unusual rains last week coaxed more life out of several edible mushroom species that were seasonally put to bed a month ago.

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-29-october-2019/

  377

  Cucumber Tree, Paul Dreher, Sida, Turkey Tails, Foraging Classes, Palmate Leaves, Richardia, Perennial Peanut, Caesarweed, Botanical Names, Donations, Foraging DVDs, the Green Deane Forum. 

  Foraging is treasure hunting for adults

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-22-october-2019/

  376

  As is often the case one can walk past edible species many times and not notice them.

  Cinnamon, Dragon Fruit, Foraging Classes, Sumac, Persimmons, Yellow Pond Lily, Donations, Foraging DVDs, the Green Deane Forum 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-15-october-2019/

  375

  The fruiting of species can be a mystery. 

  Cocoplums, Simpson Stopper, Coconut borer, Southern Wax Myrtle, Foraging Classes, Ringless Honey Mushrooms, White American Beautyberries, Wood Oats, Donations, foraging DVDs,  the Green Deane Forum 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-08-october-2019/

  skipped a week, wordpress down

  374

  Panicum is a very common group of edible native and non-native grasses in Florida and North America.

  Panic Grass, Aromas, Plant Pronunciations, Foraging Classes, Purslane, Pindo Palm Wine, Donations, DVDs, the Green Deane Forum

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-24-september-2019/(opens in a new tab)

  373

  It’s the time of year to talk about Saw Palmetto berries.

  Saw Palmettos, Tallow Plum, Foraging Classes, Wild Apples, Elevation, Donations, DVDs, the Green Deane Forum

  Newsletter 17 September 2019

  372

  Seagrapes are coming into season.

  Seagrapes, Doveweed, Foraging near roads. Foraging Classes this week, Black & Sweet Gums, Isabelline and Mushrooms of the Gulf South. 

  Newsletter 10 September 2019

  371

  Newsletter 03 September 2019

  Labor Day used to mean more than hurricanes threatening the east coast from Florida to Maine.

  Labor Day, Creeping Fig, Foraging Classes in spite of Hurricane Dorian, Liatris, Poke Weed, Yellow Pond Lilly,  Poke Weed, Mosquitos & Beer, Lawns Aren’t Green, donations, 

  370

  It’s the time of year when Horsemint is easy to find. 

  Horsemint, Cocoplums, Natal Plumbs; Mushroom, Chitin, Arsenic and Insects; Stevia and Ragweed, Foraging Classes, Railroad Tracks, Goldenrod, Go Fund Me

  Newsletter 27 August 2019

  369

  I never receive mail about Lion’s Ear.

  Newsletter 20 August 2019

  Lion’s Ear, Brazilian Nightshade, Foraging Classes, Sida, Gopher Apples and Tallow Plums, White Chicken of the Woods, Go Fund Me, Foraging DVDs, the Green Deane Forum. 

  368

  The Water Hyacinth is blooming and no doubt many people are irritated by that.

  Newsletter 13 August 2019

  Water Hyacinth, Milk Cap Mushrooms, Foraging Classes, Kudzu, Green Deane Forum, DVDs, Go Fund Me, and I need a webmaster. 

  367

  Bunya Bunya get no respect 

  Bunya Bunya, Red Spiderling, Goldenrod, Sugarberry, Foraging Classes, Horsemint, Sweet Gum/Black Gum, The False Parasol: A mushroom to avoid, Green Deane Forum, Russian Thistle and railroad tracks, Foraging DVDs, Go Fund me, and I need a webmaster.

  Newsletter 6 August 2019

  366

  What’s in season to forage? Many species now perhaps because of unusual weather pattens this year.

  What plants can you forage for now, what mushrooms can you forage now, foraging classes, Blue Porter Weed, DVDs, the Green Deane Forum, Go Fund Me 

  365

  It’s common yet uncommon, that is, not rare but you don’t notice it too often. 

  Hawthorns, American Lotus, Upcoming foraging class schedule, Chanterelles, Burgoo and Loblollies, Donations, the Green Deane Forum, foraging DVDs 

  Newsletter 23 July 2019

  364

  One more abbreviated newsletter with schedule because I have been teaching out-of-state. 

  Newsletter 16 July 2019

  Newsletter 23 July 2019

  363

  Newsletter 9 July 2019

  This and next week’s newsletters (July 9 & 16, 2019) are abbreviated because…

  362

  One would think that with a name like “Barnyard Grass” one would find the species in barnyards. 

  Barnyard Grass, Strawberry Guava, Seaside Gentian, Spanish Needles, Toxic polypore, Foraging Classes, Teaching in South Carolina, Go Fund Me, the Green Deane Forum, foraging DVDs 

  Newsletter 2 July 2019

  361

  Yes it is edible but….

  The other White Chicken-of-the-Woods, Two-Leaf Solanum, Norfolk Pines and the Bunya Bunya, Foraging Classes Florida,  Foraging Classes South Carolina. Go Fund Me, the Green Deane Forum, and foraging DVDs 

  Newsletter 25 June 2019

  360

  Ground cherries locally tend to have two seasons, spring and fall. 

  Ground Cherries, South Carolina Foraging Classes, new food crops, Florida Foraging Classes, the Winged Yam, Passion Flower, the toxic Cherry Laurel, Go Fund Me, the Green Deane Forum, foraging DVDs

  Newsletter 18 June 2019

  359

  Yellow ponds, that’s how I think of it, or in some places, yellow rivers.

  American Lotus, South Carolina Foraging Classes, Local Foraging Classes, the toxic Atamasco Lily, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Juniper Berries, Go Fund Me, Green Deane Forum, DVDs, the Chinese Tallow tree 

  Newsletter 11 June 2019

  358

  From a foraging point of view it was a very berry weekend starting with Coastal Ground Cherries, Physalis angustifolia in Port Charlotte.

  Ground Cherries, Cassine, Marco Island, Classes in South Carolina, Foraging Classes Florida, How Safe Is Foraging, Go Fund Me, the Green Deane Forum, DVDs  

  Newsletter 4 June 2019

  357

  The first time I ever saw red poppies growing was in Athens on my first visit to Greece

  Corn Poppies, Impatiens, Smartweed, Mushroom Update, Foraging Classes, Botany Builder #28 Echinate, Blue Porterweed, Green Deane Forum, Go Fund Me, DVDs, and Wild Pineapple 

  Newsletter 28 May 2019

  356

  If you were starving and came upon a patch of cattails you would have great cause for celebration.

  Cattails, Kudzu, Acorns, Lantana, Foraging Classes, Gopher Apples, Go Fund Me, and foraging DVDs 

  Newsletter 21 May 2019

  355

  The American Nightshade is a much-maligned plant

  American Nightshade, Ground Cherry, Blueberries et cetera, Carolina Bristle Mallow, Foraging Classes, Juniper Berries, Donations, the Green Deane Forum, foraging DVDs

  Newsletter 14 May 2019

  354

  There’s an odd kind of mulberry here in Florida. 

  Basswood (The Linden/Lime Tree) Chestnut Bolete, Foraging Classes, Kudzu, Wild Pineapple, Winged Yam, Foraging DVDs, Ivy Gourd, Donations, Gamagrass/Fakahatchee Grass, the Green Deane Forum 

  Newsletter 7 May 2019

  353

  There’s still time to look for Sea Blite, a seasonal salt-tolerant species that’s here this month, gone next month

  Sea Blite, Sugarberry, Foraging Classes, the Mahoe, Partridgeberry, Marlberries Revisited, DVDs, Donations and the Green Deane Forum. 

  Newsletter 30 April 2019

  352

  By April Stinging Nettles are usually gone for the season.

  Newsletter 23 April 2019

  Stinging nettles, Green Mushrooms,  Suriname Cherries, Wild Garlic, Foraging Classes, Miner’s Lettuce, Confederate Jasmine, Florida Pennyroyal, Redvein Abutilon, DVDs, Go Fund Me, and the Green Deane Forum 

  351

  If you are in the habit of eating wild mushrooms

  Newsletter 16 April 2019

  Five Edible Wild Mushrooms, Pineapple Guava, Eastern Coral Bean, Forestiera segregata the Florida Privet, Weekly Foraging Classes, Wild Edibles and locations they like, DVDs, the Green Deane Forum, and Go Fund Me 

  350

  Watercress/Wintercress grew in a ditch behind an apartment complex I lived in…

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-09-april-2019/

  Watercress, Wild Garlic, Upcoming Foraging Classes, Marlberries, Chokeberry, Making You Own Vinegar, Usnea, DVDS, Green Deane Forum, Go Fund Me, A Leafing Hickory 

  349

  Tallow Plums are something of a botanical mystery.

  Newsletter 2 April 2019

  Tallow Plums, Wild Garlic, Blueberries and relatives, Toothache Tree as a source of pepper, Foraging Classes, Eastern Coral Bean, American Nightshade, Soon it will be mushroom season, Green Deane Forum, Foraging DVDs, Go Fund Me. 

  348

  A few newsletters ago it was mentioned Mulberries were in blossom…

  Newsletter 26 March 2019

  Mulberries, Creeping Cucumber, Coco-plums, Foraging Classes and a new location, toxic Butterweed, Suriname Cherries, Green Deane Forum DVDS, Fermenting Spiderwort, Go Fund Me…  

  347

  Pawpaws can be among the most difficult and easy wild fruits to find.

  Newsletter 19 March 2019

  Pawpaws, Eating Grass, Foraging Classes, sickening Tropical Sage, Wisteria, Gladiolus, Raceme vs Spike, the Green Deane Forum, DVDs, Go Fund Me. 

  346

  With an impossible scientific name and strong aroma Fireweed is often over looked by the foraging community.

  Fireweed, Mayflowers, Lilacs, Pussy Willows, Foraging Classes, Mistetoe, Green Deane Forum, DVDs, Go Fund Me, Drying Loquats

  Newsletter 12 March 2019

  345

  Most foragers know Smilax tips are edible.

  Newsletter 5 March 2019

  Smilax berries, Marlberries, Daylight Saving Time, True Thistles, Coquina & Mole Crabs, Botanical Names, Foraging Classes, the Green Deane Forum, DVDs, and Go Fund Me 

  344

  Heads up, literally: Loquats are ripening.

  Newsletter 26 February 2019

  Loquats, Blackberries, Mulberries. Maypops, Creeping Cucumbers, Dollarweed, Strange Time of Year, Foraging Classes,  Eau de Rodent, Turkey Berry,  Toxic Tomatoes, the Green Deane Forum, DVDs, Go Fund Me, 

  343

  Lamb’s Quarters… Fat Hen… and where to find it.

  Newsletter 19 February 2019

  Lamb’s Quarters, Citron Melons, Last Average Frost Date,  Maple Seeds, Eastern Red Bud, Pink Tabebuia, Loquats, Pawpaws, Surinam Cherries, Cocoplum, Wild Mustard, Wild Radish, Blackberries. Agaricus campestris, Foraging Classes, Go Fund Me, DVDs, Green Deane Forum, Plantago rugelii  

  342

  The Western Tansy Mustard is one of our shortest-lived winter-time forageables.

  Newsletter 12 February 2019

  Western Tansy Mustard, Bittercress, Micro-Mustards, Black Medic, Foraging Classes, Florida Herbal Conference, Doveweed, the Larch, Tulips, Go Fund Me, Green Deane Forum, DVDs,  

  341

  Going north to forage is always pleasant this time of year. 

  Newsletter 5 February 2019

  Wild Garlic, Black Cherry vs Laurel Cherry, Elderberries, Foraging Classes, Lawns Aren’t Green, Florida Herbal Conference, Go Fund Me, the Green Deane Forum, Foraging DVDs 

  340

  Yeah… that’s a mouthful…

  Male Pine Cones, Poorman’s Pepper Grass and Maca, Perennial Peanut, Foraging Classes, Seaweeds, Dandelions, Nicker Beans, Florida Herbal Conference, Go Fund Me, the Green Deane Forum, Foraging DVDs, and Trametes lactinea.

  Newsletter 29 January 2019

  339

  An often overlooked wild edible is Bulrush.

  Newsletter 22 January 2019

  Bulrushes, Candyroot, Florida Pennyroyal, Sow Thistle, Wild Pineapple, Florida Herbal Conference, Calliandra, Foraging Classes, Blewits, Magnesium Deficiencies, DVDs, Green Deane Forum, Go Fund Me, Spanish Cherries 

  338

  Newsletter 15 January 2019

  A common blossom that’s easy to identify is the wild violet. It’s cultivated brethren is the pansy.

  Violets, foraging mistakes, upcoming foraging classes, the Florida Herbal Conference, Bauhinias, False Hawks Beard, Green Eyes, Florida Privet, foraging DVDs, the Green Deane Forum, Go Fund Me, Swinecress, Stink Horns, and Lawns Aren’t Green. 

  337

  Newsletter 08 January 2019

  There are Plantains that look like tough bananas and there are Plantains that are low and leafy plants. 

  Plantains/Plantagos, Fleabane, Goji Berry, Sycamore tree, Sublimed Sulfur, Richardia, Foraging Classes, Foraging DVDs, the Green Deane Forum, Go Fund Me.  

  336

  Newsletter, 01 January 2019

  Newsletter, 01 January 2019

  Making their winter debut are our stinging nettles and they might have the second-worst nettle sting on earth.

  Stinging nettles, Sow Thistles, Chickweed, Foraging Classes, Podocarpus Mystery, Hen Bit, the “Bills”, Wax Myrtle Berries, Foraging DVDs, the Green Deane Forum, Go Fund Me

  335

  Newsletter 18-25 December 2018

  Newsletter 18-25 December 2018

  Newsletter 18-25 December 2018

  A winter edible you should be scouting for is Galium aparine, or Goosegrass…

  Goosegrass, Jelly Ears, False Hawk’s Beard, Roses, Nickerbeans, Christmasberry, Dandelion, Lemon Bacopa and it’s evil bitter sister Water Hyssop, Foraging Classes, Pinellas County, Foraging Videos, Go Fund Me, Green Deane Forum, Thistle Seeds, 8th Annual Urban Crawl 

  334

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-11-december-2018/

  Pyracanthas are furious in the fall. Their brilliant red berries stand out in every landscape 

  Pyracanthas, Gingko, Chickweed, Hibiscus, Bauhinia, Foraging Classes, Death By Apple Seeds, Green Deane Forum, Foraging DVDs, Go Fund Me, can you ID the edibles? 

  333

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-04-december-2018/

  Both the Chinese and Siberian elms have several edible parts.

  Chinese and Siberian elms, if an animal can eat it, West Indian Chickweed, upcoming Foraging Classes, Passiflora lutea, the Green Deane Forum, Go Fund Me, Foraging videos, and oaks   

  332

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-27-november-2018/

  Foragers benefit from bad ideas. 

  Silverthorn, Little Mustards, Creeping Cucumber, Foraging Classes, Go Fund Me, Wax Myrtle, Green Deane Forum, Indian Pipes, Foraging Videos, 

  331

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-20-november-2018/

  The seasons are changing and so is the foraging with a shift into not only fall but winter plants.

  Christmasberry, Sugarberry, Foraging Classes, Carpetweed, Beefsteak Polypore, Go Fund Me. Green Deane Forum, Foraging videos

  330

  Common plant names can be so misleading. 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-13-november-2018/

  Silk Floss Tree, Pandanus Grass, Sand Spurs, Stinging Nettle, Foraging Classes, Chicken of the Woods, Go Fund Me, Foraging DVDs, and the Green Deane Forum  

  329

  We don’t have the opportunity to often use the word “windfall”…

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-november-06-2018/

  Chinese elm, pines and inner bark, jellyfish, wild oaks and sea purslane, foraging classes, personal notes, donations, DVD and the Green Deane Forum 

  328

  The tree is easy to find but is it edible? 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-30-october-2018/

  Golden Rain Tree, Daylight Saving Time, Back Yard Foraging and Pets, Foraging Classes, Smartweed, Go Fund Me, DVDs, and the Green Deane Forum

  327

  Learning about edible wild plants seem intimidating at first.

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-23-october-2018/

  Ringless Honey Mushroom, Foraging Class Schedule,  Morning Glories, Go Fund Me, DVDs, and the Green Deane Forum, 

  326

  Our Sumacs are happy. 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-16-october-2018/

  Sumacs, Persimmons, What is Edible? Foraging Classes, Perennial Peanut, Sea Grapes, Go Fund Me, Green Deane Forum, foraging DVDs, 

  325 

  This might be a good time to write about Yellow Pond Lilys.

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-09-october-2018/

  Yellow Pond Lily, Papaya and Castor Beans, Sida, Turkey Tails, False Turkey Tails, Foraging Classes, DVDs, Go Fund Me, Green Deane Forum. 

  324

  Is it edible? Yes, no, maybe…

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-2-october-2018/

  Chinese Tallow Tree, Caesarweed, Horsemint, Oyster Mushrooms, Foraging Classes, DVDs, Go Fund Me, the Green Deane Forum. 

  323

  Seasons can be subtle

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-25-september-2018/

  Seasons, Jambul Tree, Mushrooming, Saw Palmaettos, Foraging Classes. Toxic Caterpillars, Foraging Videos, and the Green Deane Forum. 

  322

  It was on the side of the bike trail, half squished.

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-18-september-2018/

  Persimmons, Ringless Honey Mushrooms, Bananas, Foraging Classes, Peppervine, Foraging Videos, Green Deane Forum, 

  321

  In the backwoods of Maine where I grew up Dogwoods were small.

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-11-september-2018/

  Kousa Dogwood, Canna, Ground Cherries, Cocoplums, Foraging Classes, Foraging DVDs, Go Fund Me, the Green Deane Forum, OMG!, Carpetweed, Indian Pipes 

  320

  In the olden BC days… before computers…

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-04-september-2018/

  Fall foraging, foraging classes, DVDs, Green Deane Forum,  Go Fund me, Creeping Fig 

  319

  Still unpacking from my road trip (which is my excuse for this shorter-than-usual weekly newsletter.)

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-28-august-2018/

  Mushroom class, foraging class in South Carolina, Foraging Classes, Kudzu, Radium Weed, DVDs, Go Fund Me, the Green Deane Forum  

  318

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-21-august-2018/

  This is an abbreviated newsletter

  Foraging class schedule for August and September 2018

  317

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-14-august-2018/

  Bunya Bunya get no respect in countries where people have plenty of food.

  Bunya Bunya, Norfolk Pine,  Black Gum, Sugarberry, Erect Spiderling, Green Deane Forum, Foraging DVDs, Foraging Classes, Go Fund Me, 

  316

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-08-august-2018/

  There’s an old phrase: “Sometimes you have to bow to the absurd”

  Chanterelles, Black Trumpet, Sumac, Foraging Classes, Horsemint, Green Deane Forum, DVDs, Go Fund Me, 

  315

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-31-july-2018/

  Putting on black fruit now is the much-debated Peppervine, Ampelopsis arborea.

  Peppervine, Pindo Palms, Foraging Classes, Americaln Lotus, DVDs, Green Deane Forum, Where the wild food is.  

  314

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-24-july-2018/

  Our foraging class in Port Charlotte this past week was above and beyond if you like fruit.

  Cocoplums,  Jambul Tree, Mangos, Ground Cherries, Foraging Classes, Fermenting Mushrooms, Blue Porterweed, Foraging DVDs, the Green Deane Forum, 

  313 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-17-july-2018/

  Millions of dollars and many decades have been spent trying to eradicate the edible pictured above.

  Latex Strangler Vine, Beefstake Polypore, Sugarberry, Foraging Classes, Eastern Gammagrass, Purslane, Green Deane Forum, Foraging DVDs, Lawns Aren’t Green, 

  312

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-10-july-2018/

  Lobsters… no, not the kind from the sea but the woods: Lobster mushrooms. 

  Magnolias, Lobster Mushrooms, Foraging Classes, Carpetweed, Green Deane Forum, Foraging DVDs, Bacterial Considerations, 

  311

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-3-july-2018/

  There’s a wonderfully aromatic plant that prefers to hide most of the year.

  Horsemint, Tallow Plum, Orlando Mushroom Group, Pecan Truffles, Foraging Classes, and DVDs 

  310

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-26-june-2018/

  Podocarpus does not, as they used to say, have an attitude.

  Podocarpus, Simpson Stopper, Orlando Mushroom Group, Foraging Classes, Jack In The Pulpit, Green Deane Forum, and foraging DVDs. 

  309

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-19-june-2018/

  Paper Mulberries are related to bread fruit. 

  Paper Mulberries, St. John’s Mint, Black Gum, Podocarpus, Poison Sumac, Foraging Classes, DVDs, Green Deane Forum, Blue Porterweed

  308

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-12-june-2018/

  Sorting out Morning Glories, Maypops and plants with cyanide, a Bolete with no name, Foraging Classes, Eating Little Red Bugs, the Green Deane Forum, Foraging DVDs,  

  307

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-05-june-2018/

  Yellow ponds, that’s how I think of it…

  American Lotus, Black Cherry,  Foraging Classes, Toxic Atamasco,  Milk Caps. The Old Man of the Woods, Green Deane Forum, Chinese Tallow tree, foraging DVDs, 

  306

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-29-may-2018/

  Yucca is not Yuca. Or said another way: YOU-ka is not YUK-ka.

  Yucca, Matchhead, Oaxaca Lemon Verbena, Doveweed, Ficus Racemosa, American Nightshade, Foraging Classes, DVDs, Green Deane Forum, Eastern Hemlock 

  305 

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-22-may-2018/

  The Orlando Mushroom Group (OMG!) met Sunday for their first fungal foray of the year. 

  Orlando Mushroom Group, Pawpaws, Foraging Classes, Pregnancy and Plants,  Green Deane Forum, Foraging DVDs, Go Fund Me, and Chanterelles. 

  304

  Spiderworts got me in trouble once

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-15-may-2018/

  Spiderworts, Pond Apples, Sea Oxeye, Foraging Classes, OMG mushroom hunt, Go Fund Me, Green Deane Forum, Foraging DVDs, Botany Builder 26,   

  303

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-08-may-2018/

  Not all of botany is settled.

  Grapes, Ivy Gourd, Eastern Gamagrass, Foraging Classes, DVDs, Green Deane Forum, Go Fund Me, the Orlando Mushroom Group, 

  302 

  Sea Purslane and Purslane are not the same species

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-01-may-2018/

  Sea Purslane, Sargassum, Morning Glories, Foraging Classes,  Foraging DVDs, Green Deane Forum, Orlando Mushroom Group, Go Fund Me, Jack in the Pulpits, 

  301

  The American Nightshade is poised to fruit heavily.

  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-24-april-2018/

  American Nightshade, Blackberries, Orlando Mushroom Group, Common Fungi of South Florida, Foraging Classes, Ivy Gourd, Green Deane Forum, Foraging DVDs, Go Fund Me, 

  Newsletters in chronological order

•  29 November2016:  https://www.eattheweeds.com/newsletter-6-december-2016/ Issue 235: What do you see #25, Beautyberries, Simpson Stoppers, Wild Pineapples, Where To Find Wild Edibles. Foraging Classes, A possible edible shrub? Bananas, Foraging DVDs and the Green Deane Forum
• 22 November 2016:  Issue 234 Dandelions, Goji Berries, Wapato, Foraging Classes, Foraging DVDs, the Green Deane Forum
• 15 November 2016: Issue 233: Chinese Elm, Wild Lettuce, Horsemint, Smartweed, Beautyberry, Brazilian Pepper, Winged Sumac, Foraging Classes, DVDs, the Green Deane Forum,
• 08 November 2016:  Issue 232. Cucumber Weed, Honey Mushrooms, Creeping Cucumber, Tallow Plum, Christmasberry, Foraging Classes, Green Deane DVD, and the Green Deane Forum.
• 01 November 2016: Issue 231: Edible Wild Radish, Deadly Water Hemlock, Peppery Smartweed, Crushed Acorns, Foraging Classes, DVDs and the Green Deane Forum
• 25 October   2016: Issue 230: Tropical Almond, How Kids Learn, Foraging Classes, Dove Plums, the Green Deane Forum and foraging DVDs.
• 18 October 2016: Issue 229: Do you need to know the botanical names? Morning Glories, Persimmons, Yam A, Foraging Classes, Green Deane Forum, DVDs, Acorn Bread.
• 11 October 2016: Issue 228: Harvesting windfall, is the ground polluted? the Green Deane Forum and foraging DVDs
• 04 October 2016: Issue 227: Carpetweed, foraging and bacteria, foraging classes, the Green Deane Forum, and foraging DVDs.
• 27 September 2016: Issue 226: Acorns, Creeping Fig, Jewels of Opar, Foraging Classes, Ft. Desoto, Chaya, Green Deane Forum, foraging DVDs.
•  20 September 2016: Issue 225: Hackberry – Sugarberry, Kudzu, Skunk Vine, Foraging Classes, Persimmons, Green Deane DVDs and the Green Deane Forum.
• 13 September 2016: Issue 224: Water Hyacinth, Panic Grass, Foraging Classes, DVDs, Pindo Wine, the Green Deane Forum
• 06 September 2016: Issue 223: Learning how to forage, what’s in season now, foraging classes, Green Deane DVDs, the Green Deane Forum.
• 30 August 2016 was a fifth Tuesday. No newsletter was published.
• 23 August 2016: Issue 222: Beautyberries, grapes, Pindo Palm, Simpson Stopper, Horsemint, Saw Palmetto, Persimmons, Maine Blueberries, milkweed pods, foraging classes., DVDs, the Green Deane Forum, medicinal and edible mushrooms.
• 16 August 2016: Issue 221: Horsemint, Pindo Wine, Begonias, Goldenrod, Foraging Classes, Green Deane Forum, Foraging DVDs, Beautyberries,
• 09 August 2016: Issue 220: Black Cherry, Black Gum, Black Pepper Vine Fruit, the North American Ebony, persimmon, foraging classes, DVDs, and the Green Deane Forum.
• 02 August 2016: Issue 219: Pindo Palms, White Boerhavia, Water Hyssop and memory, Hackberries, Foraging Classes, DVDs, the Green Deane Forum, and Wild Grpaes
• 26 July 2016: Issue 218: The Jambul Tree, Norfolk Pine, Hairy Cow Pea, Magnifying Glass, Foraging classes, DVDs, the Green Deane Forum, and Simpson Stoppers.
• All data on site between April 16 and June 8th were lost because of Hostgator’s incompetence. That included many newsletters.
• 12 April 2016: Issue 203: Finding Pawpaws, blossoming Eastern Coral Bean, fruiting Mulberries, the Mahoe, Partridgeberries in Florida! Upcoming foraging classes and ForageFest, the Green Deane Forum and DVDs.
• 5 April 2016: No newsletter because of hacking attempt.
• 29 March 2016: Issue 202: Ivy Gourd or Tindora, Bidens alba, Fermenting, Loquats, Foraging Classes and DVDs.
• 22 March 2016:  Issue 201: Linden Tree, Fermenting Spiderwort, Avocado Seeds, Foraging Classes, DVDs
• 15 March 2016: Issue 200: Identifying Garden Weeds, Loquats, Butterweed, New Class Location, Upcoming Foraging Classes, the Green Deane Forum, Foraging DVDs, 200th Newsletter!
• 8 March 2016: Issue 199: Garden weeds, finding edible weeds, Western Tansy Mustard, Foraging Classes, Sow thistles, Green Deane Forum and  DVDs.
• 1 March 2016: Issue 198: Florida Herbal Conference 2016, Poor Man’s Pepper Grass and Maca, Foraging Classes, Seaweed, Free Mustard Seeds, Green Deane DVDs, and the Green Deane Forum.
• 23 February 2016: Issue 197: The Eastern Redbud and Chickasaw Plum, Wild Radishes and Mustards, Earthskills and Florida Herbal Conference 2016, Upcoming Foraging Classes, Free Mustard Seeds, Green Deane DVDs, and the Green Deane Forum.
• 16 February 2016: Issue 196: Sow Thistles, Thorns, Spines and Prickles, the Green Deane Forum, Foraging Classes. Florida Herbal Conference, Free Mustard Seeds, Green Deane’s DVDs.
• 9 February 2016: Issue 195: Silverthorns, Plantagos, Foraging Classes, Florida Herbal Conference, Foraging DVDs, free Red Mustard seeds.
• 2 February 2016: Issue 194: Tulips, Mustards, Dandelions, Doveweed, Florida Herbal Conference, Foraging Classes, Green Deane Videos, Free Mustard seeds, and the Green Deane Forum: Did you ever eat a larch?”
• 26 January 2016: Issue 193: Eastern Gamagrass, Florida Herbal Conference, Sea Blite, Queen and Pindo Palms, Opuntia and Nopales, Foraging Classes, Green Deane DVDs.
• 19 January 2016: Issue 192: Silverthorn, Sheep’s Sorrel, Free Red Mustard Seeds, Stinging Nettles, Henbit, Chickweed, Foraging Classes, DVDs, and the Green Deane Forum
• 12 January 2016: Issue 191: Roots revisited: Ivy Gourd. Wild Teas. Foraging Classes, DVDs, the Green Deane Forum.
• 5 January 2016: Issue 190:Stinging nettles, Purslane, Oxalis, Mystery Root, Foraging classes, DVDs, Green Deane Forum.
• 29 December 2015: Issue 189:Goosegrass, Christmasberry, Natal Plum, Yaupon Holly, Bananas, Nicker Bean, Ground Cherry, Sea Purslane, Sea Blite, Coral Berry, Gracilaria, CLasses, DVDs, and the Green Deane Forum
• 22 December 2015: Issue 188: Ringless Honey mushrooms, Deer Mushrooms, Tamarind, Mahoe, Tropical Almond, Fifth Urban Crawl, Foraging Classes, DVDs, Green Deane Forum,
• 15 December 2015: Issue 187: Silverthorn, Peppergrass, Chickweed, Foraging Classes Green Deane Videos, the Green Deane Forum, fifth annual Urban Crawl.
• 8 December 2015: Issue 186: Wild lettuce, Osage Orange, Ginkgos, Cashew Trees, Pineapple Guava, Turk’s Cap, Foraging Classes, DVDs, and the Green Deane Forum.
• 1 December 2015: Issue 185: Tropical Soda Apple aka Horse Nettle, Henbit,  Stork’s Bill and Cranesbill,
• 24 November 2015: Issue 184; Chickweed, pomegranate peelings, pines, homemade mustard, foraging classes, the Green Deane Forum, and DVDs
• 17 November 2015: Issue 183; Seaweed and Lichen, where to forage, Foraging Classes, DVDs, Green Deane Forum.
• 10 November 2015: Issue 182:Wild Drinks, a book review; Wax Myrtle Berries, Wild Radish, Foraging Classes, the Green Deane Forum, and DVDs
• 3 November 2015: Issue 181:Black gum, Seagrapes, Doveweed, Foraging near Roads, Classes, Green Deane Forum, and Videos.
• 27 October 2015: Issue 180:Foot fruit: Podocarpus and Cashews, Sandspurs, Pony Foot, Foraging Classes, the Green Deane Forum and Videos
• 20 October 2015: Issue 179:What is a Ceiba and how do you say it? Partridgeberry, Ringless Honey Mushrooms, Red Bays and Magnolias, Laurel Wilt, Pellitory aka Cucumberweed, Foraging Classes, and the Green Deane Forum
• 7 October 2015 no  newsletter published because site had to be backed up because of hackers.
• 6 October 2015: Issue 178:Tallow plum, White Beautyberries, Sumac, Sea and Wood Oats, Cactus and Nopales, Foraging Classes, Green Deane Forum,
• 29 September was a fifth Tuesday, no news letter published then.
• 22 September 2015: Issue 177: Frost, and ripening vegetables and fruit, Foraging Classes, the Green Deane Forum
• 15 September 2015: Issue 176:Purslane and a look-alike, Pepper Vine, Upcoming Foraging Classes, Heartwing Sorrel, Green Deane Forum,
• 8 September 2015: Issue 175: 18 edibles along the Seminole-Wekiva Trial, Foraging Class Schedule, and the Green Deane Forum.
• 1 September 2015: Issue 174: Kudzu, wild apples, mountain foraging, upcoming classes, the Green Deane Forum
• 18 and 25 August, no newsletters as Green Deane was on vacation hiking in the Carolinas.
• 11 August 2015: Issue 173:Horsemint, Foraging along railroad tracks, Goldenrod, Swamp Rose Mallow, Foraging Classes, Green Deane Forum.
• 4 August 2015:   Issue 172:Ripening grapes, saw palmetto fruit, Yellow Anise, Green Maypops, Large Boletes, Foraging Classes, Green Deane Forum.
• 28 July 2015: Issue 171:Citron Melons, three edible mushrooms; Blue Lactarius, the Old Man of the Woods, and Chanterelles. Lone Star Ticks and Armadillos in the news, Foraging Classes and the Green Deane Forum
• 21 July 2015: Issue 170:Tasty Tamarind, Tropical Almonds, the lesser-known Silk Bay, Foraging Classes, The Green Deane Forum, Are the Seasons Changing?
• 14 July 2015: Issue 169: Are all Portulacas edible? Which yam is it? Elderberries. Foraging Classes. Taking a Bee Hive Home, and The Green Deane Forum.
• 7 July 2015:  Issue 168: Paper Mulberries, Pindo Palm, Yaupon Holly, The Timucua, Pawpaws, plant books, upcoming foraging classes, the Green Deane Forum.
• 30 June 2015: Fifth Tuesday, no newsletter.
• 23 June 2015: Issue 167: Sea Blite, Glasswort, Creeping Fig, Foraging Classes, Green Deane Forum.
• 16 June 2105: Issue 166:Laco-fermenting, toxic Atamasco Lily, Smilax, Sword Ferns, Foraging Classes, Green Deane Forum,
• 9 June 2015: Issue 165: Latex Strangler Vine, American Lotus, Dock Seeds, foraging mistakes, early season Podocarpus, Reishi mushrooms, foraging classes, Green Deane Forum
• 2 June 2015: Issue 164: Ivy gourd, Honey Mushrooms, Wild Food Plants of Hawaii, Classes, Green Deane Forum.
•  26 May 2015, no newsletter because of hackers. 
• 19 May 2015: Issue 163:Gopher Apples are blossoming as are Groundnuts. Candyroot is getting showy, Blueberries are ripening. The Simpson Stopper has three kinds of leaves. Wild Coffee and Coralberry Confusion, Upcoming Classes, and the Green Deane Forum,
• 12 May 2015: Issue 162: Watercress, Wild Garlic, Upcoming Foraging Classes, Green Deane Forum, Botany Builder 28, Does anyone want to guess?
• 5 May 2015: Issue 161:Wild Pineapple, Ground Cherries, Horsemint, Three kinds of wild grapes, upcoming foraging classes, Botany Builder 27, edible Pluteus petasatus, the Green Deane Forum
• 28 April 2015: Issue 160:Blackberries, Pickling Betony roots, Elderberry, Smilax, Juniper Berries, Upcoming Classes, Green Deane Forum, What Do You See #24.
• 21 April 2015: Issue 159: Distance and Elevation, Paper Mulberry, Red Mulberry, Basswood, False Hawk’s Beard, Upcoming Foraging Classes, Green Deane Forum, Botany Builder #26,
• 14 April, 2015: Issue 158: Pineapple Guava, the Tallow Plum, where to look for edible plants, upcoming foraging classes. the Green Deane Forum, and What Do You See #23
• 7 April 2015: Issue 157: ForageFest 2015, Lantanas, Weeds of Southern Turfgrasses, A Beginner’s Guide of Edible Florida, foraging in Port Charlotte, non-edible Nicker Beans, foraging classes, the Green Deane Forum, and What Do You See #22
• 31 March 2015: Issue 156: Is it time to reassess Nuphar roots? Identifying the Simpson Stopper. Foraging Instructors. What ’s in Season, Foraging Class Schedule, Green Deane Forum, What do you see #21.
• 24 March 2015: Issue 155: Mulberries, Wild Cucumbers, Edible Palms, Sea Rocket, Which Blueberry? Green Deane Forum. Upcoming Foraging Classes, What Do You See #20.
• 17 March 2015: There was no newsletter.
• 10 March 2015: Issue 154:Paw paws, Pennyroyal, Dandelions, Green Deane Forum, Foraging Classes, Daylight Saving time, What Do You See #19
• 3 March 2015, Issue 153: Florida Herbal Conference 2015, Turpentine Pines, Banning Mulberries, Foraging Classes, the Green Deane Forums, Bird Peppers, and What Do You See #18
• 24 February 2015: Issue 152: Eastern Redbud, Plums, Limequat, Foraging Classes, Seasonal changes and Mulberries, Florida Herbal Conference, Green Deane Forum, and What Do You See #17.
• 17 February 2015: Issue 151: Pepper Grass, Wild Geraniums, Paper Mulberry, Foraging Classes, Guest article: Bees, Butterflies, and Moths, Florida Herbal Conference 2015, the Green Deane Forum, and Winter Buds10 February 2015: Mystery diced root,  Florida Earthskills 2015 is history, Florida Herbal Conference 2015 is next,  foraging classes, Green Deane Forum, the 150th newsletter.
• 27 January 2015: The Wax Myrtle, Mustards & Radishes, Hairy Cowpea, Green Deane Forum, Earthskills 2015, Florida Herbal Conferece 2015, How Ungreen of Us.
•  20 January 2015: Goji berries, Plantagos, Black Medic, Green Deane Forum, Earthskills 2015, Florida Herbal Conference 2015, and Chain of Contamination
• 13 January 2015: Poorman’s Pepper Grass, Creeping Cucumber, Bulrush, Green Deane Forum, Earthskills 2015, Florida Herbal Conference 2015, classes, Wild Pineapple, Creeping Indigo warning, Calliandra haematocephala, What Do You See #16. 
• 6 January 2015: False Hawk’s Beard, Roses, Earthskills gathering, 2015 Florida Herbal Conference, Foraging Classes, Pellitory, Goosegrass, Less Money More Weeds
• 30 December 2014: New Year Leaves, Bauhinias, Pansies, Classes, DVDs, Green Deane Forum, Earthskills Conference, Florida Herbal Conference, Janus, the Roman God who looks both ways, 4th Annual Urban Crawl.
• 23 December 2014: Are cattails really that good? Is the Moss Rose edible? FORAGER! Classes, DVDS and the Green Deane Forum.
• 16 December 2014: Sycamores, Wild Mustards, When a Description Doesn’t Fit, Upcoming Classes, Green Deane DVDs, The Green Deane Forum, Florida Herbal Conference
• 9 December 2014: Wild edibles in downtown Savannah, Georgia, Pyracanthas, Ginkgop, Swinecress, Henbit, herbalism vs foraging, upcoming foraging classes, Green Deane DVDs, and the Florida Herbal Conference.
• 2 December 2014: The Cabbage Palm, Sow Thistle, Weeds vs. Cultivated Crops, DVDs, Green Deane Forum, and the Florida Herbal Conference.
• 25 November 2014: Pellitory, Usnea, Thanksgiving, foraging classes, DVDs, the Green Deane Forum and the herbal conference.
• 18 November 2014: Persimmons, Indian Pipes, Cactus fruit, Lantana, foraging classes, DVDs, the Green Deane Forum and the herbal conference.
• 11 November 2014, no newsletter as Green Deane had dental surgery.
• 4 November 2014:    Making Vinegar, Marlberries, Wintercress, Florida Herbal Conference, Upcoming Classes, DVDs, and the Green Deane Forum, all in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.
• 28 October 2014: Ground Cherries, Cocoplums, Simpson Stopper, Elderberries, Lemon Bacopa, Bananas, Lactarius Indigo, Upcoming Classes, DVDs, The fourth Florida Herbal Conference, and Florida Gulf Coast University.
• 21 October 2014: Roses, Book Review: The Wild Wisdom of the Weeds, upcoming foraging season, classes, DVDs, and the Green Deane forum.
• Oct 7and 14 no newsletter because Green Deane attended an out-of-state memorial service.
• 30 September 2014: Date Palms, Mushroom Season, Red Tide, Foraging Classes, DVDs, Green Deane Forum.
• 23 September 2014: Is Portulaca pilosa edible? Gopher Apples, What’s in Season, Class Schedule, DVDs, the Green Deane Forum.
• 16 September 2014: The Tallow Plum, a neat way to clean tunas, looking for yams, the beautyberry is happy, upcoming classes, DVDs, and the Green Deane Forum
• 9 September 2014: The passion fruit, where is it safe to forage, the Jambul Fruit, Puss Moth Caterpillar, Classes, DVD, and the Green Deane Forum.
• 2 September 2014: Sumac, Bananas, Cana, Old Man of The Woods, Podocarpus, Answer to What Do You See #16, Green Deane Forum, DVDs.
• 26 August 2014: Pine nuts, wild cucumbers, hiking in North Carolina, foraging classes, What Do You See #16, Green Deane Forum and DVDs.
• 19 August 2014: No newsletter, Green Deane hiking in the Carolinas.
• 12 August 2014: No newsletter, Green Deane hiking in the Carolinas.
• 5 August 2014: No newsletter, Green Deane hiking in the Carolinas.
• 29 July 2014: Bunya Bunya, Ganoderma mushrooms, upcoming classes, where to find the strangler latex vine, the Green Deane Forum and DVDs.
• 22 July 2014, American lotus, Fifth Annual Mushroom Intensive, Portulacas, Foraging Classes, The Green Deane Forum, and Podocarpus
• 15 July 2014, Black Cherries, Strawberry Guava, Horsemint, Basswood, Mushroom Workshop, White Indigoberry
• July 1st and 8th, no newsletter as Green Deane was on vacation.
• 24 June 2014: Drehear Park, Jambul, Purslane, Classes, DVDs, changing servers.
• 17 June 2014: Chickasaw Plums, the deadly Water Hemlock, a Monsoon of Mushrooms, the answer the What Do You See #15, upcoming classes, the Green Deane Forum and DVDs.
• 10 June 2014: Jack In The Pulpits, Seasonal Changed, Podocarpus, Junipers, What Do You See 15, Answer to What Do You See 14, Foraging Classes, the Green Deane Forum, and DVDs.
• 3 June 2014: No newsletter because of attempted hacking.
• 27 May 2014: Memorial Day and the Corn Poppy. Where do you forage? What Do You See #14.
•  2o May 2014: Discovering Chaya; a new loop; Florida’s Wild Edibles, a book review; classes and DVDs.
• 13 May 2014: Caloric staples: Cattails, Kudzu, Acorns; Seasonal Changes; “Giant Hog Weed” on the Green Deane Forum; Upcoming Foraging Classes; DVDs; What Do You See 13 Answers, all in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.
• 6 May 2014: Blackberries, the Water Hyacinth, Of Butterflies and Bees, What Do You See #12 and 13, Green Deane Forum and DVDS.
• 29 April 2014: Fifth Tuesday of the month. No newsletter published that date.
• 22 April 2014: Wild Garlic and Onions, Fleabane, Surinam Cherries and Mulberries, What Do You See 12, the answer to What Do You See 11, the Green Deane Forum, Classes and DVDs.
• 15 April 2014:  Florida pennyroyal, Pawpaws, A new edible Redvein Abutilon, Birds and Loquats, What Do You See #11, answer to What Do You See #10, upcoming classes, DVDs
• 8 April 2014: Mulberries, Magnolia Vinegar, Surinam Cherries, What Do You See 10, answer to What Do You See 09, Upcoming Foraging classes, Book Review: Foraging With Kids, DVDs.
• 1 April 2014: The Tropical Chestnut, the Eastern Redbud, Miner’s Lettuce, Upcoming Foraging Classes, What do You See #09, answers to What Do You See 08, Book Review: Guide To Wild Foods And Useful Plants, DVDs, Barbie…
• 25 March 2014: Finding “wild” edibles, Wild Cucumber, Basswood, Black Medic and Hop Clover, Upcoming Classes,  Brevard Botanical Garden Plant sale, What Do You See 08, answer for What Do You See 07, and DVDs.
• 18 March 2014:  Golf courses revisited, rain brings the mushrooms, spring greens are putting on, got an article for the newsletter? Classes, DVDs, What Do You See #07, answers to #06,  Birmingham Plant Sale, Book Review: Foraging & Feasting.
• 11 March 2014:  Finding wild edibles, Dandelions, False Dandelions, Time Change, What Do You See #06, Spring is Here, Upcoming Classes, DVDs, Guest Articles Request.
• 4 March, 2014: Winging it with maple seeds, Turk’s Caps, Florida Herbal Conference 2014 is history, how to avoid the toxic Cherry Laurel, What Do You See? #05 and the answers to #04, looking for a travel trailer and holding classes in west Florida and beyond.
• 25 February, 2014: Sheep Sorrel, mystery mushroom, upcoming classes, Botany Builder 39, What Do You See? #04, Answer to What Do You See 03,  DVDs and close encounters of the slithering kind.
• 18 February 2014: Nettle season, the evergreen Water Hyssop, White Clover, Boletes, our guest article: Plant Nutrition, upcoming classes, the Florida Herbal Conference nears, What Do You See #3 and the answer to What Do You See #2,
• 11 February 2014: Blewit Mushroom, Wild Garlic, Botany Builder #38, Plantago Power, Guest Article: Is it really Global Warming?  What Do You See #2 and last week’s answer and more all in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.
• 4 February 2014: What is White Snow? The Silverthorns are fruiting. Which Ganoderma is it? Botany Builder #37. What Do You See #1, and new feature. EarthSkills gathering Florida is this week, Florida Herbal Conference is this month, all in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.
• 28 January, 2014: Cooking up mustard roots, Botany Builder #36, why doesn’t epazote freeze? Class Schedule, EarthSkills 2014, Florida Herbal Conference, DVDs, looking for Mr. Good Transportation, and guest writers.
• 21 January 2014: Tansy Mustard, Swine Cress, Botany Builder #35, Part II of  guest writer Dewayne Allday’s To Shroom or not to Shroom, EarthSkills 2014 gathering, Florida Herbal Conference 2014, and upcoming foraging classes.
• 14 January 2014: Start looking for Silverthorn fruit, Henbit, Amaranth and Bitter Cress in local garden, Botany Builder #34, guest writer Dewayne Allday, To Shroom or not to Shroom, EarthSkills 2014 gathering, Florida Herbal Conference 2014, and upcoming foraging classes,
• 7 January 2014:   Plantagos are ready for harvesting, Chickweed by Heather Pierce with recipes, Botany Builder 33, How safe is foraging? Class schedule, the Florida Herbal Conference, and Green Deane’s DVDs.
• 31 December 2013: No newsletter published that date.
• 24 December 2013: Vibrant chickweed, abundant pellitory, eat your Christmas tree? The Third Annual Urban Crawl with violet recipe, the common sow thistle, Botany Builder #32, Bottled scallions and the Green Deane Forum, what is foraging? upcoming classes and DVDs,
• 17 December 2013: The Green Deane Forum, the Tropical Almond, Botany Builder 31, Over Foraging, ETWs Archive, Mushrooms to be found, three thefts, Green Deane DVDs.
• 10 December 2013: Wild Radishes and Mustards, Juniper Berries, Amelia Island, Egan Creek Greenway, The Blue Heron Inn, and Botany Builder #30: Peltate. From the Archive: Is this Plant Edible?
• 3 December 2013: Sow thistles are sprouting, the wild lettuce is up. How many raw elderberries should you eat? The Silverthorn is in blossom, swinecress will soon be here, and Botany Builder #29.
• 26 November 2013: Strangler Latex Vine still fruiting, seasonal Little Mustards, Stinging Nettles, Forest Kindergarten, a dear visitor, Florida Herbal Conference, Foraging DVDs, and Botany Builder #28: Lianas.
• 19 November 2013: Chickweed is back! Along with stinkhorns, train wreckers, making dandelion wine, walnuts in the news, Florida Herbal Conference, DVDs, and foraging instructor updates.
• 12 November 2013: Sargassum, other sea veteables, eating jellyfish, cooking with sea purslane, the wood oats alternative, classes, DVDs, Florida Herbal Conference and an insect invasion.
• 5 November 2013: The seasonal change is upon us and winter foraging should be picking up. There’s acorns to be collected, a yam blossom to see, and a luffa surprise. The Florida Herbal Conference is coming up, and shoveling snow all in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.
• 29 October 2013: No newsletter published that date.
• 22 October 2013: The Tropical Almond, Smartweed, Dudaim Melon, Polyporus Tenuiculus, Florida Herbal Conference, and Green Deane’s DVDs.
• 15 October 2013: A new edible, Perennial Pea; early-season cucumber weed; going out of season sea-grapes, persimmons, coco-plums, simpson stopper; begonias-hemlock, honey mushrooms, a calculating cat, Florida Herbal Conference, and DVDs.
• 8 October 2013: Black Gum, eating Anoles, the Green Deane Forum, Chestnut Bolete, 2014 Florida herbal conference, Green Deane’s DVDs, and 2000-year old seed sprouts.
• 1 October 2013: Sumac’s in season, persimmons, saw palmettos, creeping cucumbers, three iffy edibles, trust, the genus Lactarius, language and grazing.
  24 Septemner 2013: Ever eat a Norfolk Pine? Snacking on Hairy Cowpeas blossoms. Dare you eat a Saw Palmetto berry? Persimmons are coming into season. Sign up early for the Florida Herbal Conference. Recent rains will stimulate mushroom sightings. Change in the newsletter policy. DVDs as selling.
• 17 September 2013: Cereus fruit, ground nuts, 5,000 questions, upcoming classes, herbal conference, my mystery mushroom, DVDS.
• 10 September 2013: Remembering wild apples, the aroma of wild plants, coming to terms with botanical names, a purslane recipe, the Florida Herbal Conference and DVDs,
• 3 September 2013: Blooming horsemint, Kudzu, classes, Ganoderma curtisii, make a berry picking bucket, upcoming conferences and DVDs.
• 27 August, 2013: Blossoming Coral Vine, Eastern Gamagrass, Grapes, Foraging Classes, Rattlesnakes, Poison Sumac, and Puffballs
• 20 August 2013: Podocarpus and fruit wines, thank you cards, class schedule, DVDs, and for what it’s worth.
• 13 August 2013: Fireweed is gourmet?  Pindo Palms, Bitter Gourd, native grapes, Mt. Washington, Blueberries, persimmons, upcoming foraging classes and a common toxic mushroom the Green Parasol.
• 6 August 2013: Osage Orange, Saw Palmettos, foraging teachers, upcoming foraging classes, seasonal mushrooms, and how we love our pets.
• 30 July 2013: Getting Cereus about blooming cactus, the Monadas for medicine and spice, DVDs, our native Anise trees and remembering Dick Deuerling.
• 23 July 2013, Where to look for weeds, Pineapple weed, Toe Biters, 2 million views, DVDs, and a tribute to mom, Mae Lydia Putney Jordan.
• 9 July and 16 July 2013 no newsletter due to a death in the family.
• 2 July 2013: The tasty Bunya Pine Cone, natal plums, willows, botany builder, classes and your pick for a new vegetable.
• 25 June 2013: The orange Paper Mulberry, the orange Hackberry, Green Deane’s DVDs, Environmentalism, upcoming classes, and the Tree of Heaven all in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green
• 18 June 2013: Chickasaw plums, ivy gourd, the false roselle, toxic daturas, hand lenses, classes, and who’s manipulating whom?
• 11 June 2013:  Getting food out of the Chinese Tallow Tree, harvesting young wild yams, pickled Betony root, the deer are raining what? And upcoming classes.
• 4 June 2013: The maypops and pawpaws are putting on fruit, yucca are blossoming, black cherries are ripe and the black nightshade berries are ripening. That and a new class location, Seminole-Wekiva.
• 28 May 2013: Sea purslane, sea oats and wood oats, a profusion of coco-plums,  easterngammagrass and how to eat cicadas
• 21 May 2013: The Prunus are a fruiting, the winged yam, where to find sea blite, should you eat Black Medic, Smilax are in blossom, and new video about Wild garlic/Onions.
• 14 May 2013: No newsletter that week
• 7 May 2013: Blackberries, Lemon Bacopa, Surinam Cherries, Basswood, Linden Tree, recent articles and the city of Winter Park spraying cattails because they are not aestheticallypleasing in the park.
• 30 April 2013: How to tell sow thistles apart, creeping fig, lawns, and why can’t I eat this?
• 23 April 2013: The sweet aroma of the candyroot, the surprising relative of the Hairy Cowpea, Barnyard Grass, the Rose Apple and releasing bio-controls.
• 16 April 2013: St. Nicholas Monastery and Tropical Almonds, Pellitory Itch, Vacant Lots, Bamboo Cove, Botany Builder #26, and the calming effects of nature.
• 9 April 2013:  Pawpaws are blossoming, are there any poisonous look alikes, the bugs are coming, cold weather, and $1.6 million for a frog phobia.
• 2 April 2013: The wild onions/garlic are fruiting, how to tell the edible Black Cherry from the toxic Laurel Cherry, toxicity in Elderberries, and more Grass is God rebellion.
• 26 March 2013: Finding fireweed, digging up betony roots, drying loquats, Botany Builder #25, Coppicing, Road Kill, and spreading seeds.
• 19 March 2013:  The Queen Palm, changing weeds from edible to noxious, velvet leaf, crabgrass, Botany Builder #24, Samaras, New Articles, House Calls, Suriname Cherries, Nopales, and The Drunken Botanist all in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.
• 12 March 2013: Mulberries, Creeping Cucumber, Coco-plums, Smartgrass, Botany Builder 23, pinna, winter plant facts, time change, GD videos coming.
• 5 March 2013:    Goosegrass, pawpaws, Christmasberry, Botany Builder 22 stipules, cultivating wild plants, Apps, Scrub jays.
• 26 February 2013: Sheep’s Sorrel, White Snow, new articles, shocking news about bees, the Australian Pine, hydrilla, and worms
• 19 February 2013: Loquats, poison hemlock, turkey berries, toxic tomatoes, conferences, Lake Woodruff, osage orange and turtle travails.
• 12 February 2013: The ever elusive chickweed, solar oven and nut sheller, the tale of two nettles, wild lettuce, more hard-headed government, new mushroom book, the Maslin technique, ragweed, upcoming classes and loss of habitat
• 5 February 2013: A close up of usnea, a likeable lichen. The silverthorn is in full fruit, find aromatic wild garlic, identify watercress. There’s also the Thistle Epistle, Frostbites, Mulberries, the herbal conference and up coming classes, all in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.
• 29 January 2013: Smilax, non-edible nicker beans, seasonal eating, naughty knotweed, front yard gardening and decapitated grass, pool fish pond, and upcoming class schedule in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green
• 22 January 2013:  What you can do with a wild wing yam, Florida Pennyroyal, a special Hawthorn you should know about, my latest videos and articles, is eating nutrition good for you? Don’t eat the rattlebox. Sugar Cane and winning environmental bar bets.
• 15 January 2013:  Haulover Canal, Seablite, classifing plants, clovers, thistles, sow thistles, wild lettuce, Florida Herbal Conference, rising wheat prices.
• 8 January 2013: Maples are beginning to seed, find local Goosefoots, where the wild food is, the taste test, Florida Herbal Conference, microscopes, and Eugene Handsacker’s shell game

• 1 January 2013: Chickweed, sublimed sulfur, herbal conference, Green Deane’s DVDs, Weeds of Southern Turfgrasses, Turks Cap, Oxalis, Violets, Plantagos, and the prime mistake foragers make.

• 25 December 2012: Christmas in Florida, identifying chestnuts, what about ground cherries, winter vines, the toxic Mexican Poppy, the annual urban crawl and natal plums, Canada’s maple syrup much-to-do,

• 18 December, 2012: How to tell a mustard from a radish. Which cactus pad should you pick? The February Florida Herbal Conference, a traditional urban crawl

• 11 December 2012: Finding sumacs, magnolia blossoms as spice, the Florida Herbal Conference, follow ups on pollination and Featherstonehaugh, fertilizer, Maygyver and Nefertiti.

• 4 December  2012: Finding Winged Yams, our little winter mustards, pollenating creatures, Florida Herbal Conference, the Green Deane Forum, Mushrooms a la David Spahr and Dr. Kimbrough, Alligators with marijuana and Featherstonehaugh, all in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.

• 27 November 2012: The mustards of wintertime, how to sort out hollies, learning about mushrooms, growing weeds from seeds, dandelions, and the fate of Edward Archboldall all in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.
• 20 November 2012:  It’s holly season, and wild mustard time along with seasonal little mustards. Also in the newsletter: The Pond Apple, Florida’s Herbal Conference, Thanksgiving lore, wild pumpkins, Botany Builder 21 and faded underwear, all From The Village Green.

• 13 November 2012: Going nuts with hickories and acorns;, Spanish Needle tea, good for some of what ails you, why bumble bees can’t fly, and the Florida Herbal Conference,

• 6 November 2012: Hackberries (Sugarberries) Fireweed, “bad” landscape trees, weighty issues, bikes, time and the 2013 Florida Herbal Conference, all in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.

• 30 October 2012:   Which came first, grains or tubers? Groundnuts, wild rice, armadillos, clouds, a follow up on snails and Oh Deer, all in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.

• 23 October 2012:  Oak trees are masting (dropping acorns) new articles, mushrooms, snails, turtles, False Hawk’s Beard, and more in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.

• 16 October 2012:  The winter greens of chickweed, bittercress and poor man’s pepper grass; Solanum americanum, when not to eat; solar oven update, Halloween rant, the impact of weeds, updated articles, the Untouchables, and ginkgo gastronomics.

• 9 October 2012:    A new crop of sandspurs, confusing Poke berries and Elderberries, nettles for clothes, blue honey, new article about Pandanus, preserving fall foliage, cooking with pine needles and a cockroach eating contest.

• 2 October 2012:  Pandanus and Ivy Gourd, digging sticks, growing zones and recording setting pumpkin.

• 25 September 2012:  Chaya, confusing nettles, winter weeds, new articles, yams, the dangers of foraging, tales of a city lot.

• 18 September 2012: Fuzzy marbles, sweet and sour maypops, food and medicine, recently added articles, sumac hiar, vultures and belladona.

• 11 September 2012:  Finding tart food, a look at sumac and the false roselle, a new herbalism book and resource, the Green Deane Forum, Sea-Grapes, and scorpions

• 4 September 2012:   Get Gopher Apples while you can, Getting High, the effect of elevation on plant seasons, a yam for colder weather, a bike with no pedals, and is you cat making you ill?

• 14 August 2012: Maypops are coming into season; what do you know about cyanide; how to get rid of chiggers; Man of the Earth big root deep down; sorting out wild grapes, and earthworms.

• 7 August 2012: Eastern Gamagrass, Asian Clams, new articles posted, Creeping Cucumbers, Upcoming classes, Chinese Tallow Tree, Green Dean Forum, What’s the Buzz.

• 31 July 2012:    Sea Purslane on the grill, when is a clover not a clover? What to do about spices. Archiving newsletters. Class schedule. Growing Patio Potatoes and yams. Fined for growing food and holding birthday party
  all in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.

• 24 July 2012 : The Podocarpus is coming into season, grapes are early this year, where to hold a foraging class. my class schedule, making friction fire, is that really a strawberry and sonar sex… all in this week’s newsletter, From The Village Green by Green Deane

• 17 July 2012 :  Coco-plums are in season, as is Silverhead. Why is Black Point in Maine called that and where does Bidens grow in Brazil? American Holly, scorpions, armadillos and how to make your own sourdough bread, all in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.

• 10 July 2012:  A flower that tastes like a mushroom, fear of foraging, nutrition, what is a pirogue, and my class schedule, all in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.

• 3 July 2012: Sorting out ground cherries, hairs on plants and why we need to know them, Class Schedule, an upcoming road trip, a great garden party, and Lichen In Space, all in this week’s Green Deane’s Newsletter, From The  Village Green.

• 26 June 2012: Sorting out blueberries, or, how to figure out what the plant is. Is This Plant Edible and changing views on edibility. And upcoming classes all in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.

• 19 June 2012:   What to eat strawberry guavas, which wild edibles should pregnant women avoid, are you collecting seaweed for supper? Lawn grass and code enforcement. Upcoming classes all in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.

• 29 May 2012:  Surinam Cherries are ripening but they aren’t cherries. Firethorn berries are green but wait a few weeks. Botany builder #20. What’s barnyard grass? Visit the Green Deane Forum. Bicycles in the news. How to tattoo a banana, all in this week’s Green Deane newsletter From The Village Green.

• 21 May 2012:  Pineapples that don’t exist, Guerrilla Gardening, upcoming classes and exactly what is the meristem stage? All in this week’s newsletter “From The Village Green” by Green Deane.

• 7 May 2012:  Can Rescuegrass rescue you? Why forage and what are “naked” seeds? This an more in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green by Green Deane.

• 23 April 2012: Wild Garlic is heading, spurge nettles are rooting, sea blite is ready for picking, and eastern coral beans are showing you where they are. Did Green Deane actually get poison sumac and what did the spam filter catch? That and more in this weeks newsletter From The Village Green.

• 9 April 2012: Peppery smartweed, the “yuck” factor, kudzu, the winged yam, pennyroyal, budget cut benefits, and more in this week’s From The Village Green, Green Deane’s Newsletter.

• 2 April 2012: Where the weeds are. Going to a gym. Compound leaves. Rumex, Topi mambo, Water Lettuce, Duckweed, Edible Flowers Part 19, Classes, Green Deane Forum and “For What It’s worth” all in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.

• 26 March 2012:  What’s in and out of season? The Florida Herbal Conference. How do you find edible plants? Pictures or drawings? Upcoming Classes, and more in From the Village Green, Green Deane’s newsletter.

• 19 March 2012: Where to find papaws. Can you eat grass? Four new articles: Sida, False Roselle, Edible Flowers Part 18, Gout Weed. Can you eat tropical sage? Botany Builder #14, that and more in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green.

• 5 March 2012: The Eastern Redbuds are confused. A 30,000 year old flower? What might you do if you catch the flu. Sorting out the Perseas. Five new articles.  Arrest made in burning down the world’s oldest Cypress. Class schedule. Green Deane Forum update, all in From the Village Green, Green Deane’s Newsletter

• 20 February 2012: Wild Radish is turning fields yellow, harvesting nopales, milkweed vine and the evolution of the garden, two new articles, a forum update, this week’s classes, and ducks, all in “From the Village Green” this week’s Green Deane Newsletter.

• 6 February 2012: The Green Deane Forum, a place to meet other foragers and share questions and successes,  Brazilian Pepper, a staple that grows in teh shade, Botany Builder 14, Herbal Conferencem, Cliamate change. All in this Green Deane’s newsletter this week, From The Village Green.

• 23 January 2012:  What to do with Brazilian Pepper. Tapping Trees a new way. What’s the difference between a tree and a shrub? Herbal Conference, and I didn’t know that all in this weeks newsletter From The Village Green.

• 16 January 2012:  Persimmons and frost, saving weed seeds, Botany Builder #12, an herbal invitation, African bees and more in this weeks newsletter from Green Deane.

• 9 January 2012: The stinging dwarf is back, who is Sunny Savage? Passiflora, epiphany and manatees; new articles, what’s the difference between roots and rhizomes? Wild cucumbers, upcoming classes and the newsletter.

• 2 January 2012: Pigging out on swinecress. A prescription for walnuts? Snow. New articles on reeds, dahlias, nutrias and edible flowers part nine; Botany builder #10, classes, and how many wild edibles should you know, in Green Deane’s newsletter this week From The Village Green

• 26 December 2011:   A yam what am a yam; peppergrass; Janus the god of gates; Did you know? New articles; Urban Crawl and upcoming classes; Botany Builder; a Christmas memory and more in Green Deane’s newsletter this week, From The Village Green.

• 19 December 2011: Chickweed is up locally. Here’s another good reason to forage. What does -ifera mean? Turtle Mound. Canna Island update. Wild Radishes, and more in Green Deane’s newsletter this week, From The Village Green

• 12 December 2011: Pellitory’s in season. How many apple seeds can you really eat? Botany Builder #7, monocots and dicots. Classes this week. Why are two wheels not part of the green movement? All in Green Deane’s newsletter this week From The Village Green.

• 6 December 2011:  The controversy over Palmer Amaranth, Tools of the Trail, Poison Plant Handbook, Botany Builder, Did You Know, and upcoming classes, in this week’s newsletter From The Village Green

• 28 November 2011:  Crowfoot Grass, A grass dictionary, Botany Builder: blade and margin; Thanksgiving.

• 21 November 2011:  The Chinese Elms are fruiting, what about what the animals eat, a chickweed relative, what is a pappus, a look at a yellow passion flower and a bit of reminiscing in Green Deane’s latest newsletter, From The Village Green.

• 14 November 2011:  Telling the difference between a wild radish and a wild mustard. How many wild edibles are there? What do you need to know to get started? Why cook bamboo shoots? Botany Builder and this week’s classes, all in Green Deane’s latest newsletter.

• 8 November 2011:  Look alikes, tell the difference between edible elderberry and toxic water hemlock, discoveries found during this week’s class, what’s peltate?

• 31 October 2011:  The Halloween and foraging connection…. Seedlings… I.T.E.M.-izing. Battery Acid and pokeweed. Rev7, the Botany Builder and more in Green Deane’s newsletter this week, From The Village Green.

• 24 October 2011:   Fresh this week:  The new website is up. Are you harvesting sumac berries now or young sow thistles? A “new” edible was found during our foraging class. What about genetically modified foods?  What every runner or    bicyclist should hear about. And did Green Deane really get poison ivy and how you can avoid it. All in Green Deane’s latest newsletter.

• 1 September 2010 Cost of food, paper mulberry, liatris, pokeweed, wasabi

• 1 August 2010 Watervine, Smilax, Does’t Grow Here, Pomegranates

• 1 July 2010  Jelly Palm, Cactus, Clockwise, Birch Allergies

• 1 June 2010  Why forage, How safe is foraging, Sea Blite, Ilex vomitoria

I have written extensively on this site about edible flowers, both cultivated and wild. Here 98  previous separate entries about cultivated flowers are in one spot. So if it seems you have read parts of this before, you might have. However, this focus is just on cultivated flowers.

It’s difficult to imagine a kitchen or herbal medicine cabinet without Angelica around someplace. Angelica has long been valued for its seeds, stems, leaves and shoots. The first two for flavoring — such as in Chartreuse — and second pair as cooked greens, particularly in the Izu Islands of Japan where there are a favored addition to springtime tempura. They have a celery-like flavor. North American Indians, however, smoked the leaves for medicinal purposes. Celery-ish may its green parts be the blossoms however have a light anise flavor.

Artichoke blossom

If I don’t include artichokes among the edible flowers several will gleefully write and tell me I missed one. No doubt I have missed many. That said we really don’t eat the blossoms of the artichoke. They are actually bitter but if you want to have at it. We eat the floral bracts, read fat leaves below what will become the flower. We eat them raw, boiled, steamed, baked, fried, stuffed, and marinated. When marinated they are called artichokes hearts. In Europe they are dried and used in soups. The inner portion of the flower stalk is also edible, much like true thistles. The flowers themselves are used for a substitute for rennet, meaning they will curdle milk. I said they were bitter. Young artichoke leaves are fed to snails to improve their flavor. Yum. Artichokes have been around for a long time. Zeus (said Zeff in Greek) turned a scorned lover into an artichoke. It doesn’t pay to irritate a god. And young Norma Mortenson got her start in 1948 when she became the first “Artichoke Queen.” You know her as Marilyn Monroe

Arugula blossoms are peppery

Among the more peppery blossoms of the garden is Arugula, also called rocket and roquette. It’s a popular aromatic salad green grown for its leaves but also its seeds. Somehow the blossom gets overlooked… well, not in my kitchen. Arugula is one of those garden vegetables that is also very easy to grow in a patio pot and lasts for many months with repeated cuttings. Though a forager I have grown arugula in my gardens for many years. When the plant finally wants to go to seed you can prolong it by harvesting the flowers. Then enjoy the seeds. Greeks call Arugula Roka.

Bachelor Buttons, spicy and cloves

When you’re a kid you’re told everything is poisonous, and for me that included Bachelor Buttons. Also called the cornflower, they have been tossed into salads and used for a garnish for a long time. They got the name cornflower because the hardly species grew in English grain fields, and corn once meant any grain. Long before wedding rings were common bachelors indeed did wear a cornflower in a jacket button hole to let the ladies know they were single. How did she let them know the same thing? Curiously, she showed cleavage. Married women covered up, single women advertised.  Another version is that if the flower retained it color while worn his love was true, but if it faded it was not… sounds a bit rigged to me… Then again, I might not have been a lifelong bachelor if I had picked a few of these. Bachelor’s Buttons were the favorite flower of President John Kennedy. His son John John wore one at his wedding to honor his father.  The flower also reaches back into history in that it was used in the funeral wreath made for Pharaoh Tutankhamun, about 3,300 years ago. Their flavor is spicy, sweet, reminds one of cloves.

Baloon 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 chilis, vinegar, sesame oil and soy  sauce and eaten as a salad (which also tells you 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.

Few people in temperate North America ever think of eating a Banana blossom, but a lot of folks in warm areas do, and it does not prevent your banana tree from producing fruit. The entire flower/fruit arrangement of the Banana is odd with the blossom being a purplish torpedo. Look closely at the stalk end of the blossom and you can see what will eventually become a hand of Bananas. The blossom can be eaten raw (bitterish) or cooked, less or no bitterness. Usually it is peeled to get the more tender parts then shredded or sliced thin and soaked to reduce the bitterness. The flavor is not of the Banana but rather more of a vegetable.

Baobob Blossom

With so many readers around the world I have to include an exotic or two though this next flower does grow in Florida and other warm areas. The Baobob Tree, Adansonia digitata, is extremely odd looking and versatile. Like the Kapok tree it is pollinated by bats. The fruit is eaten, the leaves boiled as a potherb or dried and ground and used like file, to flavor and thicken sauces, stews and soups. The seeds are used as a coffee substitute or as a baking powder substitute. Germinating shoots and tender shoots are eaten. And the flowers are edible raw.

I will admit to being lazy and throwing Basil blossoms into my pesto, and soups and stews. That workhorse of the kitchen and Italian cuisine has edible flowers s why not use them. It was a practical matter besides culinary. At some point your Basil plants begins go to blossom. It’s making enough energy to reproduce and send forth seeds. If you let it, the bush senses its purpose is over — no doubt a chemical signal — and retires. But if you keep snipping off the blossoms it keeps on living to reproduce another day. By using the Basil blossoms you get more Basil leaves. The blossoms are usually white but can be pink to lavender. They taste like basil lite, a nice salad sprinkle.

Bauhinias since first discovered have been a pain to sort out, and now there are some 600 species in a variety of colors. The blossom of the Bauhinia variegata  and Bauhinia purpurea are eaten raw, pickled or cooked as a vegetable. Some Bauhinia blossoms are used for their nectar. Check out your local species with a an expert as they are quite varied in use. My friend Sunny Savage, resident of Hawaii and now sailing about the world, uses Bauhinia blossom raw in salads. Often called the Camel Foot Tree because of the shape of the leaf, Bauhinias are also known as the Orchid Tree and the Hong Kong Orchid Tree.

Bee Balm, a Monarda,  is another huge selection of flowers closely related to the mint family. Intense, aromatic, the flavors can vary not only species to species but between cultivated specimens and their wild siblings. The leaves are often used to make tea, some with calming qualities. Often the entire plant is placed in the house to give a pleasant aroma as it dries. The blossoms tend to reflect the flavor of the parent plant but usually have hints of oregano to thyme to citrus flavors.

My video and separate article on Begonias got me mentioned in the national New Zealand magazine about them. It’s a small electronic world. Begonia blossoms are edible raw or cooked, as are the leaves of most of the Begonias, particularly the Wax Begonias. The flavor, like the tulips, varies with the color. It can range from swampy to sweet. The biggest problem you are going to run into with begonias is since they are usually cultivated they are also sprayed with pesticides if not other materials. You either have to raise them specifically to eat or be a lazy gardener. Either will do. Fortunately for me, and not for the state of Florida, Begonias have become naturalized so I can find them in the wild. Indeed, it was some 20 years ago when I was canoeing on Rock Spring Run — read in a swamp — when I saw a Begonia and wondered what it was doing in the modern urban equivalent of the middle of nowhere. The leaves reduced to a paste and mixed with sour cream, a little sugar, and then baked make a delicious tartlet. And of course, the blossoms are an attractive and tasty addition to salads.

Black Salsify

Edible plants collect a lot of names.  This one has been dubbed Black Salsify, Spanish salsify, black oyster plant, serpent root, viper’s herb, viper’s grass, and simply Scorzonera which is also its botanical name, Scorzonera hispanica. A native of the Mediterranean areas it’s cultivate around the world and happens to be naturalized in California. It was cultivated in Europe by the 1600s and is a significant crop there still. The root contains it contains protein, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, iron as well as vitamins A, B1, E and C. It also has inulin which is suitable for diabetics. The long black roots are boiled, steamed, baked, batter-fried, put into soups and stews or roasted as a coffee substitute. Shoots are added to tossed salads. Flower buds raw or cooked are eaten on salads. Blossom petals are also sprinkled on salads or used in omelettes.

I do believe I was the first to publish anywhere in modern times, Internet or otherwise, that Blue Porterweed blossoms are edible. Even the Cornucopia II venerated doesn’t mention it. No doubt their edibility was known long ago because the flower has been used for at least a few hundred years to make tea, beer and as a flavoring. I am sure somewhere along the way someone tried the flowers. Locally we have two versions, a native which grows low, and a tall cultivated one. The flowers on both are edible, and the odd part is they taste like raw mushrooms. As with many delicate flavors the nose is quite involved and it takes a few moments for the flavor to come through. Tasters find it amazing. The flavor does not survive cooking. Incidentally, the leaves are used to make a tea and beer and the stem is used for flavoring.

Where I live there are only two plants that smell like cucumber. One is a wild cucumber. The other smells like cucumber but does not taste like cucumber. But you can also cultivate a flower that has the faint taste of cucumber, Borage. While it is naturalized in southern Europe most of us have to put it in our herb garden. Borage has a long history of medicinal and culinary use. Currently it is a source of gamma linolenic acid, GLA. The sweet blossoms and leaves have the taste of cucumber. The flowers are often used in salads or as a garnish and do well in many drinks. One technique is to put the blossoms in an ice cube tray and freeze them into ice cubes to be used in drinks.

Calamint

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

Calendula has been called the poor man’s saffron. There are 12 to 20 species in the family, depending on who is counting. They are native from Micronesia to the Mediterranean area to Iran. Often lumped in and confused with marigolds — which can be used for coloring — the name Calendula comes from the Latin kalendae, meaning the first day of the month, and where we get the English word calender. It is believe they are called that because in warm regions they are always in bloom and always on the first day of every month.  The Calendua’s flavor is similar to saffron, bitter to tangy.

Clustered Bellflower

Campanulas are not a small clan. There’s some 500 of them in the genus. Some are eaten for their roots, leaves or flowers. The rampion, or Campanula rapunculus was widely grown in Europe for its radish-like roots and leaves. In fact, “rapunculus” is dead Latin for “little turnip” and was the Brothers Grimm’s inspiration for the fable name Repunzel. The Clustered Bellflower, Campanula glomerata, has bluish flowers that are eaten raw. They are sweet in flavor as are their leaves. Usually used in salads. Campanula punctata flowers and leaves are cooked like a potherb. Campanula rapunculoides, Rover Bellflower, roots and leaves are eaten (remember, in dead Latin -oides means looks like or resembles. So the C. rapunculoides looks like the C. rapunculus.) In parts of Greece the Campanula versicolor, Variously Colored Bellflower, are eaten and cooked like a vegetable. The leaves are used in salads and taste similar to peas. The flowers are also very good.

Carambola, Star Fruit

I happen to have the next tree growing in my back yard. It flowers twice a year but the second setting is minor. Called Carambola or Star Fruit, its botanical name is Averrhoa carambola.  Known for its edible fruit, which go from green and tart to golden yellow and very sweet. But, it also has edible flowers and leaves that are used like sorrel. The acid flowers are used in salads or used to make conserves. The fruit is eaten fresh, dried, sliced into fruits and salads, or used in sherbets, ices, creams mousses and other desserts. The tart fruit are cooked fish and fowl or made into a relish. Another member of the genus, Averrhoa bilimbi is the cucumber tree. It’s fruit and flowers have various edible uses.

There are few flowers more common than Carnations. They have been cultivated since ancient times and were quite popular in Rome during the empire days. Its botanical name, Dianthus, means flower of the Gods. Originally just in shades of pink or peach now a rainbow of carnations are available, each still keeping it clove-like scent. Like many blossoms Carnations were used to convey sentiments in times when overt expression of love were frowned upon. Thus many a bouquet was carefully constructed to send just the right message with just the right color.

Cantip

Most cats love it, a few don’t. The difference is genetic. The active chemical is Nepetalactone. It’s a mild hallucinogenic that produces euphoria in many cats. In humans it makes you sleepy, like chamomile though in large amounts it is emetic. Catnip (Nepeta cataria) is an herb of the mint family and at one time was spice found in the kitchen. Although a native to Europe, it has been exported to the rest of the world and in some places is considered a weed. It is naturalized in every state except Florida and all the first tier Providences of Canada. Even though it is considered a weed most folks still think of it as a cultivated plant because most buy it for their cats. Indeed, growing catnip can be a problem because feral cats and domestics on the roam won’t leave it alone. When protected catnip grows to about a yard high, branches much, and is topped by small white flowers with purple spots, a common trait of the mint family. The leaves can be candied or brewed into a mint-like aromatic tea. In Europe the leaves and young shoots are put into salads or seasoning for sauces, soups and stews. While the flowers can be sprinkled on salads they are usually used to make tea, often along with leaves. Catnip is also high in Vitamin C.

Three a.m. has to be the absolute worst time of any day. And when I’m awake then I make myself a cup of Chamomile tea. The small flowers taste like the tea, on the sweet side and apple-ish. In a publication North Carolina State University warns that the flowers contain “thuaone” but that is a misprint which has since been proliferated over the Internet. I don’t cut and paste. I do my own research and write every word myself. That’s why there are so many typos.  Chamomile has very low amounts of thujone, which is credited in significant amounts to getting people high. It’s one of the compounds in Absinthe. I’ve had Absinthe in Greece and the liquorish liquor did nothing for me. All Chamomile tea does for me, and most, is make me sleepy. If  you are allergic to ragweed, however, you might want to avoid Chamomile. The two plants are related and Chamomile can bother some people with a ragweed allergy.

One of my favorite dishes used Chervil as a flavoring. In a casserole you put alternating layers of thinly sliced potatoes and sliced onions, a layer of one then a layer of the other. You would dab each separate layer with real butter and then a pinch of tarragon and a sprinkling of Chervil. Then a bit of salt and pepper on each layer to taste. You fill the casserole that way. On top you spice it up one more time, add more butter, and a sprinkle of paprika. Into the oven it would go until tender. It also made great hash. The Chervil was a subtle flavor, and loses much to heat. That is why when you use the flowers for flavoring in a dish or a salad you add them last, in a dish just enough to heat, in a salad just before serving. Their anise flavor is subtle but the nose knows all.

I can remember the first time I saw Chicory in blossom. I was in Alexandria, Virgina, visiting a dear friend for a couple of weeks and wandering amongst parks, monuments, and museums. The mower had somehow missed it and I noticed it immediately. The blue pretty Chicory is a close relative of the dandelion but not sweet at all, In fact it runs towards bitter and earthy. Think radicchio. You can eat the flowers and the bud, or pickle the buds. The root has been roasted and used to extend and flavor coffee.

Our next edible needs little introduction, the Chrysanthemum, also called Mums, one of my grandmother’s favorites. First cultivated in China perhaps 3,500 year ago, they have been on the menu for many millennia. Mums got to Japan in the 8th century and are the flower of the emperor’s family. Yellow and white “mums” Chrysanthemum morifolium, are the ones usually used in the kitchen. The blossoms are boiled to make a sweet drink. In salads the raw flowers are pungent, if not bitter. Use sparingly. They are also used to flavor wine (remember lilac wine?)  The leaves are steamed or boiled and used as greens. I’ve grown them in my vegetable garden for that very purpose. The greens also dehydrate well.

You either like Cilantro, or you don’t. If you do like Cilantro then the flowers are Cilantro lite. The plant has a dual identity. The green part much used in Vietnamese cooking is called Cilantro. Its seeds however are called coriander. Cilantro sparks intense debates. To some people it tastes like soap. The famous chef of French cooking, Julia Childs, said she would take Cilantro out of a dish and throw it on the floor. Others enjoy the flavor. The different perceptions apparently is one of association. The more one is exposed to Cilantro the more it moves from soap to food. It grows on you. While its seeds, coriander, are quite aromatic they don’t seem to engender flavor disagreements like the leafy parts of the plant.

Citrus, use sparingly

For the home crowd one has to mention Citrus blossoms. Orange blossoms, lemons, grapefruit, calamondins, kumquat… The whole citrus club. They are, no surprise, citrusy and in fact the flavors are used often in Mediterranean cooking. When I first moved to Florida back in the Dark Ages I can still remember the first time I detected the wonderful aroma of a citrus grove in blossom. I thought it was Mayflowers, a blossom from my past.

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 a smattering of states with no apparent reason. 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.

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 wildbird 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.

A foraging standby in all but the southwest desert and northwest Canada is the Daylily. But first a couple of  precautions. I am talking about only the Hemerocallis genus. Also go sparingly, they can be diuretic or laxative. That said day lilies are on the sweet side, vegetable-ish. Like squash and glad blossom they’re used to hold tasty finger food but like other blossoms cut them away from the white bitter base. I used to enjoy them often but the only local patch is now under a highway exit. See full article about them here on sit.

Dendrobium phalaenopsis

If you go to a Thai restaurant often a Dendrobium phalaenopsis is put on your plate. No that not a creature, its 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. I’m not sure one person can know them all. 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. Kinda like writing about flying and leaving out the airplane. Dendrobium phalaenopsis come in a variety of colors and are native to southeast Asia. They are not difficult to grow. Use in salads and as a garnish.

As is often said, travel is a broadening experience. When you go to a different land it’s exciting to see plants you don’t know specifically but you know what family they are in. The first time I went to Greece I saw wild Dill growing everywhere, besides wild figs. Then years later on a business trip to extreme south southern California there was dill again. Wouldn’t you know I happen to live in a state where it’s not found in the wild. Oddly Dill blossoms are stronger flavored than the leaves. Tangy, use the flowers as you would the herb and seeds.

Durian Blossoms

This next tree is infamous for its fruit. You either wildly love its aroma or passionately hate it. Carrying it on trains in Thailand is illegal. It is banned from commercial flights. At least one jet passenger was stopped and a man reeking of it kicked off. Last year a tycoon sent a private to pick up 88 fruit when it came into season. He wanted 100 but they weren’t availabe then. It is the infamous Durian, a spine-covered fruit that smells like a sewer and tastes like microwaved socks, and some people love it. Their passioin is not shared. The flower petals are edible.  Did I mention the huge fruit also has killed people falling from the tree and hiting them on the head.

Many a hibiscus flower can go into salads and the like but I don’t know how many I’ll cover because most of them are virtually flavorless but they are pretty and add texture. I happen to like the False Roselle, Hibiscus acetosella, because beside the edible pink flower the leaves are edible as well, raw or cooked.  I use the young leaves for salads and stir fry. They keep their color. A close relative, Hibiscus sabdariffa is the real roselle and is also known as the “Florida Cranberry” or the “Cranberry Hibiscus.” A tart juice can be made from its fat calyxes. Its blossoms are edible as well.

Another plant I saw growing wild in Greece but is mostly cultivated in the United States is Fennel. In fact, at one mountain pass not far from Sparta the only weed growing in the crack of the curb along the road was fennel, and most of it close to a yard tall. I’ve always included Fennel in my garden because it’s so versatile. Fennel’s blossom is an explosion of yellow and the flavor is of mild Fennel. It’s the hint of anise appreciated in cold soups and many desserts. Incidentally, Fennel is the only species in its genus, Foeniculum vulgare.

Forget-Me-Nots

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 he yelled “Forget Me Not.” Hmmmm… Guy dies, woman doesn’t get flowers, has to walk home alone where she meets Paul Bunyan… Let’s start with the fact Forget-Me-Nots aren’t native to Alaska but they are in England and… In exile in 1398 Henry IV adopted the flower as his symbol and retained 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.

It’s easy to spot the Forsythia in the spring time. Just look for a naked shrub covered with yellow blossoms. You can find them in most urban areas and they escaped cultivation is several locations. The blossoms are spicy, minty, and slightly bitter. They add a cherry garnish to salads, particularly after a long winter. Very young leaves… very young leaves… are edible raw. Better boiled. The enduring argument regarding the Forsythia is who is it named for. See a separate article on site.

Fragrant Water Lily

One of the more difficult things about the Nymphaea odorata is what common name to call it. Fragrant Water Lilly and American White Water Lilly seem to be in the running. We’ll go with Fragrant Water Lilly, and it is! Actually the unopened flower buds can be collected and boiled as a vegetable. Once opened the raw blossom can be used as a garnish or nibble. Whether the plant’s rhizome is useful is something of a debate. Some think our local yellow native Nymphaea mexicana can be used the same way.

Freesia blossoms point one 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.

Fritilary’s Bell Blossoms

Originally from China but now grown around the world the Fritillary makes an interesting addition to a flower garden. Soft bell-shaped blossoms with a pale green netting on the outside of the petals and a pale red netting on the inside makes this Lily family member easy to identify.  The particular species we’re interested in is Fritillaria verticillata. Their name comes from dead Latin for dice box, fritillus, a reference to the check patttern the veining makes. And while we like fritilaries rodents and deer do not. Young plants, peals and flower buds are eaten after parboiling. They are used in soups or as a herb or cooked with soy sauce. The bulbs are eaten fried or candied. Another members of the genus with edible bulbs is Fritillaria camtschatcensis. The buds might remind you of the Daylily and indeed while in different genera they are botanically standing next to each other. One more point: Do not experiement with fritilaries. The two listed here are known edibles. Others may contain toxic amounts of various alkaloids.

Fuchsia

Discovered by Europeans in the Caribbean in 1703 — the natives already knew it was there — Fuchsia has been an ornamental for centuries. It’s a native of the warmer Americas and parts of New Zealand there’s 110 recognized species now, even some that can grow in cooler climates. Most of them are shrubs though one is known to reach tree height. Fuchsia blossoms are edible as are the peppery grape-tasting berries which grow on long stems. The flower is a favorite garnish because of its many strong colors which can range from white to dark red, purple-blue, and orange. Their flavor is slightly acidic.

You can have a lot of motivation to plant Garden Sorrel. It’s a Rumex and many of the wild sorrels are too bitter to eat, as are their blossoms and seeds. While there are exceptions — I know of only one locally that is pleasant — you can have a steady supply of sorrel leaves and blossoms if you include this old world flavor in your kitchen garden. Rumex acetosa is used in nearly every ethnic cuisine in Europe, from being mixed into mash potatoes to flavoring reindeer milk. The blossoms are tart like the rest of the plan, lemony. Use as you would a lemon.

Is there a flower garden in America without a Gardenia in it? They are so common they are called the Common Gardenia, Gardenia jasminoides. In dead Latin — all Latin is dead whereas Greek is still alive — –oides (OY-deezs) means “look like” or “similar to.” In this case jasminoides means like the Jasmine and indeed Gardenia blossoms are also used to make jasmine tea. It seems a little like bait and switch but since the pallet doesn’t know the difference your Jasmine tea may be flavored with Jasmine or Gardenia. As for the Gardenia flowers they are eaten raw, pickled or preserved in honey. The fruits are also edible and used as yellow coloring for other fruits.

Because of an early botanical scew up — the first of many — the Geranium group can be confusing. Initally 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 ????????, 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.

Ginger Blossoms

Right outside my kitchen window grows Ginger, the kind we get genger 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 (??????????). 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.

When you live where the ground freezes annually — called winter — you have to wrap some plants and take others inside. That was an annual assignment when I was growing up and on top of the list was digging up Gladiola bulbs every fall. And every year my mother had a huge gladiola garden with boxes of bulbs overwintering in the basement. Had I known gladiola blossoms were edible it might have made the childhood chore more bearable. Glads (Gladiolus) blossoms are bland, lettuce like, and you must remove the anthers… take the middle out.  Basically eat the petals. They can also be cooked. Like squash glad blossoms are often used to hold tasty tid bits.

Hollyhocks look great on a plate, and their taste is bland for those who want strong colors rather than flavors. They have also been used to color wine in the distant past when such things were not regulated. The leaves are also edible raw and it’s still a cultivated vegetable in Egypt (the root has starch.)  Besides plating and salads you can also make a refreshing tea from the Hollyhock, botanically Alcea rosea and related to the Marsh Mallow. There now many colors to choose from.

The greater Honeysuckle family is an odd one. It straddles the edible/non-edible line, with some members long used as food and other members at least mildly toxic. For example, elderberries are in the Honeysuckle family, then tend to be edible in North America and not in the Old World. A famous or should I say infamous invasive member of that family is the Honeysuckle, Lonicera japonica, or Japanese Honeysuckle. It’s definitely the one we have here in the south spreading everywhere. Kids have known for generations that you can suck the sweet nectar out of the blossoms. Most of them don’t know, however, that the blossom is edible as well. It has a sweet, honey flavor. You can flavor wine with them as well. Tea is good, too.

Horseradish Blossoms

My cousin in southern Quebec… actually first cousin once removed, Beulah Knudson nee Smith, grew the largest Horseradish I ever saw. The winters are harsh thereabouts and that horseradish, Armoracia rusticana,  was making the most of their very short growing season. Here in flatland Florida it is too hot to grow horseradish except perhaps in the most extreme northern counties. Most everyone knows that horseradish is a hot root. In fact, the root is rather clever. The two chemicals that make horseradish hot have to be mixed to be hot but the plant keeps them in separate cells so they don’t bother the plant. Only when the cells are crushed together is a hot chemical created. It’s called “horse” radish because “horse” is also used to describe anything big or rough. Young leaves can be added to salads, pickled or cooked as a potherb. Sprouts can be added to salads, or the roots can be cooked as eaten that way. The flowers are edible, quite mild compared to the root. Sprinkle them on salads, throw them in when pickling or cooking string beans and the like.

Hyacinth Bean Blossom

I could almost make an identical entry for the Hyacinth Bean from that of the Scarlet Runner Bean below because they have so much in common and are so  unlike other beans. They’re annuals, ornamentals, have edible roots, leaves, pods, beans and flowers. The difference is the Hyacinth Bean seeds themselves have a different toxin that the Scarlet Runner bean and in a greater amount so they have to cooked far longer. The bean-flavored flowers, however, are edible raw or cooked.

I hate to admit it but the only place I can find this next edible flower is in cemeteries because it doesn’t grow in the wild here, Impatiens wallerana. The cultivated Impatiens are from Africa and their blossom is edible, sweet. There is no report of edibility on our native North American Impatiens blossoms raw, called Jewelweed. Indeed, Jewelweed is edible after two boilings but there are no references to any parts edible raw. Just the opposite, all kinds of warning not to eat our native Jewelweed raw. So this is one case of where the cultivated blossom is on the raw food menu but the wild one is not. Jewelweed seeds are edible, small, flavor similar to walnuts.

Italian Bugloss

One cannot make up a name like Italian Bugloss. Also known as Wild Bugloss, Alkanet and Anchusa. Botanically it’s Anchusa azurea a member of the Forget-Me-Not family. Originally from Europe it’s cultivated around the world, is intensely blue, and is used among other things as a dye. Italian Bugloss has become naturalized without logic in a number of places in North America including New Hampshire, Massachusettes, Conneticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio. Michigan, Iowa, Texas, Colorado, Utah, California, Whyoming, Idahoe, Oregaon, Washington, and British Columbia The bright blue blossoms  are an excellent salad addition and are quite attrative when mixed with rose petals. On Crete it’s called ?????????? ang-GO-gloss-ose. Locals eat the tender stems boiled. Also eaten are the bossoms of Anchusa capensis and Anchusa officinalis. “Bugloss” means ox tongue because of the roughness of the leaves. ?????????? can mean literally “impiety tongue” read rough tongue.

You knew Jasmine was edible. Of course you did. That’s how we get Jasmine flavored tea. But make sure you are getting the right Jasmine, Jasminum officinale not plants in another genus or family falsely called Jasmine. The real Jasmine has tubular white flowers, waxy, and shiny oval leaves. Jasmine is from Asia but because it has been used for so long no one really knows where it got its cultivated start. There are mentions of it in 9th century texts in China and by the 1700s it has spread so well some folks thought it was native to Switzerland. The famous aroma comes from an oil in the petals and it is those petals you use to flavor your tea. If you life in the South do not mistake “Carolina Jasmine” for real Jasmine. It is the offensive and odorous Gelsemium Sempervirens, a significant allergy plant and quite toxic.

I don’t know if I should tell you about Johnny-Jump-Ups or not. Botanically Viola tricolor, they are among the first flowers I can remember my mother picking from the wild and eating on the spot. She did it because her mother did it (and she also never missed harvesting a cowslip either.) Johnny-Jump-Ups like moisture and can tolerate shade so… here goes…. Our house in the country had a septic system and a drain field. That drain field was moist and shaded and Johnny-Jump-Up grew there in profusion. And that is where my mother picked them, one after another, eating them on the spot. She’s now 86. Johnny-Jump-Ups have a mild wintergreen flavor and a variety of uses.  They’re added to salads, desserts, soups, served with cheese and used to decorate confections. Incidentally they are the ancestor of the common pansy.

Kapok, Pollentated by Bats

When one studies edible plants you quickly learn that one group can consider a plant only edible, another only medicinal, a third famine food only and a fourth don’t consider it good for anything. The kapok tree, Ceiba pentandra, falls into medicine and food, depending upon the eyes of the beholder. Like the Baobob Tree it is pollinated by bats. Tender leaves, buds and fruit are eaten like okra. Seeds are roasted and ground, eaten in soups, used as flavoring, or employed to make the fermented drink kantong. They can be used to make tempeh or squeezed for cooking oil. Wood ashes are a salt substitute. Flowers are blanched and often eaten with chili sauce, the dried stamens are added to curries and soups for coloring. A nice specimen of the tree can be seen in Dreher Park just north of the entrance to the zoo in West Palm Beach.

Lavender is an old stand-by found in many home gardens including mine. Its flavor is flowery, sweet and citrusy. Lavender has been used to flavor bread, cookies, jelly, beef, wine, sauces, stews, and custards. The blossoms are an attractive addition to champagne. The blossoms are also used around the house to impart a nice aroma from bedding to baths. They is also slightly diuretic.

Lemon Verbena

There is hardly an established garden that doesn’t have a Lemon Verbena in it. A native of South America it was “discovered” in 1785 in Buenos Aires. By 1797 it was the rage of England and has been exported around the world since around 1785. It’s in a well-known association with a lot of plants used for seasoning and antioxidants.  The Aloysia triphylla was named to compliment the  wife of Infant Carlos de Borbon, Prince of Asturias  and son of King Carlos III of Spain. The Infant was a supporter of the arts and botany.  Young leaves are eaten as spinach. they are also used to flavor fruit cups, jellies, cold drinks, salads, omletes, salad dressings, and vegetable dishes. The leaves or , tiny, citrus-scented, are brewed into a refreshing tea. Tea from just the flowers is sweeter.

As a kid I never associated Lilacs with food. When the fragrant Lilacs blossomed in late May you knew in a couple of weeks school was soon going to be out for the summer and glorious days were ahead. I don’t think I ever experienced more freedom then those summers. I was a latch key kid so summer vacation meant months of roaming through the countryside for days on end. In the greater Olive family the most common blossom color for lilac was … lilac. My 86-year-old mother in Maine still tends to her Lilacs. And just in case you are interested there is a 10-day Lilac Festival in Rochester N.Y. every May. Not bad for a plant with European ancestry. At the festival they have over 500 different lilacs on some 1,200 bushes. You can even sample lilac wine. Where do I sign up? Lilac blossoms are pungent and on the lemony side.

Lovage

Botanists can’t agree exactly where it came from, though the Old World is close enough for our purposes. Lovage’s beginnings may be humble but it has risen to high esteem for its many usages. Native to perhaps the Mediterranean or southwest Asia Lovage is cultivate throughout Europe and North America. Highly aromatic it is similar looking to flat-leaf parsley only much larger. The flavor is similar to parsley and celery combined with a notes of anise and curry. Botanically Levisticum officinale leaf stalks  and stem are blanched and eaten like celery, or peeled and eaten. They can also be candied. Young leaves are chopped and added to salad, soups, stews, seafood, and omelets. The seeds are used for flavoring, often in breads and confections. An aromatic tea can be made from dried leaves or grated roots. And the flowers are edible.

Magnolias are one of the iconic trees of not only the South but exported to many non-hard freeze areas of the world. And people have admired the huge Magnolia blossoms for a long time. Few folks know the blossoms of the Magnolia grandiflora are edible, however their flavor is intense and they taste similar to how they smell. They are not eaten raw per se. They are pickled. Oddly the practice started in England and you only use the petals, not the entire blossom. What works best is to pickle the petals in a sweet/sour pickle recipe. Then take out one petal, dice it, and use it sparingly as a flavoring in salads. The flavor is strong so go easy. Also, M. grandiflora‘s leaf can be used just as Magnolia virginiana‘s can as a bay leaf, that is to flavor soups and the like. However, don’t use the entire leaf because it is way too beg. Cut it into smaller pieces when used like a bay leaf.

Mango Panicle

Did you know Mangos and poison ivy were kissing cousins botanically? And a sensitivity to one can be a sensitivity to the other? In fact there several species related, all in the Anacardiaceae family: Mangos, poison ivy, poison sumac, Brazilian pepper, cashews, and pistachios. You can see the spread, three edibles, one on the cusp of edible/toxic, and two toxics. Some folks might be allergic to all, some to only a couple. Many people get a rash on their mouth after eating mango, called urushiol-induced contact dermatitis. The fruit is originally from India, cultivated for some 4,000 to 6,000 years. It is reported to be the most produced tropical fruit…. yah know…. I question that statistic. I would have thought bananas would have claimed that title. Incidentally, bananas are dying off. Your grandkids may never get to eat a banana. Anyway… when first exported around the world mangos were pickled because of the distances and time involved. In fact “mangoed” became a verb meaning pickled. Mango blossoms grow on long panicles and have a scent similar to Lily of the Valley. Not only are they edible but young leaves as well… as long as you don’t have an allergy. Young leaves and flowers boiled. You can make a natural mosquito repellent by burning dried mango flowers, or use them to make a tea high in tannin. Oh, never burn mango wood. It’s like buring poison ivy. The urushiol gets in the air then your lung then you’re in the emergency room.

There’s a lot of Internet misinformation about Marigolds. All of them are edible from a non-toxic point of view. The more important question is which one have an agreeable flavor? Of them all Tagetes lucida, Tagetes patula, and Tagetes tenuifolia get the culinary nod. Their flavor is citrusy. Usually only the petals are used. No green parts.  I also use them for yellow coloring in various dishes. They’re another flower called the “poor man’s saffron” the other being the Calendula.

Perhaps I have been remiss 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 noticable 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.

Nasturtiums are peppery

Nasturtiums are a favorite nibble of my mother. We always had a row or two of them growing every year. The blossoms are peppery. In fact, the entire plant above ground is edible, even the seeds which can be pickled and used like capers. Nasturtium in Latin mean literally to twist the nose, because of their pungency,. They have have been praised for their flavor for at least 2,000 years. Multi-colored, low growing or trailing, Nasturtiums are often used in kid projects because the seeds are large, they’re fast to germinate and grow, safe, and edible.

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.

There are some 400 species in the Allium association 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. Ramps and leeks have large leaves.

Tap to dislodge bees first

I have read there are no toxic Opuntias. With some 300 of them I don’t personally know. I do eat cactus pads on a regular basis. I fry and grill them. But, as with most cactus, one has to contend with glochids and spines. The spines one can see. It’s the tiny hair-like glochids that can make one semi-miserable, tolerable in a finger, maddening in your tongue. Duct tape removes them moderately well. Wear gloves harvesting. The best approach is to use a long shap fillet knife as the flowers are surprisingly thick. Also tap them first to dislodge bees. Among all the Opuntia the Prickly Pear Cactus flower is the most often eaten, not raw but cooked, usually boiled. Their flavor leans towards tart. The blossoms also make a good wine.

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, particulary 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 moutain, and ganousthal meaning delight in. “Delight in the mountain is” translated 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 of happiness on their marriage.  Oregano’s blossoms are a milder version of the plant’s leaves Incidentaly, majoram is in the same genus as oregano. Oregano is Origanum vulgare, and marjoram is Origanum majorana. Think of majoram as oregano lite and used the same way. In many place in the Mediterraean area Oregano is called Wild Majoram.

The problem with Pansies is the same problem with Begonias: Getting them from a wholesome source. Pansies are actually violets and descended from the much-loved Viola tricolor aka Johnny-Jump-Ups. There is always the question if one should lump all violets in together or do some sorting. I chose to sort a little. Pansies are extremely common bedding plants but they are commercially raised so that can mean some chemicals you don’t want to consume. It is best to raise your own so you know exactly what you’re eating. Like most short violets pansies tend to have a nice scent and are sweet to the taste. There are only two cautions. Violet roots are definitely not edible. The American natives used them for insecticide. And, yellow violets tend to be laxative in less than moderate quantities.

Female papaya blossom

This won’t make much sense to those who live where there is a winter but the first time I climbed Turtle Mound — not a great feat as it is only 80 feet high — I was surprised to see Papaya’s growing on top. Turtle Mound is a midden, an ancient trash heap made mostly of millions of oyster shells dumped there by ancient natives. It’s been more than three decades since my first visit and the papayas are still there, self-seeding as papayas do. A native of Mexico they are naturalized in warm areas of the world. Papaya blossoms, like very young leaves, are edible cooked, which is usually by boiling.  Actually cooking the yellow flowers is a lot easier than pollinating them because there are female blossoms, male blossom, and male/female blossoms, kinda you, me and us. You have to move pollenating material around correctly or you don’t get fruit (also edible.)

Parsley Flowers

Like so many of our spices Parsley is a native of the Mediterranean. While for this article we are interested in the flowers there are actually two major divisions within the parsley realm, leaves and roots. Among the leaves there is curly or flat leaf. Interestinlgy the flat leaf is closer to the wild parlsey than the curly. Flat leaf is easier to grow, more tolerant of agricultural abuses, and has a stronger flavor. Curly leaf is more decorative and milder in flavor. It is the one used mostly for a garnish. There is also a root parsley, not common outside of central and eastern Europe where it is used in soups and stews. It has a nutty celery/parsley taste and is often fried like potato chips. From Argentine salsa to a tea Vitamin C rich parsley has multifold uses in the kitchen. Even the stems can be dried and added to dishes. The blossoms are salad fare or can be added to anything the leaves are used for. Parsley, incidentally, means “forked turnip” though parsely and turnips are not related.

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 peapod, 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 varity 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.

When my father passed on six years ago he left a small Peony garden that still has 18 bloomers, one red and a wide variety of pink shades. They’re quite hardy and don’t like to be moved. Peonies have been been cultivated in home gardens since about the time Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Of course there are no good ones where I live because they like temperate climates and need winter chilling. Originally from China they were and still are used for medicine. Petals can be added to salads or will happily float in drinks. Another option is to parboil them, add a little sugar, and use them as a sweet treat.

Petunia x hybrida

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. This is not just any petunia but Petunia x hybrida probably developed in the early to mid-1800’s.   The P. hybrida was created out of several Petunia species and comes in two types, grandiflora (large 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.

There are two Phlox, so to speak. One that gets one to two feet high and shows up seasonally  in fields, particularly here in Florida. That’s not the one you want. You want the perennial phlox that grows to three of four feet tall, Phlox paniculata. I’m sure you’ve seen it. Like the Meadowsweet above it is an old world plant found in many home gardens and yards. It has escaped into the wild and can be found in the eastern half of North America plus Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Utah and Washington state. The slightly spicy blossoms range from red to pink to white. They go well with fruit salads.

Pineapple Guava’s are becoming a popular ornamental with an unusual flower and fruit.  In fact, there is one where I teach regularly. The blossoms are striking and reminds one of several cactus blossoms, in its own way. The fruit, equally unusual, ripens in September or October here. It stays green but does get soft enough to eat. There is a bit of pineapple in the fruit’s flavor if one uses the imagination. I have a Strawberry Guava in my yard and its even more difficult to taste “strawberry” It’s fruit. The flower of the Pineapple Guava,  Strawberry Guava, sweet. Like the fruit it says tropical reminding one of papaya.

Our next edible flower comes with a warning. Don’t eat its similar looking realitive. How can you tell them apart? The one you want smells of pineapple, which is why it is called the Pineapple Sage, Salvia elegans. Sometimes it is also called the Tangerine sage. The point is crush a leaf and you will smell pineapple or tangerine. The one you don’t want is Salvia coccinea, also called the Scarlet Sage, the Texas Sage and the Hummingbird Sage. Crush its leaf and it smells grassy or slightly sage-like.  Flowers of the Pineapple Sage, which taste like a hint of pineapple, are quite edible. However, even a quarter-inch square portion of a Salvia coccinea blossom will give you a big stomach ache and make you more than mildly ill. It’s not go-to-the-emergency-room ill but close to it.  I know this from personal experience beause once, for lack of a better word,  I titrated the S. coccinea for potental edible use. It quickly let me know it is defintely is not an edible, raw at least. After my experience I had no interest in seeing if S. coccinea had any uses cooked.

Carnations (Dianthus caryophyllus) were covered above but let’s revisit the genus Dianthus minature version 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 alkline 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 preforate or create a punched patten. Apparenlty I grew up in the Dark Ages because it was a verb I heard around the home.  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.

How many Hosta’s there are is a matter of taxonomic debate. Maybe 45. While the flowers of all of them are reported to be edible, according to the Montreal Botanical Garden, at least the young leaves of one, Hosta  lancifolia, the Narrow Leaf Plantain Lily, are eaten cooked or preserved in salt. It’s a common home and landscaping plant that can tolerate shade and has naturalized in several states from Massachusetts to all states touching a straight line west to Indiana. I’m sure you have seen its distinctive leaves.  It’s a good thing you are interested in the flowers because just about every woodland creature loves to eat the leaves, from deer down to insects. In temperate climes look for blossoms at the end of summer or early fall.

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 not 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 vulgaris the blossom reminds me of a small magnolia blossom. Several colors are avaiable now. Also know as Cow Slip the blossoms are bland in flavor but sweet. The can be added to salad, the bud picked, or cooked as a vegetable. They have even been used to make wine.

Long ago and far away I got accepted to law school. The job I had stopped before classes began so to tide me over I delivered flowers. One could tell several stories regarding that including how most women are very suspicious when they get Roses from him other than Valentine’s Day. I even had some deliveries refused! Beyond that, however, the roses I delivered had no scent. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. No rose aroma at all. Just before I would deliver them I’d take them out of the van and spray them with an artificial rose aroma. The roses were raised for their look and in the process the scent was bred out (and you did not spay them in the van or you smelled roses for weeks.)  Less purebred roses are known for their rosehips and edible petals. The flavor depends on the type, color and conditions of raising. They can range from tart to sweet, spicy. Darker ones have stronger flavor. Remove any white portion of a petal. That will be bitter. All true roses (genus Rosa) are edible.

Rose of Sharon

South Korea is crazy about the Rose of Sharon, Hibiscus syriacus. It’s their national flower. It is on everything, and it’s native to Korean and much of Asia. So why is it called syriacus, which means “from Syria.” They got it wrong a few centuries ago. They thought it was from Syria. Oddly mistakes like that cannot be changed. That it is wrong in not enough. There has to be a botanical reason to change a plant’s name once given, not a geographical one. Called mugunghwa in Korean — which translates into “flower of eternity” or something close to that, been a garden staple in that country since there were gardens — hence the eternity spin. The leaves are made into tea and the flowers eaten, usually raw. It made it to Europe by the 1500s and was in most English gardens by the 1700s. The American colonies followed suit. It’s also my mother’s favorite flower. Had to mention that or I wouldn’t hear the end of it.

I can remember the first time I saw Rosemary growing in the wild in North America. I was on a business trip to California. Of course it grows wild in its native Greece. There it is called ???????????? (then-dro-LEE-vah-row.) Students in ancient Greece wore it around their necks in garlands or braided it into their hair thinking it improved their memory.  In English Rosemary means “remembrance.” I have two bushes of it growing in my yard. The light blue blossoms are sweet, spicy, pungent and taste of rosemary.

Safflower

Because saffron is so expensive, $100 to $150 an ounce, several flowers have been used as substitutes and adulterants, among them Safflower. But, safflower has uses in its own right. Botanically Carthamus tinctorius, safflower blossoms are the source of a yellow or red dye used in butter, confections and liqueurs… and you thought that Sambuca was naturally colored… The seeds are fried  and eaten in chutney. The oil is used in salads and cooking. Young leaves can be eaten as a potherb or seasoned in soy sauce. The flower’s petals are edible, slightly bitter, often cooked with rice.

Three “saffron” stigmas

As of this writing the best price I can find on the Internet for saffron is $92.95 an ounce, free shipping, marked down from $144. Why is it expensive? Because “saffron” is the three red stigmas of the flower and must be picked by hand. Limited amount, labor intensive. It is the most costly spice by weight. Then again, one uses very little of it. Saffron is acually a crocus, Crocus sativus. It does not grow in the wild and is totally cultivated by man. Technically it is a monomorphic clone and believed to be a mutant form of Crocus cartwrightianus. The Greeks were the first to cultivate it, probably on Crete. Historians tell us it has been bought and sold for over four thousand years. Ninety percent of the world’s saffron comes from Iran. The styles are used to flavor and color sauces, creams, breads, preserves, curries, rice, soups, caked, puddings, eggs even butter and cheese. It can be a tea substitute and the roots roasted. It’s not a spice you keep on hand. Usually purchased for a dish specific. It takes about 13,125 dried stigmas to weigh an ounce. Oh, I forgot to mention: In large amounts saffron is deadlly. That’s an expensive way to go.

Scarlet Runner Bean is not your run-of-the-mill bean. It has bright red flowers, multi-colored seeds and puts on a root to be a perennial though most folks view it as an annual. Depends where you live, I suppose.  The root is edible, the young pods are before they get fibrous, and the beans in or out of their pods are edible either cooked fresh or after shelling and drying. Read the beans have to be cooked no matter how you prepare them but young pods don’t. The blossoms are under an inch across, grow in clusters, and are available all season. The flavorful flowers are favored by hummingbirds and butterflies and make excellent garnishes for soups and salads. There are at least 18 varieties of the Scarlet Runner Bean.  Usually the vine is used to cover fences, guy-wires and trellises.

Snapdragons

While most articles on edible flowers include Snapdragons I considered leaving them out. Let me put it this way: If the flavor of the Snapdragons existed in some other plant it would not be eaten. They are edible, they won’t kill you, but when it comes to flavor they are on the poor to bad side. Their taste can run from bland to bitter, depending upon the soil and how they were raised. They get included on edible flower lists — particularly the commercial edible flower list — because they are pretty, a lot of folks recognize or grow them, and few people eat garnishes anyway. If you ever draft a list of edible flowers and you aren’t alphabetizing, put Snapdragons last, better still, as a Post Script, a little asterisk at the bottom. The genus they are in is called Antirrhinum.  It’s Greek and means “opposite the  nose” or “unlike the nose.”  I don’t know why that family is called that but I am sure it is not a compliment. They are called “snapdragons” because of the blosom’s resemblance to a fictional face of a dragon that opens and closes when squeezed.

It’s clearly not wild. It’s clearly a planted ornamental. But I get asked about it all the time. Is Society Garlic edible? The short answer is yes. The blossoms smell and taste far more like a vegetable than a blossom. Their flavor is sweeter than garlic, more like of an onion but still peppery. They’re actually a native of South Africa and only a distant relation to regular garlic. White settlers to South Africa considered it a more polite spice to eat at social functions than real garlic. It’s probably safe to say that there is more Society Garlic growing locally than real garlic. Garlic does not like the hot weather whereas Society Garlic thrives in it. If they are well-established they are drought resistant. The leaves are also edible, and are the bulbs on many species. Use the flowers in salads or soups, anyplace you want a bit of garlic, pepper and onion. I have a separate article on them on site.

Squash blossoms actually cover a wide range of flowers. Zucchini, pumpkins, calabashes. All are squashes for our purposes and all have edible blossoms. Both male and female blossoms are edible but removing female blossoms can reduce squash production in your garden. You can tell the female Squash blossom by looking just behind the blossom. There you will see a miniature Squash or the like. Stuffing Squash blossoms with soft cheese is a time honored means of preparation. What people don’t know is that the leaves and sprouts of most garden variety squashes are edible cooked as are their seeds. Removed the seeds, wash off the debris, and roast in a slow oven for a half hour or so. You can eat them shell and all or shell them.

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 75F. 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. Stock flowers are usually added to salads eaten raw or a garnish with sweet disserts. They can be candied. Their flavor is perfume-ish. The flower’s pods are edible, too. 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.

Strawberry Blossom

There’s a real good reason why almost no one knows this next flower is edible. And that’s because nearly everyone eats the fruit! Strawberries are prime food. Botanically Fragaria ananassa, Strawberry blossoms are edible raw though most folks wait for the fruit. Of course, you can be different and toss the flowers on salads just to surprise folks. The leaves are edible as well but are on the astringent side. As with many cultivated crops harvest carefully because as a commercial crop they are often doused wth this or that chemical to keep them living and looking well until they get to market. The cultivated blossoms are pink, the wild white.

Sunflower petals are edible

Nearly everyone knows you can eat Sunflower seeds. There are actually two general kinds of seeds. There are black seeds with a white stripe. Those are the ones you usually buy in the store. Then there are Sunflower seeds that are smaller and totally black. Those are used for oil (and those that don’t make the oil grade end up in bird seed.) But there’s more to eat on a Sunflower that seeds, no matter which kind. The unopened buds are edible cooked. They taste like artichokes, to whom they are closely related. And once the huge blossom is open the petals can be eaten, though they are bittersweet. The petals are often mixed with pasta.

Szechaun Buttons

Szechaun Buttons, Paracress. No, they’re not from China but Brazil. This is an edible flower you will likely want to grow yourself rather than order. Right now a 30 blossom order is selling for $39.95 not including shipping. Why would you order them? Because they are the current party favor but they have other uses as well. Spilanthes acmella, aka, Acmella ocleracea, grow in Brazil. They are peppery like capsaicin, hence their name because of a heat similar to Szechuan peppers… well almost. The active chemical is spilanthol. That used to numb gums for toothaches. It causes a reaction with the trigeminal nerve pathway controling the control motor and sensory functions of your mouth. The result is a tingling, popping sensation in the mouth. Kind of a cross between Pop Rocks and a 9-volt battery. Besides that, they are cooked and used in salads, sauces, soups, sorbets and as cocktail garnishes. You can add shredded uncookled greens to your salad, sparingly, or sprinkle some uncooked petals on your salad. The taste is herbal and slightly bitter. One high end restaurant uses them in a cheese plate.  At another the tiny petals and some lemon thyme are infuse a small pot of honey that accompanies roasted kabocha squash, sweet peppers and toasted walnuts. A third offers patrons a Concord grape soda float with lemon verbena sorbet into which shreds of Sechuan buttons are dispersed through a soda siphon. Did I mention they use Szechaun Bottons to flavor chewing tobacco in India?.

Another escapee from Eurasia now found over most of North America and the rest of the world is the Common Tansy. First mentioned for medicinal uses by the Ancient Greeks, the “bitter buttons” by the 8th century were in Charlemagne’s herb gardens and used by Benedictine monks in Switzerland. In 16th century England it was a “necessary of the garden.” Tansy, related to the thistle, even been used as an insect repellent.  In fact, meat (and corpses) were wrapped in it for preservation and keep insects at bay. It is not a good repellent against mosquitoes but does a good job with the Colorado Potato Beetle.  Like chamomile it contains thujone so it should be used very sparingly. But then again, that’s what spices are for. The blossoms’s flavor is bitter, camphor-like.

Tea Blossom

Our next plant is known by billions. Wars were fought over it, an empire build and fortunes made, Camellia sinensis, better known as Tea. Yep, the tea in your cup. When I first bought land I planted a C. sinensis knowing it was iffy. It was. Didn’t make it. Too warm, too humid. And it is an understatement to say tea change the course of history. Read about Robert Fortune in my article on Forsythia. He was sent by the British government to China, undercover, to steal tea seeds and the like to start a tea industry in India, a thef and resulting Indian tea industry that China has only recently surpassed. Besides a beverage, tea makes a marinade for fish and meat, mixed with anise blossoms it is used to make “tea eggs.” Kombucha is basically tea cider, leaves are used to smoke meat, its fruits are eaten, leaves are chewed to remove the odor of garlic and onions, and the blossoms are cooked. One favorite way is to make tempura out of them, deep frying them.

Tea Olive

If you go to an Asian market and buy “Cassia Blossom Jam” it is not from the Cassia clan at all but rather Osmanthus frangrans, the Tea Olive, also called the Fragrant Olive and Sweet Olive. Its name(s) gives you a good idea what it is used for.  It a glossy evergreen with little white blossoms that bloom almost all year long, making it a favorite landscape plant where it is warm all year. The blossoms smell deliciously fragrant or ripe peaches or apricots. It tends to bloom in autumn, winter and spring. Fruit follows about six months later. The unripe fruit are preserved in brine like olives. The flowers are used to make tea fragrant as well as wine, liqueurs, and confections. The blossoms are either preserved in a salty bring or made into a sugary paste. The Osmanthus americana, the American Olive, is used a similar way.

Thyme

I went to Crete in the spring once to longest gorge in Europe if you count extreme southern Greece as geographically part of Europe proper. There was, however, a late season snow storm and the gorge was closed. So I hiked down Embrose Gorge, much smaller but not without its charms. I remember three things well from the hike. The first was the wonderful scent of wild thyme growing throughout the gorge. Next was literally being run over by a large heard of sheep and goats. And lastly later that evening discovering the local taverna-made rose smelled just like the sheep. Without thyme the chef and the herbalist would be hard pressed to find a suitable substitute. In the kitchen thyme has so many use including the blossoms. Thymus vulgaris, leaves and blossoms are used to flavor stuffing, fish, meat, fowl, cheese vinegar, gravies, sauces, bouquest garni, herbs de Provence, brine for olives, eggs, bread, tea and honey. Shoots are a garnish.  The blossoms are milder than the leaves.

Tuberose has been put to a lot of uses. The Hawians used it to make leis. In Victorian times it was the funeral flower of choice. Then it spent a long time helping perfumes smell the way they do. Now it can be found as a food in five star hotels, well… at least those in the Orient. Botanically it is Polianthes tuberosa and might be a native of Mexico.The flowers open from the bottom of the flower spike up and can last a couple of weeks if you remove the blossoms and eat them. The Aztec so liked the flower their used its oil to flavor their chocolate. They are eaten cooked and are traditonally added to vegetable soups. They are also used to flavor some soy sauces

Tulips’ flavor vary with color

Tulips are one of those wonderful flowers you hear that is toxic. The answer is yes and no. The petals are quite edible raw or cooked though they loose their color on cooking. They can have many flavors: Bland, beans, peas, and cucumbers. Pink, peach and white blossoms are the sweetest, red and yellow the most flavorful. While you can use them to garnish salads their more common use is to hold appetizers or dip. If you use the entire blossom cut off the pistil and stamens from the center of the blossom. The bottom ends of the petals can also be bitter so cut them off as well when used individually. So what is toxic? The yellow inner core of the tulip bulb. It has to be cut out before the rest of the bulb can be cooked and eaten. Also know some people are quite allergic to tulips

Wisteria is a nibble of spring, here for a few weeks and then gone. The blossoms of various species are edible cooked — some raw — but they are usually blanched in boiling water, strained, and mixed into salads or the deep fried. The rest of the plant is toxic per se. In fact, as little as two raw seeds can kill a child. That is not uncommon for a member of the pea family which ranges from edible to toxic. See my full article on wisteria on this site for edible variations. One of the most common of the 8 to 10 species of wisteria is Wisteria sinsensis, or the Chinese Wisteria. It’s a vigorous, fast grower that doesn’t need fertilizer and fixes nitrogen. In fact, abuse improves blossoming as does pruning. It can live at least 115 years (as of April 2011) and is consider an invasive species is some areas.  It has naturalized from  Maine to Florida and as far west as Arkansas. Not bad since its arrival in 1816. Another one commonly eaten wisteria is Wisteria floribunda from Japan, also escaped in the US.

Edible flowers, tasty and nutritious

Sesbania Grandifolia, Lemon Verbena, Szechaun Buttons, Horseradish, Tea Olive, Tiger Lily, Currants, Honewort, Thyme, Indian Paint Brush

Sesbania grandifolia

Sesbania grandifolia, also called the Vegetable Hummingbird Tree and the Scarlet Wisteria, has managed to work its way into warmer areas of the world. If you have a frost you might be able to pot it but you won’t find it out in the field. Originating in either India or southeast Asia, it grows best in hot, humid areas including south Florida. The shrub’s long narrow pods are eaten as a vegetable dish, similar in use as string beans.  The seeds are fermented into a tempeh turi. Young leaves and shoots are eaten in salads or as a pot herb or in soups and stews. Sesbania grandifolia flowers are eaten raw in salads, boiled, fried or use in curries, stews and soups. They taste like mushrooms and are rich in iron and sugar.

Lemon Verbena

There is hardly an established garden that doesn’t have a Lemon Verbena in it. A native of South America it was “discovered” in 1785 in Buenos Aires. By 1797 it was the rage of England and has been exported around the world since around 1785. It’s in a well-known association with a lot of plants used for seasoning and antioxidants.  The Aloysia triphylla was named to compliment the morganatic wife of Infant Lois Anonio de Borbon, prince of Asturias  and brother to King Carlos III of Spain. The Infant was a supporter of the arts and botany.  Young leaves are eaten as spinach. they are also used to flavor fruit cups, jellies, cold drinks, salads, omelets, salad dressings, and vegetable dishes. The leaves or tiny, citrus-scented flowers, are brewed into a refreshing tea. Tea from just the flowers is sweeter.

Szechaun Buttons

Szechaun Buttons. No, they’re not from China but Brazil. This is an edible flower you will likely want to grow yourself rather than order. Right now a 30-blossom order is selling for $39.95 not including shipping. Why would you order them? Because they are the current party favor but they have other uses as well. Spilanthes acmella, aka, Acmella ocleracea, grow in Brazil. They are peppery like capsaicin, hence their name because of a heat similar to Szechuan peppers… well almost. The active chemical is spilanthol. That used to numb gums for toothaches. It causes a reaction with the trigeminal nerve pathway controlling the control motor and sensory functions of your mouth. The result is a tingling, popping sensation in the mouth. Kind of a cross between Pop Rocks and a 9-volt battery. Besides that, they are cooked and used in salads, sauces, soups, sorbets and as cocktail garnishes. You can add shredded uncooked greens to your salad, sparingly, or sprinkle some uncooked petals on your salad. The taste is herbal and slightly bitter. One high end restaurant uses them in a cheese plate.  At another eatery the tiny petals and some lemon thyme are infuse a small pot of honey that accompanies roasted kabocha squash, sweet peppers and toasted walnuts. A third offers patrons a Concord grape soda float with lemon verbena sorbet into which shreds of Sechuan buttons are dispersed through a soda siphon. Did I mention they use Szechaun Bottons to flavor chewing tobacco in India?

Horseradish blossoms

My cousin in southern Quebec… actually first cousin once removed, Beulah Knudson nee Smith, grew the largest horseradish I ever saw. The winters are harsh thereabouts and that horseradish, Armoracia rusticana,  was making the most of their very short growing season. Here in flat iron Florida it is too hot to grow horseradish except perhaps in the most extreme northern counties. Most everyone knows that horseradish is a hot root. In fact, the root is rather cleaver. The two chemicals that make horseradish hot have to be mixed to be hot but the plant keeps them in separate cells so they don’t bother the plant. Only when the cells are crushed together is a hot chemical created. It’s called “horse” radish because “horse” is also used to describe anything big or rough. Young leaves can be added to salads, pickled or cooked as a potherb. Sprouts can be added to salads, or the roots can be cooked as eaten that way. The flowers are edible, quite mild compared to the root. Sprinkle them on salads, throw them in when pickling or cooking string beans and the like.

Tea Olive, aka Fragrant Olive

If you go to an Asian market and buy “Cassia Blossom Jam” it is not from the Cassia clan at all but rather Osmanthus frangrans, the Tea Olive, also called the Fragrant Olive and Sweet Olive. Its name(s) gives you a good idea what it is used for.  It a glossy evergreen with little white blossoms that bloom almost all year long, making it a favorite landscape plant where it is warm all year. The blossoms smell deliciously fragrant of ripe peaches or apricots. It tends to bloom in autumn, winter and spring. Fruit follows about six months later. The unripe fruit are preserved in brine like olives. The flowers are used to make tea fragrant as well as wine, liqueurs, and confections. The blossoms are either preserved in a salty brine or made into a sugary paste. The Osmanthus americana, the American Olive, is used a similar way.

Lilium lancifolium

Many lilies are called the Tiger Lily but botanists argue there is only one, Lilium landifolium, a native of Asia and Japan but naturalized in the northeast quarter of North America, among other places. Almost all of the Tiger Lily is edible, bulb to flower. In fact it is a cultivated crop in Asia and Japan turnips or parsnips in flavor. Flower buds are eaten raw or cooked, as are the flowers. The pollen is edible as well. Yes, I know there are dire warnings on the Internet that it is poisonous for humans but evidence of that is absent. Dr. François Couplan, author of the Encyclopedia of Edible Plants of North America told me “…Lilium bulbs and Hemerocallis flowers are commonly sold as food on eastern asian markets. And I’ve had lilium pollen myself, albeit in fairly small quantities, and never suffered any wrong effect…”  It IS toxic to cats. One way to identify this lily from the natives is small black bulbils on the stem. While it is naturalized it usually does not go far from urban areas. When I used to traipse around the countryside in New England I always found these and daylilies near old or abandoned farms. In fact, out in the country they were usually right across the road from the farm house. See full article on site.

Ribes aureum, the Golden Currant

We used to ride our horses on abandoned roads, of which there were plenty. One was still passable if you had a vehicle with a high suspension because the road went over washed out ledge. It was no problem for the horses. At the top of the ledge were high bush blueberries, some eight feet tall. Just beyond the crest were two fallen-in farms, across the road from each other which usually meant the same family. Still growing at one of the homestead was currants. Currants, gooseberries and Kiwis are related to each other. Currants were made into jellies and jams as well as wine… very good wine. The natives dried them and use them in making pemmican. Some species, perhaps most, have edible flowers. At the top of the flower list is Ribes aureum, or Golden Currant, found in most of North America except the Old South. Another currant noted for flower edibility is Ribes cereum. Wax Currant, found in the western half of North America. Black Currant (Ribes nigrum) flower buds are used in ice cream and liqueurs. I would suspect the open flowers would be usable as well. And of course, the berries have many uses and have antioxidants. Incidentally, R. aureum is not Ribes odorata.

Canadian Honewort, cryptotaenia canadensis,

The Canadian Honewort, Cryptotaenia canadensis, grows all the way down to Florida, and covers the eastern two third of North America. A member of the carrot family, it can be found growing along streams and creeks or in low, wet ground. The entire plant is edible, cooked, root to flowers. Flowering season is May to August and the blossom are small. Also called Wild Chervil, the roots are usually boiled in salted water and served with oil; young leaves and stems are soaked in water to moderate flavor then cooked as a pot herb. Cooked flowers are edible as well.  You can add a small portion to salads for their aromatic quality. Seeds are used for flavoring and the stems candied. Cryptotaenia japonica can be used in a similar way but needs far less cooking, usually just blanching. In warmer areas don’t mistake Tripogandra multiflora for it. The latter has black stems, large flowers, and is not edible.

Thyme blossoms are tiny but flavorful

I went to Crete in the spring once to hike Sanmaria Gorge, said to be the longest gorge in Europe if you count extreme southern Greece as geographically part of Europe proper. There was, however, a late season snow storm and the gorge was closed. So I hiked down Embrose Gorge, much smaller but not without its charms. I remember three things well from the hike. The first was the wonderful scent of wild thyme growing throughout the gorge. Next was literally being run over by a large heard of sheep and goats. And lastly later that evening discovering the local taverna-made rose smelled just like the sheep. Without thyme the chef and the herbalist would be hard pressed to find a suitable substitute. In the kitchen thyme has so many use including the blossoms. Thymus vulgaris, leaves and blossoms are used to flavor stuffing, fish, meat, fowl, cheese vinegar, gravies, sauces, bouquet garni, herbs de Provence, brine for olives, eggs, bread, tea and honey. Shoots are a garnish.  The blossoms are milder than the leaves. And yes, later I got to hike down Sanmaria Gorge, a hike of a lifetime.

Wyoming's Indian Paint Brush

While recreating my foraging instructor page for the new website I considered using the state flower next to each separate state entry. Unfortunately few states have state flowers that are edible. Wyoming is the exception. Its state flower is the Indian Paint Brush though it is found in most western states and has a huge variety of common names including  — no surprise here — the Wyoming Paintbrush. By statute, however, it is officially Indian Paint Brush. It was adopted as the state flower 31 January 1917 beating out columbine and fringed gentian. There was heated debate from the opponents, however. One said the Indian Paint Brush was not common in the state, had too many varieties only an expert could tell apart, was parasitic by feeding on the roots of others, wasn’t generally liked and that the fringe gentian had been already chosen by Wyoming school children as the sentimental favorite. He left out the Indian Paint Brush encourages foraging but no doubt would have if he had known it. This particular paint brush, Castillija linariaefolia, is the best tasting in its genus. Maybe that’s why it won. Flowers are eaten raw. However the plant can accumulate selenium making it toxic to cattle.

See Edible Flowers: Part Fourteen

A Spray of Edible Flowers Gladen the Day

Mahoe, Moringa, Pineapple Sage, Plum, Hawthorn, Cattail, Papaya, Purslane, Tuberose, Wisteria

One of the more fascinating flowers found in warm climates is that of the Mahoe, or the Sea Hibiscus. In the morning the blossom is yellow but by late afternoon it is red. The working theory is the shrub changes color to appeal to two different groups of pollinators. If one doesn’t get it in the morning, one might in the afternoon. The change in color also increases the amount of antioxidants. It also helps that almost the entire shrub is edible some way. The blossoms, yellow or red, can be eaten raw or cooked. Their flavor is mild. Incidentally, the Portia Tree, aka Seaside Mahoe, can be used the same way, flowerwise. Here’s an article on it.

Moringa Blossoms

I think besides an edible flower nearly everything else is also edible on our next species, the Moringa Tree. It is difficult to overstate the value of the tree. If a panel of experts were to design a nutritional, easy to grow, life-saving species it would be the Moringa. Indeed, it is being planted in many places around the world to not only fight hunger but malnutrition as well, ’cause they ain’t necessarily the same thing. I planted one on my property several years ago and it begate itself. Here in subtropical Florida the tree easily grows 10 feet a year. I coppice it every season, and feel he-man in the process because the tree is extremely brittle and one can break a three-inch branch easily by hand. I should do a video of that some year because it is rather amazing. The flowers are eaten cooked, usually boiled, and taste like mushrooms. To read about the Moringa click here.

Pineapple sage

Our next edible flower comes with a warning. Don’t eat its similar looking relative. How can you tell them apart? The one you want smells of pineapple, which is why it is called the Pineapple Sage, Salvia elegans. Sometimes it is also called the Tangerine sage. The point is crush a leaf and you will smell pineapple or tangerine. The one you don’t want is Salvia coccinea, also called the Scarlet Sage, the Texas Sage and the Hummingbird Sage. Crush its leaf and it smells grassy or slightly sage-like.  Flowers of the Pineapple Sage, which taste like a hint of pineapple, are quite edible. However, even a quarter-inch square portion of a Salvia coccinea blossom will give you a big stomach ache and make you more than mildly ill. It’s not go-to-the-emergency-room ill but close to it.  I know this from personal experience because once, for lack of a better word,  I titrated the S. coccinea for potential edible use. It quickly let me know it is definitely is not an edible, raw at least. After my experience I had no interest in seeing if S. coccinea had any uses cooked.

Chickasaw Plum Blossom

Read this next entry as carefully as the last: You can eat some plum or peach blossoms, a few, a half dozen, but not a lot. Why? Because they have a chemical which when it goes through your tummy tum tum produces cyanide. A little cyanide we can tolerated, a lot will make you ill. Too much and you are deceased though admittedly it would take a lot of plum flowers to do that. Plum and peach flowers are a trail side nibble, a sprinkle in salads or on a dessert. Sparingly is the key. They are sweet, taste like nectar. Which ones? As far as I know any plum that produces plums and any peach that produces a peach that is edible. It should hold true for cherry blossoms as well as they are in the genus Prunus as well but I really don’t know. I would avoid the Laurel Cherry as it does not produce edible cherries. To read about Chickasaw Plums click here.

Hawthorn Blossoms

When I was growing up I lived on a dirt road out in the country. Across the road, kitty-corner, where two pastures met, was a Hawthorn tree. It was old and large and had two-inch thorns in grand profusion. It was also ladened every year with several families of birds because few predators would brave the thorns. As to which Hawthorn tree it was is anybody’s guess, even for a Hawthorn expert. It is one of those genus in which there may be a 100 species or a thousand. It is supposedly a professional joke in the botanical world to send a known Hawthorn to some one rather new and ask them to identify it to which the often reply is it must be a new species. Long ago someone discovered that very young Hawthorn leaves and blossoms in the spring could be eaten together right off the tree, thus the “Bread and Cheese tree” was born. Young leaves can be added to salads or nibble on. The blossoms, which have a peculiar taste, can be added to salads, desserts and drinks. Interestingly old leaves and fruit (minus seeds) are a natural beta blocker for high blood pressure. Two teaspoons of either or mixed ground up in a cup of hot water morning and night is the herbalist’s usual prescription. Read about Hawthorns.

Immature Cattail Blossom

You many not think of a cattail as having a blossom but it does and before it matures it is edible. In fact, both the male part of the flower and the female part of the flower are edible. Later when the male part produces pollen that’s edible as well. When the female parts turn brown it’s way past edible. The male part is the spike on top, the female part the wider portion below the spike. When both are green they can be boiled. The rest of the plant has edibles as well and is a well-known staple of the forager. The cattail rhizome is full of starch. In fact, no plants produces more edible starch per acre than the cattail. Read about them.

Papaya Blossom

This won’t make much sense to those who live where there is a winter but the first time I climbed Turtle Mound — not a great feat as it is only 80 feet high — I was surprised to see papaya’s growing on top. Turtle Mound is a midden, an ancient trash heap made mostly of millions of oyster shells dumped there by ancient natives. It’s been more than three decades since my first visit and the papayas are still there, self-seeding as papayas do. A native of Mexico they are naturalized in warm areas of the world. Papaya blossoms, like very young leaves, are edible cooked, which is usually by boiling.  Actually cooking the yellow flowers is a lot easier than pollinating them because there are female blossoms, male blossom, and male/female blossoms, kinda you, me and us. You have to move pollinating material around correctly or you don’t get fruit (also edible.) To read more about papayas click here.

Purslane's Small Blossom

It was something of a debate, to make this entry or not. After all, purslane is one of the most esteemed wild and cultivated edibles in the world (except oddly the United States.) It is used as a salad ingredient, a vegetable, a soup thickener, a flour, and a pickle. And yes, the flowers are edible but they are only open for a day. And when I say purslane I mean Portulaca oleracea, the kind with yellow blossoms only. Yes, I know there are commercial cultivars of multiple colored blossoms and they might look wonderful in a salad. But, I don’t know if they are edible. The Moss Rose/Rose Moss, another wild Purslane, Portulaca pilosa, is in my estimate not edible. So I stick with the original, common purslane with the yellow blossom. They are edible raw and cooked. Incidentally, the tiny pink blossoms of the sea purslane, Sesuvium portulacastrum,  is also edible raw or cooked. Click here to read more.

Tuberose Blossoms Moving Up

Tuberose has been put to a lot of uses. The Hawaiians used it to make leis. In Victorian times it was the funeral flower of choice. Then it spent a long time helping perfumes smell the way they do. Now it can be found as a food in five star hotels, well… at least those in the Orient. Botanically it is Polianthes tuberosa and might be a native of Mexico.The flowers open from the bottom of the flower spike up and can last a couple of weeks if you remove the blossoms and eat them. The Aztec so liked the flower their used its oil to flavor their chocolate. They are eaten cooked and are traditionally added to vegetable soups. They are also used to flavor some soy sauces

Chinese Wisteria

Wisteria is a nibble of spring, here for a few weeks and then gone. The blossoms of various species are edible cooked — some raw — but they are usually blanched in boiling water, strained, and mixed into salads or the deep fried. The rest of the plant is toxic per se. In fact, as little as two raw seeds can kill a child. That is not uncommon for a member of the pea family which ranges from edible to toxic. See my full article on wisteria here. One of the most common of the 8 to 10 species of wisteria is Wisteria sinsensis, or the Chinese Wisteria. It’s a vigorous, fast grower that doesn’t need fertilizer and fixes nitrogen. In fact, abuse improves blossoming as does pruning. It can live at least 115 years (as of April 2011) and is consider an invasive species is some areas.  It has naturalized from  Maine to Florida and as far west as Arkansas. Not bad since its arrival in 1816. Another one commonly eaten wisteria is Wisteria floribunda from Japan, also escaped in the US.

See Edible Flowers: Part Ten

Netted Pawpaw, photo by Angela Reigelman (MommaMiaX3)

Pawpaws (or papaws per Random House) can be among the most difficult wild fruits to find. They like to hide and woodland creatures like to eat them making it difficult for us. The easiest way to locate pawpaws is find them when they’re blossoming and they are blossoming locally now.

Unripe papaws

The most common place to spy pawpaws is and around pastures. Grazing livestock don’t eat the plants, blossoms or fruit. Look for bushy shrubs around five feet tall with magnolia-like cream-colored blossoms, or much smaller foot-size shrubs with dark ruby blossoms.

I can remember the first time I found a pawpaw. It was along a walking trail in Longwood, FL. At first I thought I had found a lumpy green pear but it was an unripe pawpaw. Interestingly pawpaws change greatly from hot Florida to the Smoky Mountain area. There, pawpaws are small trees.

There are two caveats: A chemical in pawpaws is still used to control head lice. And some people have a severe allergic reaction when eating them which is the prime reason they have not become a commercial fruit. That is, it’s not a significant health threat to the population at large but it is enough to give the lawyers fits. To read more about pawpaws, or papaws, click here.

?I am often asked: Can you eat grass. The simple question has a complex answer: Yes, no, maybe.

Strictly speaking we eat a lot of grass, but in the form of grain: Wheat, rice, rye, barley, millet et cetera. What most folks want to know is can you eat the culms and blades (stems and leaves.) What you just saw is also one of the impediments to learning about grasses, an argot all their own, a worse specific vocabulary than even mushrooms, and often identifying characteristics can only be seen with a dissecting microscope.

Crowfoot Grass

Humans are not multi-gastric (or in theory large-gutted). We aren’t designed to break down the cellulose in grass. Cows have a four-chambered stomach for that purpose, horses have a huge large intestine, even the gorilla has a gut that can accommodate large amounts of vegetation. We don’t. However, what we can do is dry the grass, grind it into a powder and use it as a bulking agent in food, such as breads, soups and stews. We don’t get much nutrition from grass prepared that way but it does add to the sensation of satiety and reduces hunger. Then there is the issue of cyanide.

I have read that all North American grasses are non-toxic. At the most basic level the means one has to know if the grass is native, which also requires identification, and I’ve already mentioned that group of plants can be a pain in the grass to identify. “Natives” would also include a lot species in the Andropogon family which I have never heard of having any use except perhaps making brooms. And some grasses have cyanide in them. Johnson Grass, a sorghum, is a good example. The large blades are full of it. Crowfoot Grass is another. We eat the grain of the latter but only after the plant has turned brown and the seeds are easily picked. Quite a few toxic grasses from Africa and Asia are naturalized in North America.

Personally I stick to a few grains, Sand Spurs, Barnyard Grass, and some Panicums. But then there is Timothy.

Timothy, prime livertock grass

Permit me a reminisce: I recently bought another book for my foraging library, A Guide to Florida Grasses, by Walter Kingsley Taylor, not the first book in my collection from this august author. I will say more about the book in newsletters to come. I spent a wedding afternoon recently browsing through the guide and noted his entry on Timothy Grass. The picture alone erased more than 50 years and took me back to summers as a boy when I was impressed into service to harvest hay for our livestock, most of it Timothy, Phleum pratense, a grass originally from Europe. We “hayed” nearly ever summer for some 20 years, usually putting into the barn ten to 15 tons of loose hay. (There is some irony in that most of the hay we got every year came from the Hayward Farm.)

The main machine for cutting this hay was a horse-drawn sickle mower. Instead of two horses the tongue was extended four feet and was pulled by a stripped-down WWII Jeep, which I got to drive. As soon as I was old enough to reach the pedals I drove and Dad operated the mower.  By the time I was legally old enough to get a driver license I had already driven thousands of miles in hayfields and across country roads. Most of my annual summer “vacation” was spent haying and driving.

The problems of haying became common. The cutter bar would break a tooth, a triangle-shaped replaceable cutting edge held on by rivets, which we replaced red hot from our own forge. At least once a season, more depending upon how thick the grass was, the piston arm would break, as it was intended to do. It was a piece of ash, called a pitman, that pushed the mower blade back and fourth being moved by gears turned by the wheels of the mower. When stresses got too much the wooden piston would break saving the rest of the machine from damage. Two other problems were common.

Sicklebar Cutter

Often the cut hay would wrap around each of the Jeep’s drive shafts, build up like a wad of cotton candy, get hot and catch on fire, not far from the gas tank. This required quick stopping, crawling under the hot vehicle, putting out the fire, then removing the tightly wound hay, often, ironically, with a blow torch. The other issue, beside unpredicted rain, was ground hornets. The Jeep, pulling the mower, would run over a ground hornets’ nest — at least one per field. They were never pleased about that. The hornets would instantly swarm under the Jeep, then emerge between the back of the jeep and the mower where they would find both of us and attack. It was an excuse to change gears and drive like hell…

Father and son scything hay

In places where the terrain was too wet or hilly my father, who was built like a heavy-weight boxer and did box, would take out a scythe and cut it by hand. He had two grim reaper scythes. One with a long thin blade for hay and one with a short thick blade for brush. Once the hay was cut and sun dried we would winnow it with a Jeep-adapted horse-drawn rake. Then it was loaded loose onto a hay wagon I would drive home.  As the hay was lifted into the barn — a hay fork pulled by the Jeep which my mother drove — my job on those oh-so-hot summer nights was to go up in the high rafters of the barn with 100 pounds of salt for each ton of hay. As each forkful of hay was dumped into the barn I salted it to absorb any moisture thus preventing it from rotting, getting hot and starting a fire. And then… then throughout the winter I had to shovel and cart the recycled hay to the manure pile. No wonder I was a skinny kid.

A modern “Ben Franklin”

And all the time — driving or shoveling — I had a stem of Timothy Grass in my mouth, chewing away enjoying the mild sweetness. It is a grass I would dry, powder, and use. Being a farm kid and chomping on Timothy was part of the same existence. It’s one grass that I know beyond any doubt. Timothy was unintentionally introduced to North America in 1711 by one John Herd. He called it “herd grass.” Clever. He talked it up and it was grown in southern Canada, New England area and New York. In 1720 a Timothy Hanson moved from New England to Baltimore and began to cultivate the seed and sell it.  He was the first person in the new world who grew, bagged and sold hay seed. George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were admirers of the grass and Franklin is credited with calling it “Timothy Seed.” The name was shortened to Timothy and it stuck. It is found nearly everywhere in North America, and even in Greenland. I sometimes wonder what my youth would have been like — and adulthood — had Messers Herd, Hanson and Franklin not known good grass when they saw, ah, tasted it.

Recently added articles on EatTheWeeds.com: Sida, Wireweed; False Roselle; Edible Flowers: Part Eighteen; Gout Weed.

 ? Don’t even consider trying to eat the blossom of the Salvia coccinea, the Scarlet Sage. While it blossoms year round it is responding to the warm weather with wonderful displays of scarlet red blossoms. While they look like they would be wonderful additions to a salad they can put you in the hospital. The Scarlet Sage is one good reason why I am opposed to “field testing.”

Field Testing Can Be Dangerous

One year I, too, thought the blossom might be a good salad edition. I researched the species extensively. It was a native, exported around the world for 400 years, had no reports of toxicity, had one medicinal report, and came from a good family, the sages. I decided to field test the plant, under very controlled conditions. That’s means I had researched the plant very well, knew exactly what I was doing, was NOT in an emergency situation, had good health insurance and a hospital nearby. Those are the only acceptable conditions, in my opinion, for “field testing.”

Thus I began the field testing in stages. On the appropriate day of the schedule I ate a piece of the red blossom that was 1/8 of an inch square, which as exact as I could get with my exacto blade and the delicate blossom. Forty minutes later my head spun and my stomach cramped and I was ill for three weeks. I was close to going-to-the-emergency room ill within the hour. By day two I was just sick. Pepto Bismo calmed the stomach and Coca-cola syrup (both from the pharmacy) controlled the nausea. For three weeks I consumed little but Pepto Bismo and Coca-cola syrup.

Imagine if I were not intentionally testing the plant under optimum conditions? What if it had been an emergency, and I was responsible for others, and I took it upon myself to “field test’ an unknown plant as, unfortunately, far too many “survival” books recommend. I would have been out of commission, useless, of no help to any one exactly when needed the most. And if you “field test” the wrong plant you could be more than just sick. The next time someone starts to teach you the “field testing” method ask one question: What plant do you eat now that you discovered by field testing? The answer is always “none.” Then ask: “have you actually ever field tested a plant?” The answer is usually “no.” A lot of folks are teaching something they have never done. I turned down a lucrative fee to go to a convention and teach “field testing.”  I don’t think “field testing” should be done in the field. Just the opposite; if ever it should be done under very controlled conditions after a lot of research and with medical facilities near by. In other words, rarely, if ever. There is a picture of the non-edible Salvia cocinnea here. Let’s just say: Don’t go there.

A wisteria raceme, note short stems on the blossoms

Botany Builder #15: A Spike and a Raceme are similar inflorescences but they have a distinct difference. An inflorescence is a flowering system that has more than one blossom. A dandelion is NOT an inflorescence. A cherry blossom which has many flowers is an inflorescence. Both a Raceme and the Spike have multiple blossoms along a stem. However, the Raceme blossoms have short stems (petioles) that attach to the main stem. The wisteria has a Raceme. Blossoms on a spike attach to the main stem directly. They do not have short stems (petioles.) The common gladious is a spike, and a rather large one.

A gladiolus spike

Its blossoms, left, attach to the main stem directly. The blossoms do not have short stems. Note on both the Raceme and the Spike older flowers are larger than the newer flowers which are near the end. Usually ripening of the fruit or seed on both also proceeds from nearest the plant towards the end away from the plant. Both glads and wisteria blossoms are edible. To read about glads click here, to read about wisteria click here.

Herbal Conference Reminder: Scheduled for the 23-25 of March, I will be there and many other teachers. Mention Eat The Weeds and you get a 20% discount. To register, or learn more, visit www.FloridaHerbalConference.org. There are benefits to being involved. March is a wonderful time for plants and people in Florida.

Upcoming Classes: Saturday, March 24, Jervey Gantt Recreation Complex, 2390 SE 36th Ave., Ocala, 9 a.m.

To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Articles

•     Ackee

Delicious and deadly, that’s ackee

• Acorn Grubs: Bait, Trailside Nibble  (2)

  Yes, this is about eating grubs. Deal with it.

  Without the expertise of Charles E. Williams and the Michigan Entomological Society, Department of entomology,…

• Acorns, or Oak Nuts?  (1)

  It seem like a little thing that grew into a big problem, just like the edible I was writing about.

  I had several requests to do something about acorns.…

• Acorns: The Inside Story  (27)

  Acorn: More than a survival food
  The first time you eat an acorn it makes you wonder what the squirrels are going nuts about. As the bitterness twists…

• Agave, Century Plant

  Century Plant: Edible Agave Americana

  If you like tequila, thank a bat. If that’s not possible, thank a humming bird or a moth. Those three pollinate the…

• Alligator a la Carte  (5)
  I caught a small alligator once. I was fishing for bass in a golf course water trap behind an apartment complex in Titusville, Florida (that’s west across…
• Alligator Weed

  Alternanthera philoxeroides: Exotic Munch

  If you have alligators you have alligator weed. That’s a little odd because alligator weed is a native of…

• Alternate Pepper of Brazilian Pest?  Brazilian Pepper is a personal unknown
• Amapola, Sea Hibiscus, Rope Mangrove

  Hibiscus pernambucensis: Walking Lunch

  The Amapola is on the go, but unlike the “walking” mangrove, the Amapola crawls.

  There is something of a…

• Amaranth: Grain, Vegetable, Icon  (3)

  Amaranth, the forgotten food

  A book could be written about amaranth, and probably has, if not several.

  A grain, a green, a cultural icon, a religious…

• Amaranth Identification:

  Sorting out some amaranths

• A Matter of Attitude

  “Yuck.”

  That word has been in my mailbox lately, sprinkled through like spice on an entree. It reminds me of what a great language English is.

  English…

• American Lotus: Worth Getting Wet For  (1)

  More American than apple pie
  Nature fights back.

  Much of Florida is giving way to housing. For several years I passed a large abandoned pasture with a dry…

• American Nightshade: A Much Maligned Edible  (5)

  Solanum americanum: Food or Poison?

  Anyone who’s done some foraging has seen the “Black Nightshade” also called the “Common Nightshade” and (DRUM ROLLLLLLLL…

• Annona Quartet

  The Annonas Four: Sugar, Sour, Custard, Pond
  Many species and a few family of plants sit on the cusp of edible, non-edible, among them the Annonas, tropicals…

• Antikythera Mechanism
  The Antikythera Mechanism is unique, kind of like a monotypic genus plant. In fact, this short article was originally written as the introduction for the…

• A Pitch For Spruce Gum: Real spruce gum is not easy to chew. It is not soft or sweet. Hard and crumbly is more accurate along with pieces of bark and bits of insects.

• Apples, Wild Crabapples

  Malus sieversii, Hard-Core Apples
  Wild Apples are one of the most common over-looked foraging foods. People take one taste, spit it out, and go on their…

• Are Raw Vegetables Healthy for Humans?  (4)

  The quick answer by most would be yes, the presumption being man ate raw vegetables for a long time and is better suited to them, and them to him. But, whether…

• Are You A Cook Or A Baker?

  I am often asked about herbal medicine. My answer to the inquirer is often a question: Are you a cook or a baker? Their answer is instructive.

  While one…

• Armadillo: Possum on the Half Shell  (2)

  Armadillo Cuisine: Cooking a Hoover Hog
  Armadillos are an overlooked food animal, not protected by law, available throughout the year, and good tasting. And…

• Attitude Makes The Difference

  Facts don’t disappear in life, but in the end attitude is their equal. Water hyacinths can demonstrate that.

  If you know much about the state of Florida…

• Australian Pine  (1)

  Casuarina equisetifolia: Dreaded Edible
  It is truly fitting that the Australian Pine ends up on a site dedicated to edible plants because where it has been…

• What do you do when the description of a plant doesn’t fit? The answer depends on how far off the description is: You might have the wrong plant.

  If it is…

• Balloon Vine, Heart Vine, Heart Seed

  Cardiospermum halicacabum: Edible Leaves

  For a tropical plant, the Balloon Vine can take cold weather, growing from west Texas north to Montana, Florida…

• Bamboo Doesn’t Bamboozle You

  Bambusa
  Do not tell me you don’t live near bamboo. I grew up in 50-below zero Maine and we had bamboo in front of the house for decades. In fact, the…

• Bananas: More Than A Yellow Frou Frou Fruit  (5)

  Bananas Trees: Survival Food
  Yes, everyone knows bananas are edible, as are their starchy cousins, the plantains. One doesn’t think of banana or plantain…

• Barnyard Grass  (8)
  The first time I saw Barnyard Grass was decades ago in a real barnyard near a drain spout. I was with forager Dick Deuerling who identified it for me.…

• Basswood Tree, Linden, Lime Tree

  Tilia americana: Forest Fast Food
  My first recollection of basswood was not on the supper table but rather helping my father make pipes.

  First we’d…

• Bauhinia: Pretty Eats

  Bauhinias’ Beauty

  It’s called the Camel Foot Tree, the Cow Foot Tree, the Mountain Ebony Tree, the Orchid Tree, and the Hong Kong Orchid Tree. I ignored it…

• Birches: One could easily write a book about Birches because they are so valuable to foragers.

• Beach Bean, Bay Bean  (2)

  Canavalia maritima, Rosea, Beach Bean
  It’s the tank of beans: Three inches long, an inch wide and very thick. And with good reason, it lives near the…

• Beach Orach, Crested Salt Bush

  Atriplex cristata: Pigweed by the Sea

  Anyone familiar with the Goosefoot family will see the Beach Orach and presume it is probably edible, and it is.

  A…

• Beautyberry: Jelly on a Roll  (23)

  Beautyberry: Callicarpa Americana
  The Beautyberry is squirrel’s version of take out.

  Squirrels will often break off a branch a foot or two long and…

• Beech, American

  Fagus grandifolia: The All-American Beech

  Tree trivia: Beechnut chewing gum had nothing to do with the Beech tree or the seeds it produces. It was, however,…

• Bees In Litigation

  The last time I visited relatives in Greece, September 2006, I had “tea” with one of two then-living first cousins of my grandmother, both in their 90s,…

• Before There Were Baked Beans

  Baked beans is about as traditional a New England meal as one can get… That and boiled dinners. Every Sunday for decades we had boiled dinner. Potatoes,…

• Begonia Bonanza

  Waxing about Edible Begonias
  It was on Rock Springs Run, some 20 years ago here in Florida, when I first saw them, just above the variable water line. I…

• Betony: Rich Root, Poor Root  (5)

  Stachys Floridana, Culinary Pretender
  I have read from a good source that all Stachys are edible. I politely doubt that for three reasons. First there are 300…

• Big Caltrop: If you’re an adult with aging eyesight Kallstroemia maxima when first spied can look like purslane. A closer examination shows it is not.
• Binomial Nomenclature

  Most of us go by two names. So do plants. That’s Binomial Nomenclature. That is both good and bad. It’s good in that two people on different sides of the…

• Birches: One could easily write a book about Birches because they are so valuable to foragers.

• Bird Peppers

  Capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum: Hot Eats

  Did y0u know hot peppers grow in the wild? From Central American north to Arizona east to Florida then up the…

•  Bitter Melon (6)

  Bitter Melon, Bitter Gourd, Balsam Pear: Momordica Charantia
  If the Balsam Pear did not exist a pharmaceutical company would invent it. In fact, there…

• Bitter Lettuce

  Launea intybacea: Edible Bitter Lettuce

  The plant came first, and it’s anybody’s guess to what its scientific name is.

  Every botanical wonderkin thinks…

• Bittercress and Kissing Crucifer Cousins

  Cardamine pensylvanica: Petite Pot Herb
  The first time I saw Bittercress I knew it had to be an edible. I just didn’t know which one.

  How did I know? Plants…

• Black Calabash: It started with spotting a blossom while teaching a foraging class. 
• Black Cherry: Chokecherry’s Better Cousin  (3)

  Prunus serotina: Better Late than Never Cherry

  Think of the Black Cherry as a chokecherry with some of the choke removed.

  Not a 100 feet from the…

• Black Ironwood, Leadwood
  Krugiodendron ferreum: Ironwood M&MsGreen twigs of Black Ironwood will sink in salt water. It’s that dense.The Black Ironwood was…

• Black Medic  (2)

  Medicago Lupulina: Grain and Potherb
  I debated a long time whether to include Black Medic as an edible. There are several plants in that category and over…

• Black Walnuts and Butternut

  Juglans nigra and butternut, too!

  I didn’t see my first Black Walnut tree until about 16 years ago. It so happened that the two places I lived the longest,…

• Blackberries, A Forager’s Companion  (1)

  Blackberries: Robust Rubus, Food & Weed
  Anyone who forages will eventually collect a few blackberries, and thorns. Blackberries are among the best known…

• Bladderwrack

  Fucus vesiculosus: Edible Bladderwrack
  Bladderwrack can wrack your brain.

  Why? Because in some places it has bladders and is textbook perfect. And in others…

• Blolly, Beeftree

  Guapira discolor: A Blolly by Golly
  The Blolly confounded me when I first saw the tree for it was growing by itself in a park. The fruit is quite distinct, a…

• Blue Porterweed, Bottom Up!

  Stachytarpheta jamaicensis: Near Beer
  Should the civilized world come to an end and you have a hankering for a stout beer you’re in luck: You can make one…

• Blueberries, or Huckleberry’s Kin

  Vacciniums: Am I Blue?

  Blueberrying was a family tradition. The only debate was did you pick them clean, or did you pick leaves, bugs and all then clean…

• Botanical Bachelor

  As a seasoned life-long bachelor I had my pickup line all crafted and rehearsed, so I could say it naturally at the right moment when my Dream Lady came near.…

• Bottlebrush Tree:
• Bougainvilleas:     Bougainvilleas are often referred to as a toxic plant. 

I’m often asked during my classes why I mention many plants that can be used to make tea. There are two answers:

• Brookweed: Brookweed is an edible plant few know a lot about these days. Even Professor Daniel Austin, who managed to write 909 pages about ethnobotany, could only scrape up one paragraph.

• Brown Anoles  (3)

  “Did you clean them” I asked a friend who might want to remain anonymous.

  “No” he said.

  “You cooked them whole?”

  “Yes.”

  “You ate them head, tail and…

• Browne’s Savory: Clinopodium Browneii

  The Mighty Minty Micromeria Browneii

  Sometimes in central Florida you will drive past a car accident on the interstate, or another road, and smell…

• Budget Cut Benefits

  Two effects of the economic times are influencing foraging. First is an increase in the number of people who are putting food on the table by foraging. The…

• Bug-a-Boo’s or Grubs Up  (5)
  On this site are several articles about edible insects (among other creatures.) Below is an expanding collection of more than 50 edible insects. I plan to…

• Bulrush Bonanza  (3)

  Cattail’s Maligned Companion: The bulrush has a public relations problem. It found in the same environment as the cattail, can be used the same way, and tastes…

• Bunchberry Brunch

  Munching Cornus canadensis/unalaschkensis
  Discussing things little ears shouldn’t hear, they barely interrupt their conversations to pick a low Bunchberry from…

• Bunya Pine: The Australian Aboriginals knew a good thing when they tasted it. So did the immigrants. It’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t like the taste of Bunya Pine nuts. But you will find people who don’t like to clean up after it because the ancient species sheds sharp leaves and heavy cones.
• Burdock Banquet

  Arctium minus: Burdock’s Plus Side
  I have a confession to make: When I was a kid I had a miniature corn cob pipe. And in it I smoked dried burdock leaf… I…

• Buttercups:  Buttercups are usually considered not edible.

• Cabbage Palm, Sabal Palmetto  (4)

  Heart of Palm and Controversy
  The state tree of Florida isn’t a tree, but it is a weed of many edible parts.

  The Sabal palmetto, actually an overgrown…

• Cactus: Don’t Be Spineless  (3)

  Nopalea Cochenillifera: Cactus Cuisine
  Be brave when you collect cactus.

  Of course, good gloves and tongs help. With those tools you can have a very…

• Caesar Weed Sampler  (5)

  Urena Lobata: Cash crop to noxious weed
  Once it was an invited money-maker, now it is a hunted money spender: Caesar weed, cash crop to noxious weed.

  We have…

• Camphor Tree: Cinnamon’s Smelly Cousin

  Campy Camphor: Not Just For Grandma

  One would never guess Camphor trees are not native to Florida, or the South. One also probably wouldn’t guess they…

• Candlestick Tree: If you are meandering through a botanical garden in a warm climate and you see a tree growing four-foot-long candles it might be Parmentiera cereifera.
• Candyroot
  I will be the first to admit my experience with Candyroot is very limited. In a flower book I carried with me on field trips some 20 years ago with Florida…

• Canna Confusion  (1)
  How many species of Canna are there? Used to be perhaps 100 but now there are 20 or so, plus one Scottish island with a …ah.. population problem. And…

• Cannibalism
  There is no way to approach the topic of cannibalism without offending someone. Apologies offered. Cannibalism, the last great social taboo, is committed…

• Canoeing Rock Spring’s Run & The Wekiva
  Canoes are the best way for you to sneak up on deer, unless of course you’re the kind of canoeist who uses the paddle and canoe like a drum set.On a…

• Can We Eat Grass?  That simple question has a complex answer: Yes, no, and maybe.  It’s a topic I explored in a recent Green Deane Newsletter and the basis for this article.

• Carolina Bristle Mallow  (1)

  Modiola caroliniana: A Bristly Drink
  No one knows how many species of edible plants there are in the world, or in North America. In the former the guess is…

• Carpetweed  (3)
  When it comes to Carpetweed you need to know only two things: It grows nearly everywhere, or will. And the plant above ground is edible. To quote Cornucopia…

• Cassia Clan aka Senna

  Cassia occidentalis: Faux Coffee & Greens
  You either cook the Cassia Clan right or they make you sick. Any questions?

  Now that I have your attention,…

• Cast Iron Cookery, Buying and Restoring  (3)

  Cast Iron Pans: Yesterday is tomorrow
  Many books have been written about cast iron cookware. I will try to say a few things here perhaps not said elsewhere.

  B…

• Cast Net Junkie

  I will admit to being a cast net junkie.

  Some people collect coins or stamps. I collect cast nets. I started throwing nets some 30 years ago and have been…

• Cast Nets: Throwing Your Weights Around

  Throwing Your Trouble Away
  I love cast netting. I own five of them and rarely come home empty handed. I also never throw for bait: I go for the…

• Cattails – A Survival Dinner  (3)

  Cattails: Swamp Supermarket
  The United States almost won WWII with cattails.

  No green plant produces more edible starch per acre than the Cat O’ Nine…

• Caulerpa

  Caulerpa: Warm-Water Salad and Pest
  Caulerpa ssp.would seem to be a paradox. Eaten around the world by thousands for thousands of years but called a killer…

• Cereus Today Not Tomorrow

  Getting Down To Cereus Business

  There are three things irritating about Cereus other than their spines: 1) several botanical names for the same plant; 2)…

• Ceriman, Delicious Monster

  Monstera deliciosa: Hmm Hmm Good!
  Large Delight. That’s what Monstera deliciosa means…. It was an edible I did not know about until pointed out to me by my…

• Chain of Contamination

  In police work there is the chain of possession. When evidence is collected, who has it, and where it’s kept is recorded constantly. With food we might call it…

• Chaya: The Spinach Tree  (7)

  Cnidoscolus aconitifolius: Tree Pot Herb
  I knew about Chaya long before I ever saw one.

  It’s in the Cnidoscolus genus and has two relatives in the…

• Che: Che is not the tree it used to be.

• Checkerberry cum Wintergreen

  The Teaberry Shuffle
  I saw Gary Vickerson eat an earthworm I found near a checkerberry plant. Personally I preferred the Checkerberry.

  Before I go any…

• Chestnuts: Chestnuts have done more than just disappear from the landscape: They have dropped out of our lives save for a token appearance at Christmas.

• Chewstick, White Root

  Gouania lupuloides: How to Get Chewed Out

  The modern toothbrush was unknown in Europe until 1498, the year it came from China. Before that people…

• Chickasaw Plum: Yum  (5)

  Chickasaw Plum: First Springtime Blossom

  Every spring, three wild plums put on a show locally: The Chickasaw, the Flatwood, and the American. They…

• Chickweed Chic  (11)

  Chickweed Connoisseurs
  My being green really paid off this spring: For the first time (2009) I have chickweed in my lawn. I don’t know how it got there but it…

• Chicory History

  Cichorium intybus: Burned to a Crisp
  Chicory was not a common plant where I grew up or where I live. But I remember the first time I saw it, in 1990, in a…

• Chinese Box-Orange, Tsau Ping Lak

  Atalantia buxifolia: Wine-Cake Thorn
  The Chinese Box-Orange is one of my botanical mysteries. I know it is edible but I don’t know how… But I may still…

• Chinese Elm Take out

  Chinese Elm: A tree that doesn’t go Dutch
  Sometimes a wild edible can be under your feet and you never notice, or in this case, over your head.

  Anyone with…

• Chinese Tallow Tree  (1)

  Popcorn Tree, Florida Aspen, Tallow Tree

  There is a lot of debate whether the white waxy aril of the Chinese Tallow Tree is edible or not…

• Chocolate Vine, Abeki: Any plant with “chocolate” in the name is sure to get attention. And when it’s also called an invasive species then even more so.

• Christmas & Maiden berries

  Crossopetalums: Edible Berries & Medicine

  When I was an undergrad in music it was a revelation to learn that by studying music you also studied history:…

• Christmasberry, Wolfberry, Goji  (1)

  Christmas, Wolf, Goji, They’re All Berries
  It’s called the Christmasberry even though it fruits in April, and while it is one of several “Christmas Berries”…

• Chufa For Two  (1)

  Cyperus esculentus, C. rotundus: Serious Sedges
  There are two edible Cyperus locally: One that tastes like hazelnuts and one that smells and tastes to me…

• Cider Barrel Rules  (2)
  My mother was a horrible cook.I used to joke she thought I was a Greek god: Every meal was either a burnt offering or a sacrifice.I learned to cook…

• Cider Hard, But Quick and Easy  (22)

  How To Make Hard Cider
  You can make hard apple cider the difficult way, or the quick and easy way. I prefer the easy quick way. I’ve made a lot of beer and…

• Citron Melon, Tsamma  (6)

  Citron Melons: Abandoned Preserves
  Are they edible?

  Even people who do not forage want to know if the little watermelons they see in citrus groves are…

• Civilized Food

  While making my purslane video I was thinking back to a family friend who refused to eat purslane because it was a “weed.”

  It had taken over about one third…

• Climbing Fig, Creeping Fig  (3)
  If there is one thing about the Internet that irritates the sap out of me it is how mistakes proliferate rather than get corrected. I have ranted about…

• Clover, Available Around The World  (7)

  Clover, Available Around The World
  Hay may be for horses, but clover is for people…well…. almost.

  I was forever nibbling on clover blossoms when I…

• Coco-Plums

  Chrysobalanus icaco: Multi-Colored Fruit
  Coco-plums are three quarters patriotic: They can be red, white, or blue ( and yellow.)

  Actually, the “blue” is deep…

• Coconuts: It’s A Matter of Degrees

  Coconut, An Equatorial Palm
  Popular media and commercial production have made the coconut a common cultural item, even if you live thousands of miles away…

• Codium Compendium

  Codiums: Edible around the world
  Oceanographers like to call Codium a minor seaweed because it is not commercially exploitable. Yet where it is found around…

• Common Reed  (1)
  Some 20 years ago I pondered upon the identity of what appeared to be a very tall grass in a former marlpit in Port Orange, a few miles south of Daytona…

• • Cooking Like A Caveman

    The Mesolithic Era is not a sexy topic that will win friends and influence people at parties. But, it is something foragers should think about. If you are a…

  • Cooking without Pots or Pans  (2)

    Mesolithic Cooking: It’s the Pitshttps://www.eattheweeds.com
    How do you cook without pots or pans?

    It’s a question our distant ancestors never asked because pots and pans didn’t…

www.eattheweeds.com

• Coontie Courage

  Zamia Floridana: Making Toxins Edible
  This plant is included here in case 1) society falls apart; 2) You live in Georgia or Florida and need starch…

• Coquina: Tasty Tiny Clam
  Coquina: Donax: Good Eats
  Ounce for ounce there is probably no more delicious seafood than Coquina. The problem is getting an ounce of it, so we usually…

• Coral Bean: Humming Bird Fast Food
  Erythrina herbacea: Part Edible, Part NotThe (eastern) Coral Bean is one of those damned if you do, and damned if you don’t kind of things. Parts of…

• Coral Vine

  Antigonon leptopus: Creeping Cuisine
  The Antigonon leptopus ( an-TIG-oh-non LEP-toh-puss) inspires local names everywhere it grows: Tallahassee Vine, Honolulu…

• Corn Poppy
  Several plants have relatives whose reputations are difficult to live down. The Natal Plum is one. Related to the oleander the delicious plum suffers from…

• Corn Smut:   Mexican Truffles. Corn Smut. Raven Scat.  Ustilago maydis gets more unappetizing the further one goes down its list of names. The Aztecs called it huitlacoche.  The Mexicans call it a delicacy.

•  Crabgrass Was King  (3)

  Forage, Grain, Flour, Manna, Pest
  Americans did two interesting things when they moved from the farm to suburbia: They surrounded their homes with toxic…

• Cranberries, Lingonberries

  Get Your Annual Vaccinium Every Year
  Frozen cranberries are just as sour as fresh ones.

  I know that because when I was a kid skating on frozen ponds in Maine…

• Creeping Cucumber: Melothria Pendula  (2)

  Cute Cuke! Melothria Pendula

  The Melothria pendula is a little cucumber with a big reputation.

  That said, when it comes to the “creeping cucumber”…

• Crowfoot Grass, True Grits

  Dactyloctenium aegyptium: Staple Grain
  Grasses can be a pain in the …ah… grass…

  First, books about grasses are few and incredibly expensive. Next,…

• Dad’s Applewood Pipes  (3)
  Time edits your memories. It sands off the rough edges that were once painfully sharp. It makes some moments clearer by evaporating the fog of being…

• Dahlia Pinnata
  Here’s the good news: At least one species of Dalhia has edible roots. Here’s the bad news, there are some 20,000 cultivars, maybe even thousands more. A…

• Dandelions: Hear Them Roar  (3)
  Dandelion Wine and Coffee and SaladDandelions and I go back a long ways, more than half a century.When I was very young in Maine my mother…

• Dayflowers, Often One Petal Shy  (4)

  Commelina diffusa: What a day for a dayflower
  Common names can be a headache when one is trying to index a plant. The plant to the lower right is commonly…

• Daylily Dilemma  (3)

  Daylily: Just Cloning Around
  The daylily, a standard plant in foraging for a century or more, has become too much of a good thing and now presents a significan…

• Dead Man’s Fingers
  Decaisnea fargesii: True Ghoul Blue
  There are three Dead Man’s Fingers: A seaweed, a mushroom, and a shrub, all so-called because of the way they…

• Does Anyone Know What Time It Is?  (2)
  It is time for my semi-annual rant and wish that G.V. Hudson had a different hobby. Hudson, a New Zealander, collected insects and was a shift worker. In…

• Does The Nose Know?

  What Does a Word Smell Like?

  During nearly every class I have students smell three or four plants — depending upon the season — and I ask them what common…

• Dog and Cat  (1)
  Most Westerners would starve than eat their pet, and understandably so. There is a tacit agreement between pets and their owners. In exchange for putting…

• Doveweed

  Murdannia nudiflora: Tiny Dayflower Kin
  In India the Doveweed is a famine food. That should give you some idea of how it lines up in the culinary kingdom. The…

• Drymaria Cordata, Tropical Chickweed  (3)

  Drymaria cordata: Kissing cousin chickweed
  Drymaria cordata is one of those plants that confounds the mind. You know what it resembles: Chickweed. It has one…

• Duckweed

A Weed Most Fowl. Do ducks eat duckweed? Yes and no. Do humans eat duckweed? Yes and no. Domestic ducks tend to eat duckweed, wild ones don’t.…

• Dulse for Dinner

Foragers tend to ignore seaweed.

• Ear Tree, Sound Food

  Lend Me An Ear Tree

  Just about anyone who has spent anytime in a warm climate will some day find on a sidewalk a black seed pod that looks like a human…

• Earthworms  (7)

  Cooking with Earthworms
  The cartoon strip BC once had its peg-leg poet write: “The bravest man I ever saw was the first one to eat an oyster raw.”

• Eastern Gamma Grass:   Someone who supposedly knew their grasses wrote there are no toxic native North American grasses.

• Eastern Red Bud: Pea Pods Tree  (5)
  Cercis canadensis: In The Bud of TimeIt’s one of those trees that if you don’t see it at the right time you’re not looking for it the rest of the year.…

• Eating In Season  (1)
  There is little doubt that eating certain fiddlehead greens can significantly increase ones chances of cancer. In fact, science says they cause cancer. On…

• Edible Cultivated Flowers: All 20 articles in one article

• Edible Flowers: Part One  (1)Nasturtium, Calendula, Spanish Needles, Arugula, Squash, Cilanto, Bee Balm, Carnation, Dandelion, Lilac
  Which blossom will be your favorite edible…

• Edible Flowers: Part Two  (9)Tulips, Yucca, Begonias, Blue Porterweed, Queen Ann’s Lace, Dill, Gladiolas, Wapato, Impatiens, CitrusTulips are one of those wonderful flowers you…

• Edible Flowers: Part Three  (2)Mayflower, Chrysanthemum, Cornflower, Rose, Daylily, Elderberry, Chicory, Johnny-Jump-Ups, Linden, BananaA rite of spring in the frozen north, or at…

• Edible Flowers: Part Four

Spiderwort, Marigolds, Rosemary, Smartweed, Pineapple Weed, Chamomile, False Roselle, Lavender, Forsythia, Borage

• Edible Flowers: Part Five

Apple, Fuchsia, Sweet Goldenrod, Basil, Gorse, Bauhinia, Eastern Redbud, Angelica, Honeysuckle, Eastern Coral Bean
Apple Blossom
Every seed in every apple…

• Edible Flowers: Part Six  (1)Burnet, Magnolia, Fennel, Garden Sorrel, Tansy, Pink Wood Sorrel, Sunflower, Pineapple Guava, Prickly Pear, PansiesBurnet (Sanguisorba minor) is…

• Edible Flowers: Part Seven  (1)Scarlet Runner Bean, Peony, Hyacinth Bean, Clover, Jasmine, Chervil, Water Hyacinth, Plantain Lily, Meadowsweet, Perennial PhloxScarlet Runner Bean is…

• Edible Flowers: Part Eight

  Society Garlic, Anise Hyssop, Black Locust, Gardenia, Fragrant Water Lily, Strawberry, Marsh Mallow, Maypops, Milkweed, Hollyhocks

  It’s clearly not…

• Edible Flowers: Part Nine  (1)Mahoe, Moringa, Pineapple Sage, Plum, Hawthorn, Cattail, Papaya, Purslane, Tuberose, Wisteria
  Mahoe’s Blossoms Change Color
  One of the more fascinating…

• Edible Flowers: Part Ten

Alliums, Oregano, Pinks, Peas, Okra, Galium, Ginger, Scented Geraniums, Primrose, Mustard/RadishThe author of “Florida’s Incredible Wild Edibles” Dick…

• Edible Flowers: Part Eleven

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

• Edible Flowers: Part Twelve  (2)Forget-Me-Nots, Calamint, Mimosa Silk Tree, Clary Sage, Petunia x hybrid, Balloon Flower, Yarrow, Corn Poppy, Daisy, Sweet AlyssumThe story I heard…

• Edible Flowers: Part Thirteen  (1)Sesbania Grandifolia, Lemon Verbena, Szechaun Buttons, Horseradish, Tea Olive, Tiger Lily, Currants, Honewort, Thyme, Indian Paint BrushSesbania…

• Edible Flowers: Part Fourteen  (2)
  Manzanita, Rose of Sharon, Tea, Campanula, Artichoke, Saffron, Samphire, Sage, Parsley, Common MallowWestern states often seem to get short-changed in…

• Edible Flowers: Part Fifteen

Mango, Catnip, Pignut, Lovage, Salsify, Hairy Cowpea, Fritillary, Mint, Cow Slip, BirchDid you know mangoes and poison ivy are botanical kissing…

• Edible Flowers: Part Sixteen

Oregon Holly Grape, Snapdragon, Caesar’s Weed, Golden Alexanders, Loroco, Safflower, White Sagebrush, Puget Balsam Root, Yellow Commelina, Bitter Gourd

• Edible Flowers: Part Seventeen

Black Salsify, Coltsfoot, Yellow Pond Lily, Mexican Hyssop, Carambola, Baobob, Kapok, Durian, Italian Bugloss, BlueweedEdible plants collect a lot of…

• Edible Flowers: Part Eighteen  (7)

  Spring Beauty, Chickweed, Alpine Cress, High Bush Cranberry, Columbine, Hyssop, Musk Hyacinth, White Trout Lily, Yellow Adder’s Tongue, Aloe

  The Spring…

• Edible Flowers: Part Nineteen  (2)

  Tulip Tree, Eucalyptus, Melaleuca, King’s Spear, Gunnison Mariposa, Sego Lily, Star of Bethleham, Forest Lily, Guinea Arrowroot, Neem Tree

  The blossom…

• Edible Flowers: Part Twenty

Chinese Perfume Plant, Queensland Silver Wattle, Cloves, Chinese Lotus, Blue Lotus, Screwpine, Turpentine Tree, Sweet Autum Clematis, St. Anthony’s Turnip, Quince

• Edible Wild Flowers:

All 20 articles in one article

• Eels
  Eels: Lunch, Slip Sliding Away…
  I can remember the first time I caught an eel. It was in the Royal River in Pownal Maine, using an earthworm on the…

• Eggs

Eggs for Survival and Food
Eggs would seem like a simple foraging topic and it is, and it is not. My copy of the U.S Department of the Army…

• Elaeagnus Et Cetera

  Edible Elaeagnus
  First it was “poisonous.” Then it was “not edible.” Later it was edible but “not worth eating.” Actually, it’s not toxic but tasty, and easy…

• Elderberries: Red, White and Blue  (10)

  Sambuca’s Fine For Elderberry Wine
  Start your New Year off right with a glass of elderberry wine or elderberry blossom champagne. Don’t have any?…

• Epazote: Smelly Food of the Gods
  Mexican Tea, Dewormer: EpazoteHere is my dedication to being comprehensive: I am going to write about a plant I do not like.Why don’t I like…

• Eryngo, Tough Sweetie

  Eryngiums: Elizabethan Eryngo Candy

  While the edible versions are not widely distributed in North America, Eryngo (ERR-in-go) was too pretty a name to be…

• Evening Primrose  (5)

  Oenothera biennis: Foraging Standby

  The Common Evening Primrose has long been a foraging standby and for a century or so was a common vegetable found in…

• Experience and Judgment

  Sometimes a toxic plant can give even an experienced forager reason to pause.

  When I was making a video last week I saw a beautiful growth of watercress,…

• False Dandelions For Lunch  (2)

  Pyrrhopappus, Hypochoeris: Dandelion Impostors
  Most people don’t notice False Dandelions because they have the real thing. But here in the South where…

• False Hawksbeard

  Crepis Japonica: Seasonal Potherb
  If the Crepis fits….wear….ah…eat it

  Crepis japonica gets no respect. You won’t find it in field guides on edible…

• False Roselle  (1)I can’t do a stir-fry without visiting a tree. Actually, the False Roselle is a shrub not a tree but the point is made. Its leaves have just the…

• Fiddlehead Ferns, Signs of Spring

  Fiddlehead Fanatics
  If poke weed tests your foraging bravery, fiddleheads test your foraging philosophy.

  Pokeweed can kill you within hours if you make a…

• Fiddlewood  (1)

  Citharexylum fruticosum: Edible Guitar
  The Fiddlewood tree is not high on the list of edibles. As some authors state, only kids eat the fruit, lots of seed,…

• Field Testing Plants for Edibility  (7)

  I am dead set against it because it can kill you. I will make a large argument against it, and a small argument for it.

  “Field testing” is running through a…

• Figs, Strangler, Banyan and Strangler  (4)

  Wild Ficus: Who Gives An Edible Fig?
  It’s only 90 miles to the east, and 117 to the west, but the Strangler Fig and Banyan trees will grow farther south and…

• Finding Caloric Staples  (8)
  An Australian study tells us that modern day hunter gatherers get  two thirds of their food from animals, one third form plants.

• Firebush:
  The Firebush is probably one of the most commonly planted unknown edibles. They are usually arranged in the landscape…

• Fireweed Sale  (1)

  Erechtites hieraciifolia: Edible Pile Driver

  When I go to Greece I always stay a few days in Athens to get used to the time change and visit in-town…

• Fish Sauce and Rotten MeatFish Sauce, Rotten Meat, and Other Garbage
  There was a great scene from an episode of Barney Miller, a popular sitcom in the 70’s based in a…

• Fishtail Palms  (3)

  Caryota: Fishy Toxic Palms

  Often the botanical name of a species tells you nothing about the plant. Magnolia comes to mind. It’s a person’s name. However…

• Five Mile Walk

  Can you live off the land? Can anyone these days? I suppose the answer depends on what land, what you know, and whose else is also trying to live off it.

  Whe…

• Flamboyant FuchsiaMention “fuchsia” and most folks who recognize the word will think of a bright color. Personally I think of Fuchsia’s edible fruit and flowers.…

• Flowering Rush

  In one area of its native range — Israel — it’s endangered becauses of dwindling habitat. In another part of the world it is an invasive weed, and you can…

• Foraging After Dark

  I took a residential walk this evening to identify trees after dark. Yes, after dark. Now why do a silly thing like that?

  I know someone who has his foraging…

• Foraging Before There Was Botany

  Foraging before there was botany had to be a lot easier than after botany. Someone showed you what was edible and that was that. Of course somewhere back along…

• Foraging for Beginners

  I was asked to write a short piece for a survivalist blog on getting started in foraging:
  How are a Musician and a Botanist Alike?
  As a professional musician I…

• Foraging in Florida  (1)

  Of all the “survival” skills foraging is probably the most difficult to learn, or certainly the one that takes the most time and personal fortitude. It is one…

• Foraging Myth Busting  (3)

  As many of you already know I am highly critical of the Internet as a source of information on foraging. This is not to say there isn’t quality information…

• Forsythia Foraging For Forsythia
  If you study the eating habits of North American Indians you learn one thing quite quickly. They weren’t mono-green eaters.…

• Garlic Mustard: Gather Garlic Mustard now for pesto or it may disappear presto… well… maybe not immediately but if one university succeeds Garlic Mustard will become hard to find or extinct in North America.

• Galinsoga’s Gallant Soldiers
  Galinsoga ciliata: Quickweed is fast foodQuickweed does not look edible or gallant. In fact, it looks like a daisy that lost a fight. But it, and a…

• Gar: Treasured Trash Fish  (1)

  Eating Gar, a Taste of the Primitive
  There are two things you need to know about the Gar. The first is that it is very edible, really. The second is that…

• Geiger Tree, Scarlet Cordia
  Cordia sebestena: Foraging Geiger Counter
  Foragers eat the mild fruit of the Geiger Tree and care not about the particulars. Botanists care about particular…

• Getting To The Leaf Of The Problem

  Why sudy with someone? Because student foragers see what they want to see rather than what’s in front of them. Let me give you consistent example.

  There are…

• Giant Taro
  One can ignore large leaves for only so long, and the Alocasia macrorrhiza has big leaves, up to four feet long. As one might suspect, it also has a large…

• Ginkgo: Putrid Perfection

  Going Nuts Over Ginkgo Biloba Nuts

  Though the Army sent me to Japan I didn’t see my first Ginkgo biloba (GINK-go bye-LOW-buh) tree until I attended the…

• Glasswort Galore  (3)

  Salicornia bigelovii, Brackish Nibble
  Glasswort does not sound like breaking glass at all, though it does crunch a bit.

  Salicornia bigelovii (sa-li-KOR-nee-a…

• Golden Dead Nettle  (1)
  Lamiastrum is in the eye of the beholder.If you want a ground cover that will grow in dry, shady places, Lamiastrum is exactly what you’re looking for.…

• Golden Rain Tree

  Showers of Golden Rain Tree

  The scallions didn’t have a chance.

  My Taiwanese friend liked to grow scallions in a postage stamp garden in her back…

• Goldenrod Glorified  (1)

  Solidago Odora: Liberty Tea

  After the Boston Tea Party of 1773 the colonists had only one good alternative: Goldenrod tea, and not just any Goldenrod,…

• Gooseberries

A century can make a lot of difference.

•       Goosegrass, Cleavers, Bedstraw  (1)

Galium aparine: Goosegrass on the Loose

You don’t find Goosegrass. It finds you.

Covered with a multitude of small hooks, Goosegrass, Galium…

• Gopher Apples: Not Just For Tortoises Anymore
  If you like the taste of pink bubble gum, you’ll like gopher apples, if you can find themWhy can’t you find them? Because nearly every woodland…

• Gorse, of Course

  Ulex europaeus: Edible Gorse or Furze Pas
  Gorse has edible flowers. It also has thorns… Really bad thorns.

  In August 2005 an Englishman, Dean Bowen,…

• Gout Weed  (6)
  Gout Weed does not sound too appetizing. Nor do some of its other names: Ground Ash, Ashweed, Pot Ash, White Ash, Ground Elder, Dog Elder, Dwarf Elder,…

• Gracilaria, Graceful Redweed

  Gracilaria: The pot thickens
  People eat a lot of seaweed. They just don’t know it. In the industry it is called covert consumption vs overt consumption. What…

• Grapes of Path  (3)

  Vitis: Wild Grapes
  Who ever first wrote the phrase “grapes of wrath” certainly must have been trying to identify a particular grape vine.

  Grapes are at the…

• Grass and Tree War  (1)
  Point of view, thinking differently… Consider:What if plants are more goal-orientated than we think them to be? After all, we put ourselves on the…

• Great Grandmother Cat  (1)

  One of the reasons why Eat The Weeds exists is to advocate eating the wild foods around you but also to be another voice in the growing chorus that is…

• Green Deane’s Bio, and Oliver, Too  (1)

  If you have any comments or suggestions please send them to GreenDeane@gmail.com. The B&W picture is from a Christmas long ago. That’s Tinkerbell on my…

• Green Deane’s Videos On You Tube
  While these videos are still on You Tube and will soon be on DVDs, these links below do not work. In creating the page one character was dropped from every…

• Ground Cherry, Wild Husk Tomatoes, Almost  (2)

  Physalis: Tomato’s Wild Cousin
  I discovered ground cherries quite by accident.

  It was back in the last century. I raided a particular field…

• Ground Ivy  (2)
  Most of the time when someone mentions Ground Ivy the comment usually is something like “How do I get rid of the damned stuff?” Here at ETW we have have…

• Groundnuts and Bridge Diving

  For the second time recently I was reminded of development. My favorite field of lamb’s quarters is now an upscale gated community. And where I used to forage…

• Groundnuts: Anti-Cancer Treat  (3)

  Groundnuts: Dig ’em
  I will never forget the first time I dug up Apios americana, groundnuts. I got poison ivy. Oddly it showed up in the crook of one elbow,…

• Grub-A-Dub-Dub
  It had to happen. If you forage for wild foods at some point you run in to grubs and related insects and you wonder… edible? And once you’re past…

• Guinea Grass Panic Attack

  Panicum maximum and then some
  I eat grass. Actually we all do — rice, wheat — but my local trail nibble is Guinea grass, a relative to millet. I’d like to…

• Guinea Pigs, Cavy, Cuy
  Peruvians eat more than 65 million guinea pigs every year. That should answer any question about edibility.Sixty-five million guinea pigs (a 2005…

• Hairy Cowpea  (4)
  It’s called a Cowpea but it’s not THAT cowpea, and it has a famous relative that no one calls by its botanical name.So which Cowpea is it? Vigna…

• Halloween Editorial  (2)

  Halloween today is the most debatable of non-holiday holidays. With a past that perhaps goes back to Roman times it became in the Christian era All Hallows…

• Hardy Orange: Is the Hardy Orange edible? That depends on how hungry you are, or which century you live in.

• Have Dewberry, Will Travel

  Dewberries: Rubus Trivialis

  Dewberries go far in the world, for a lowly vine. They can reach up to 15 feet long, one node root at a time.

  Essentially a…

• Hawthorne Harvest

  The Crataegus Clan: Food & Poison
  The very first Hawthorn I ever saw — and the only one I knew for quite a while — grew on the other side of the dirt…

• Henbit: Top of the pecking order  (2)

  Henbit: Springtime Salad Green and More

  It was a zig and a zag for me. I heard the name as an edible for many years and saw the plant often but never…

• Hercules’ Club: Speak Softly But…

  Hercules’ Club: Zanthoxylum Clava-Herculis

  I sometimes feel sorry for my neighbors, who have lawns of decapitated grass. I’m sure my wild-looking…

• Hickory Harvest  (2)

  Cayra coffee, or Hickory Java
  Hickories are not a migraine, but when you’re learning trees hickories can be a headache.

  Just as plums and cherries are bothin…

• High Bush Cranberry  (1)
  I miss High Bush Cranberries. They don’t grow within a thousand miles of here, and they aren’t really cranberries. But they are hearty and familiar fare in…

• Hit With A Plank  (1)

  There’s an old joke. A man had a mule sit down under a load. Mules can be very stubborn. And despite all his efforts the man couldn’t get the mule to get up. I…

• Hollies: Caffein & Antioxidants  (4)

  Holly Tea With Vitamins A & C

  This time of year in the South — late fall, early winter —some of the hollies are so scarlet with berries that even…

• Honeysuckle Heaven

  Lonicera japonica: Sweet Treat
  The honeysuckle family is iffy for foragers. It has edible members and toxic members, edible parts, toxic parts, and they mix…

• Hornbeam, Ironwood, Blue Beech

  Carpinus caroliniana: Musclewood
  British author Ray Mears must have been thinking of the Hornbeam when he said a forager mustn’t pass up food no matter how…

• Horse Meat
  “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”We’ve all heard the phrase, and it comes from when horse was on the menu. It was rather significant phrase to me as…

• Horsemint, Spotted Beebalm

  Monarda Punctata: Bergamot’s Bud
  First the good news: Horsemint makes a nice, intentionally weak tea. Stronger brews are used in herbal medicine. The…

• Horseweed, Mare’s Tail  (1)

  Conyza canadensis: Herb, Fire, Food
  Conyza will light your fire!

  If you’ve ever made fire with a bow and drill — you know, the Boy Scout way — you also know…

• How Do Things Pan Out?
  When Europeans began to migrate into tracts of North America what was the one thing they had the native Americans wanted more than anything else? Rifles?…

• How Ungreen Of Us  (29)
  I’m reaching retirement age. I’m also reaching the point of being tired of being told how green we are today and how ungreen we were in the past. Oh? When…

• Huckleberry, Blueberries Kissing Cousin
  Gaylussacia: Huckleberry History
  What’s the difference between a blueberry and a huckleberry?There’s almost an easy answer. The huckleberry…

• Hyacinth Bean

  Hyacinth Bean: Purple Protein, and More
  I’ve never understood the brouhaha over the Hyacinth Bean. Is it edible or is it not?

• Hydrilla:     There is only one species of Hydrilla, verticillata.

• Ignite of the Iguana  (6)

  The cookbook’s title says it all. South Florida, parts of Texas and Hawaii have iguana issues. While teaching a class in West Palm Beach last fall I could not…

• Indian Pipes, Gold, and Emily Dickinson  (8)
  Monotropa is almost a monotypic genus. Instead of having one species in the genus there are two: Monotropa uniflora and Monotropa hypopithys.Most…

• Indian Strawberry  (5)

  Potentilla indica: Mistaken Identity
  One of the first things my uncle’s second wife said to me when I moved from Maine to Florida was “they have strawberri…

• Ipomoea: Water, Land & See in Gardens

  Glorifying Morning Glories
  Three of the pictures below are are not of the same Ipomoea. It’s three different species, but that should tell you something.…

• Is This Plant Edible?
  For a surprisingly simple question there is often a complicated answer. If it’s sea kale, then the answer is yes, top to bottom. It is edible. It is…

• Is wild taro in Florida edible?  (10)

  IS WILD TARO IN FLORIDA EDIBLE?
  “Wild Taro.” My research to date (fall, 2011)

  Is the wild taro in Florida edible? In one word, no. In two… may……

• It’s About Time  (1)

  I spend a lot of times in the woods, and also afloat. Three things you should always know in such environments are the cardinal directions, time of day, and…

• Ivy Gourd, Scarlet Gourd, Tindora  (2)

  Coccinia grandis: Cucumber’s Versatile Kin
  I was riding my motorcycle one day when I rumbled over a raised railroad track in an industrial area and to my…

• Jabuticaba: In it’s native Brazil the Jabuticaba is by far the most popular fruit.
• Jack-in-the-Pulpit, and Jill

  Arisaema triphyllum: Jack and Jill and No Hill
  For a little plant there’s a lot to write about with the Jack-In-The-Pulpit. Where does one start? What does…

• Jambul  (1)Syzygium: A Jumble of Jambul
  The Jambul tree makes you wonder what people were thinking.For a half a century or so the United States Department of…

• Japanese Knotweed: Dreadable Edible  (9)Japanese Knotweed gets no respect. Nearly everywhere it grows it’s listed as a prolific, noxious, invasive, dangerous bad-for-the-world,…

• Jelly Palm, Pindo’s Alter Ego  (4)

  Pindo Palm: Jelly, Wine and Good Eats

  Soon it will be time to go to the cemeteries. My visits are not memorial but rather culinary: I’ve got…

• Jellyfish

Stomolophus meleagris: Edible Jellyfish
“Music to the teeth” is what the Malaysians call them.Americans may not eat jellyfish, but the…

• Jerusalem Artichoke: Root Them Out  (5)
  There used to be a huge patch of Jerusalem Artichokes here in Central Florida beside the Interstate. Now they’re under a new exit ramp, and that was the…

• Jerusalem Thorn, Paloverde

  Parkensonia aculeata’s Thorny Past
  As foragers we are indebted to past writers and at the same time constrained by them.

  People who chronicled how Native…

• Jujube TreeZiziphus zizyphys: The Misspelled Jujube
  If you don’t find the Jujube tree, it will find you. The Jujube is covered with long, sharp thorns. They…

• Jumbie Bean, White Lead Tree  (2)

  Leucaena leucocephala: Food and Fodder
  Professor Julia Morton, the grand dame of toxic and edible plants in Florida, had this to say about the Jumbie…

• Juneberry

  Amelanchier arborea: Busting Out All Over
  Juneberries are as American as apple pie. In fact, they are more American than apples.

• Junipers:  In the cobweb recesses of my mind I have two memories of junipers

• Katuk Kontroversy  (2)

  Edible Katuk: Sauropus androgynus

  Katuk grows reluctantly in my yard. It likes truly tropical climes and I am on the subtropical/temperate line. But it’s…

• Kochia
  Immigration brought weeds from around the old world to the new world. Quite a few of them came from southern Russia — the grassy steppes — to the…

• Kousa Dogwood  (2)
  Cornus kousa: A Dog-gone-good Dogwood

The Kousa Dogwood is one of those plants that makes you ask: What is it?Its large, bumpy, red fruit looks like a…

• Kudzu Quickie  (4)Kudzu: Pueraria montana var. lobataThe government tells me that what grows up the street isn’t there.It’s kudzu, you know, the plant that…

• Landmarks

  Landmarks — accomplishments — are like a melody. Regardless of your taste in music, music is more than organized sound. Music firmly places you in time. When…

• Language of Flowers: A flower is a flower is a flower. But in Victorian England, one of the most self-repressed societies in modern times, the practice of using flowers to communicate was developed.

• Lantana  (3)

  Lantana camara: Much Maligned Nibble

  Ask anyone who has heard of the Lantana camara and they will tell you it is poisonous. And they are right. Unripe…

• Lawn Garden

  Can you have a “garden” that you ignore?

  I don’t see why not.
  Is That A Garden?
  Indeed, some might argue that is what my front lawn currently is. I really…

• Lemon Bacopa: Let’s Call It Lime Instead
  Lemon Bacopa, a misnamed edible nativeCall me cranky, but I think Lemon Bacopa has the wrong name.And, since it is wrongly named and no one comments on…

• Lemon Grass

  Cymbopogon citratus: A Real Lemon
  Technically Lemon Grass is naturalized in only one county in Florida, but you can find it in many yards and landscaping, and…

• Less Was Far More  (4)
  West of New Smyrna Beach, Florida, I stopped today and collected some thistle and took a few pictures. More than 50 years ago I marveled at the same plant…
• Lettuce Labyrinth  (9)

  Sorting Out Species
  Sorting out wild lettuce is one of the more difficult foraging tasks and may require you to watch a plant all season.

• Lion’s Mane

          I see Lion’s Mane (Hericium erinaceus) on the same oak log every fall at the same time to the day.

• Litchi Tomato

Foraging is a treasure hunt because with perhaps 6,000 edible species in North America there is always a surprise now and then such as the Litchi Tomato.

• Living off the Foraged Land

  I am not a survivalist per se, though every day I do break my personal best record of consecutive days alive.

  That said, I know many survivalists. They tend…

• Locusberry

  Byrsonima lucida: Food and Medicine

  The Locusberry rises to the occasion. When the soil is poor it is a foot-high tree. When the soil is good, it can be…

• Looking for Lettuce
  I like my 14,000 subscribers, and the email I get. Many of the questions I can answer or I can refer the writer to where the answer can be found. But….…

• Loquat: Getting A Grip on Grappa  (2)
  Lovin’ Loquats: Eriobotryae Japonicae
  Long before there were couch potatoes there were couch Loquats.Loquats are homebodies. Most people who live beyond…

• Madeira Vine, Lamb’s Tail, Mignonette Vine  (1)

  Anredera cordifolia: Pest or Food Crop?
  The Madeira Vine is a love/hate relationship. You will either hate it — as many land owners and governments do — or…

• Mahoe, Sea Hibiscus

  Hibiscus tiliaceus: Edible Chameleon
  It’s difficult to find a hibiscus you don’t like, including the Mahoe.

  In fact, to this writer’s knowledge all…

• Mahonia Malange: When I first heard of the Mahonias it was a bit irritating. They’re widespread shrubs in the western United States and here I was in Florida. But as time revealed, we have a Mahonia here, just not a native.

• Make My Day
  It was one of those moments. I was biking along a rails to trails, stopping and taking pictures of this and that plant for past and future blogs. Better…
• Mallow Madness  (2)
  Lunch Landscaping: HibiscusMy mother’s favorite flower is the Rose of Sharon, which of course didn’t even go in one of my ears and out the…
• Mangrove Mystery  (1)

  Mangroves: Marvelous Muck Masters

  I did an unknown favor years ago that may stump some stuffy botanist in the near or distant future, and a mangrove…

• Maple Manna  (1)

  Maples: How Sweet It Is
  Maple Walnut Ice Cream. It’s amazing what you can do with two trees and a cow. It was the prime ice cream of choice when I was young.…

• Marijuana Machinations: You can’t rummage around the woods as a forager without running into someone’s marijuana patch.
• Marlberries and Ardisias kin

  Ardisias: Berries on the cusp of edible
  The Ardisias are a confusing family in Florida.

  There is the native Marlberry (Ardisia escallonioides) that has…

• Mayapple, Mandrake  (2)

  Podophyllum peltatum: Forgotten Fruit
  The first time I saw a mayapple I was certain something that strange had to be toxic, and it is, unless totally…

• Mayflowers, Trailing Arbutus

  Epigaea repens: Spring Sentinel and Nibble
  It was an annual family ritual. Every spring when the snow had finally melted we’d go through the low Maine…

• Maypops Mania  (6)

  Maypops: Food, Fun, Medicine
  As popular as they are, Maypops get stepped on a lot, but that doesn’t keep them down.

  They are one of five hundred kin in…

• Media Interviews With Green Deane

  This is Green Deane being interview for the local PBS station for Thanksgiving, 2009. This show was voted their best episode of the year. http://www.wmfe.org/au…

• Melaleuca, Tea Tree, Sweetener, Pharmacy
  The Melaleuca tree is the most invasive “weed” in the state of Florida, quite a feat when you consider there are…

• Mesquite  (1)

  Mesquite’s More Than Flavoring: It’s Food
  If Euell Gibbons was still around he might ask, “have you ever eaten a Mesquite tree?” rather than his famous…

• Milkweed Vine, Latexplant, Strangler Vine  (13)

  Morrenia odorata: Menace or Manna?
  One spring I was looking for poke weed when I spied a liana I had not seen before. It had a large fruit that looked…

• Milkweed, Common  (3)

  Asclepias: Some like it hot, some like it cold
  The question is to boil or not to boil.

  Actually that’s not quite accurate. There is general agreement…

• Milo, Portia Tree, Seaside Mahoe  (2)

  Thespesia populnea: Coastal Cuisine
  One of my uncles had the type of personality that where ever he hung his hat, that was home. The Milo is much the same…

• Mimosa Silk Tree  (7)

  Albizia julibrissin: Tripinnated Lunch
  I was drinking “Mimosas” — orange juice and champagne — about 20 years before I discovered the Mimosa tree was…

• Mole Crabs  (8)

  Emerita: Mole Crab Munchy Crunchies
  Mole crabs are probably the most common ugly food there is, though most people don’t know they’re edible.

  Fishermen…

• Mole Crickets and Lawns

  The name of my website is “Eat The Weeds (and other things too.)” If you wander around the long index — or click on the category “critter cuisine” — you…

• Mole Crickets, Kamaro  (1)

  Mole Crickets: Digging Your Lunch
  Nearly everyone knows crickets are edible — cooked — but few ever mention the ugliest of them all, the mole cricket.

• Monkey’s Apple: Monkey’s Apple is proof kids will eat anything.
• Monkey Puzzle Tree

  Lunch Drops In

  My good friend Saul is a luthier. He repairs premium wooden instruments. It is not unusual for him to be working on a Stradivarius or a…

• Monkeys and Weeds
  Put five monkeys in a large cage. Then put a step ladder in the cage with a banana on top. Soon the monkeys learn to go up the step ladder and get the…
• Moringa, More Than You Can Handle  (6)

  Moringa oleifera ….Monster…. Almost
  If you have a warm back yard, think twice before you plant a Moringa tree.

• Morels are perhaps the most foraged and prized fungi in North America.
• Motorcyclists and Mushroomists. I used to have a friend named Randy Armentrout. He died about 20 years ago of a brain tumor. We knew each other well and attended many a social function…
• Mountain Ash, Rowan: Long before Henry Potter Rowanwood wands were popular  ancients carried talismans of the tree to ward off evil and ate the fruit.
• Mugwort  (3)
  Like some other plants with famous relatives Mugwort gets lost in the negative publicity.Mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris, is completely over shadowed…
• Mulberry Express

  Mulberries: Glucose-controlling hallucinogen

  I used to get a lot of dates using mulberries.

  Not to sound sexist, but women like sweet food. And when…

• Musseling In:  His name was Hap Davis, gardener, woodsman, hunter, fisherman, teller of tall tales.
• Mustard, Wild, Tender And Tough  (2)

  Cutting the Wild Mustard: Brassica & Sinapis
  Lorenzo’s Oil and Canola, Too
  If you can’t find a wild mustard growing near you, you must be living in…

• Mustards, The Little
  Coronopus, Descurainia, Cardamine, Erucastrum & Sibara
  There are numerous “little mustards” that show up seasonally, to populate lawns and local…
• Nagi Tree, Japan’s Calm Tree

  Nageia nagi: Forgotten Landscape Edible

  I discovered the Nagi tree quite by accident, and added another edible to the list. I was in Mead Gardens in Winter…

• Nandina Not Bamboo

  Not So Heavenly Bamboo: Nandina
  It’s not heavenly nor is it a bamboo, but Heavenly Bamboo is an edible, barely.

  Naturalized in many part of the world…

• Nasturtiums: Nature’s Nose Nabber
  Peppery Nasturtiums Natives of Peru. Do the peppery nasturtiums make your nose twitch? Then you know how they got their common name. “Nasturtium” means…
• Natal Plums Num Num  (4)

  Natal Plum: Incredible Edible Landscaping

  A good reputation is hard to maintain when your closest relative has a reputation for killing people. That’s…

• New Jersey Tea

  Ceanothus americanus: Revolutionary Tea
  New Jersey Tea wasn’t always called that. It was Red Root Tea until the Boston Tea Party. With no tea from China…

• Non-Green Environmentalism  (1)
  Early on I developed two interests. One was foraging for wild plants. It assured me food where ever I went. The other was watching clouds, one of the few…

• Nostoc Num Nums

  Nostoc: Nasal Nostalgia and Edible, Too
  My website is “Eat The Weeds and other things, too.” Well this one of those other things. While I have put seaweed…

• Nutria, Coypu  (1)
• I have a close friend who’s Cajun. He said his family was so poor growing up in the bayou that if it moved they cooked it and threw it on rice. That…

• Nutrition or Food?

  The 20th century was a hundred years of significant changes in what we eat. In 1900 food was … well… food, and real. No food pretended to be something it…

• Oaxaca lemon verbena

  Lippia alba: Oaxaca lemon verbena
  It all started with a little tour of his back yard.

  He’s an aging Greek professor and doesn’t like lawn, so his back yard…

• Only Plant In Its Genus  (16)
  Call it an occupational hazard but I began to wonder one day how many genera were unique, that is, they had just one edible species in them, the so called…

• Osage Orange  (13)

  Maclura pomifera: The Edible Inedible
  Sometimes everybody is almost wrong.

  If you google “Osage Orange” or “Maclura pomifera” (mak-LOOR-uh pom-EE-fer-uh…

• Oxalis: How To Drown Your Sorrels  (2)
  Sorrels are like McDonald’s restaurants: No matter where you are on earth there’s one nearby.That’s because the sorrels, properly…

• Palmer Amaranth  (1)
  A farmer’s headache is not necessarily a forager’s delight.Palmer Amaranth (Amaranthus Palmeri) has been a foraged food for a long time. It was used…

• Palmetto Weevil Grub: Grugru

  Rhynchophorus cruentatus: Raw or Fried?
  Here’s what you’re looking for: A palm or plametto that is dying. The growing tip is dead, bent or otherwise…

• Pandanus: During several visits over the course of a year it looked like a large berm of tall grass, about the size and height of a one-story house.

• Papaya Proliferation

  Carica papaya: Survivalist plant

  Papaya comes from the grocery store, unless you live where it seldom freezes. Then it is another wild edible, naturalized in…

• Paper Mulberry  (2)

  Broussonetia papyrifera: Paper Chase
  If you are a forager, you will be told two things constantly: One is that the plant of your admiration is “poisonous.”…

• Partridgeberry: Split personality  (1)
  Mitchella repens: Madder BerryThe Partridgeberry will not save you from starving but it can make your salad prettier and might keep you alive or ease…

• Pawpaw picking up is rare  (8)

  Pawpaw Panache

  Finding your first pawpaw is a thrilling moment.

  I can remember exactly where it happened and when. It was the summer of 1987 in…

• Pellitory, Up Against The Wall Weed

  Pellitory: Parietaria is a Whiz
  Finding greens locally in the cooler months isn’t much of a challenge unless you’re looking for Pellitory . It likes to hid…

• Pennyroyal Florida Style  (2)

  Florida Pennyroyal: Piloblephis Rigida
  You will thoroughly enjoy tea made by Florida’s native pennyroyal, or maybe even a Mint Julep Floridana.

  An…

• Pennyworts Making Sense  (12)

  A Pennywort For Your Thoughts
  It’s one of those practices of civilization that plants with little flavor or calories — lettuce for example — are…

• Peperomia:  I went to college in Maine where winter lasts from about November 1st to October 31st.

• Peppergrass: Potent Pipsqueak  (3)

  Lepidium Virginicum: Bottlebrush Peppergrass

  There are two ways of thinking about peppergrass, either as a real neat wild treat, or an obnoxious, noxious…

• Perilla, Shiso   (2)
  The first Perilla I ever had came from a can, just like the kind sardines snuggle in. The leaves were very spicy and were used that way, as a spice. Later…

• Persimmon Provisions  (3)

  Persimmons: Pure Pucker Power
  About the only bad thing you can say about a persimmon tree is that it has pucker power, if you pick it at the wrong time.

• Pick Of The Littering

  If flowers could think they would view man as an errand boy. That floral perspective would also explain one of man’s more annoying habits.

  Scientist who…

• Pickerel Weed

  Pontederia cordata: In a PR Pickerel
  Pickerel Weed Primer
  If the Pickerelweed could commiserate, it would find a friend with the Natal Plum. The Natal…

• Pigeon Plums, Dove Plums, Pigeon Seagrape, Tie-TongueCoccoloba diversifolia: Seagrape Sibling
  The first time you see a Pigeon Plum it will look familiar. In the same genus as the Seagrape it shares a…

• Pigweed Potpourri  (7)

  Chenopodium album: Getting Goosed!
  My first recollection of Chenopodium album, pigweed, came around 1960 via a neighbor named Bill Gowan.

  Mr. Gowan was…

• Pillbugs, Woodlice, Roly Pollies  (4)
  Armadillidium vulgare: Land Shrimp
  What shall we call them? Roly Pollies? Pill Bugs? Woodlice? Sowbugs, or a half a dozen other names?They are…

• Pineapple Weed

  Matricaria matricarioides for Your Tea & Salad
  A hard-packed gravel driveway is the last place you would expect to find a delicate plant that makes an…

• Pining for You  (5)

  Pines: Not just for breakfast anymore
  Euell Gibbons became famous for asking, “have you ever eaten a pine tree?”

  A lot of folks had a laugh over…

• Plant An Alarm Clock

  I don’t need an alarm clock. I have a cardinal.

  I don’t know exactly which cardinal it is, and if I did I might be tempted to shoot him. Cardinals are early…

• Plants Can’t Run  (1)

  Plants can’t run. That’s why the vast majority of them are unpalatable or lethal. Guesstimates range from 5 to 10 percent of plants are edible. Let’s split the…

• Podocarpus macrophyllus  (4)Podocarpus: Your Own Hedge Fund
  One can’t learn everything at once, and so I came to know the Podocarpus macrophyllus late in my foraging…

• Poison Ivy Ponderings  (28)
  I did something this past week I have not done in some twenty years. I got poison ivy.Given what I do for a living, running around the wild all the…

• Poisonous and Irritating Plants of Florida  (4)

  Below is a circular published by the state of Florida in 1978. I think it is no longer in print though I have a hard copy. It is reproduced below. Visual…

• Pokeweed: Prime Potherb  (11)

  Can Be Deadly But Oh So Delicious: Pokeweed
  Poke weed will challenge your commitment to foraging.

  It is not the most commonly eaten food from a poisonous…

• Pony Foot: Are they edible? That is often asked about a little lawn plant called Pony Foot, or Dichondra carolinensis.
• Poplars and Aspens

  Populus deltoides: Popular Poplars and Aspens

  I know where there is one (1) Eastern Conttonwood. For a popular Poplar it is not common locally. Fortunately…

• Practicing Homelessness

  There are less Christmas parties this year than in the past, with economic conditions reducing the usual yuletide cheer. Still, there are some traditions.…

• Prepared for Life  (2)

  We met by accident in the woods. I had hiked for a few miles already and he had just entered the trail.

  When ever I go into the woods, or on water, I am…

• Prickly Apple, Apple Cactus, Fragrant Apple Cactus

  Harrisia Trio: Endangered Edibles All

  Just as it is important to know what to eat, it’s as important to know what not to eat, or if you do, how to do it…

• Puffballs, Small and Gigantic  (2)

  Lycoperdon perlatum: Edible Puffballs
  I avoided mushrooms for a long time, and with good reasons. Some of them are on par with cyanide and arsenic and…

• Purslane: Omega 3 Fatty Weed  (8)

  Purslane: Any Portulaca In A Storm

  Her name was Zona. She was a grand friend-in-law

  She had been a friend of the family for about a century. To be…

• Pyracantha Jelly and Santa’s Belly

  Firethorn: Pyracantha Coccinea
  I don’t think it is a coincidence that “ho ho ho bellies and Pyracantha jelly jiggle into the season just before…

• Pyrrolizidine on my Mind  (4)
  How much pyrrolizidine is too much? Or perhaps the better question is how little is too much?First, what is pyrrolizindine? Pyrrolizidine (pie-row-L…

• Quack Grass  (4)
  Plants of little use often have only one common name, or not even that. Plants that are valued or are a pest usually have too many names such Quack…

• QueenPalm: The Queen Palm and I got off on the wrong frond. Before I met one I had read it was toxic. There are a few toxic palms but the Queen Palm is not one of them.

• Radish, Mustard’s Wild Rough Cousin  (7)   Raphanus Raphanistrum: Radical Radis. The Wild Radish has an identity problem. It looks similar to it’s equally peppery cousin, the wild mustard. In…

• Ragweed: Some 18 generations ago — 600 years ago give or take a few centuries — some Natives Americans stopped cultivating a particular crop and may have moved on to maize. About 150 years ago — five generations — American farmers were raising crabgrass for grain when they, too, moved on to corn, the descendant of maize. So what crop did the Indians stop growing? Ragweed, the most hay-fever causing plant in the world.
• Raspberry Razz  (3)

  Rubus ideaus: Delicate Raspberry. Raspberries were the first wild fruit I noticed on my own and ate as a kid.

• Ravishing Radish Greens  (2)

  I didn’t cut the mustard this morning. I cut the radish… radish greens to be specific, Raphanus raphanistrum, said RA-fa-nus raf-an-ISS-trum.

  The only bad…

• Real Food Rules!  (3)

  This blog all started with hot dog relish.

  I happen to like sardines on whole wheat toast with onions and mustard. (Regardless of what you think of…

• Red Bay for all seasonings
  Persea borbonia, palustris, humilis, and americana, too

  Having a famous relative can make one grow in the shadows, as three Perseas know too well.There…

• Redflower Ragweed: The first time I saw Redflower Ragweed I thought I was seeing two species at once some weird combination of Tassel Flower and Fireweed. It’s way too big and has the wrong leaves to be a Tassel Flower but the blossoms remind one of a Tassel Flower but the rests of the plant looks life Fireweed/Burnweed.
• Reindeer Moss  (1)

  Edible Cladonia: What’s not to Lichen?
  Lichen can be harder to tell apart than twins in the dark. My guess my picture above is of Cladonia Evanii…

• Resources
  The quickest and safest way to learn foraging is with a local expert. You not only learn what there is to know but do not spend time learning things you…
• Ringless Honey Mushrooms: The first time I thought I saw the Ringless Honey Mushroom was on my neighbor’s lawn.
• Root Beer Rat Killer  (1)

  It’s not smart or nice to lie about plants. It can get someone hurt. But the truth can sometimes be elusive, even with plants.

• Rose Apple: The apple is in the Rose family but the Rose Apple is not though it can sometime taste like rose water… and watermelon… but not apples.
• Roses
  I’m not sure I found wild roses or they found me.I grew up in Maine. The local soil was usually either ground-up glacial sand, clay, which is decomposed…
• Rumex Ruminations  (1)
  Mainer Merritt Fernald, who was the Harvard wunderkind of botany from around 1900 to 1950, said all of the 17 native Rumex species in North America…
• Russian Thistle, Tumbleweed

  Salsola kali: Noxious Weed, Nibble & Green
  When you first encounter a Russian Thistle it is the very last plant you would consider edible. Wiry, tough,…

• Saffron Plum

  Sideroxylon: Chewy Ironwood
  The Saffron Plum is not yellow or a plum, that is, it is not a Prunus. And it is called a Buckthorn but it isn’t one of those…

• Saltwort, Turtle Weed and Reef Banana

  Batis Maritima: Salt of the Earth
  It has a dozen or more names, but no one is quite sure about its scientific name, Batis maritima, (BAT-is mar-IT-i-ma.)

  Fora…

• Sandspurs: Sandlot Sadists  (2)

  Sandspurs: Cenchrus’ Secret

  If I were ever to invent a torture it would be dragging someone naked through a field of sandspurs.

•  Sargassum Sea Vegetable  (1)

Sargassum: Not Just for Breakfast Any More
Sargassum — Gulf weed — comprises a huge number of seaweeds in all oceans, both bottom dwelling and free…

• Sassafras: Root Beer Rat Killer  (7)

  Sassafras Albidum: Beaux Gumbo

  Bet your sweet sassafras: If you’re on the young side ask anyone not on the young side: Root beer used to taste a lot…

• Satinleaf, Olive Plum

  Chrysophyllum oliviforme: “Chewy Olives”

  “Turn left at the Satinleaf.”

  That’s not an unusual direction in an area where Satinleafs grow, they are that…

• Saw Palmetto Saga  (4)

  Serenoa Repens: Weed to Wonder Drug
  Rotten cheese steeped in tobacco juice
  That’s how starving shipwrecked Quakers described the flavor of the saw palmetto…

• Sawgrass, A Cut Below The Rest  (1)

  Cladium jamaicense: Water finder

  In Wekiva Springs state park in Florida there is a high and dry stretch of scrub pine and palmetto bushes, and oddly,…

• Scarlet Runner Bean

  Two beans are grown for beauty, the Hyacinth Bean, edible with precautions, and the Scarlet Runner Bean, also edible.
  Humming Bird at “Emperor” Blossom
  It’s…

• Scorpions  (1)

  Southern Fried Scorpions
  If I were going to rely on scorpions in Florida for sustenance, I would starve to death.

  In over 30 years of rummaging…

• Sea Blite, Seepweed

  Suaeda linearis, maritima: Edible Blite

  While most people find Sea Blite next to the sea, I find Sea Blite on the other side of the barrier…

• Sea Buckthorn, SallowberrySea Buckthorn: Sour Source of Vitamin C
  If you are collecting Sea Buckthorn you’re probably cold.Just as some edibles are found only in tropical…

• Sea Club Rush  (2)

  Scirpus maritimus: a Tough Root to Crack
  If you mention Sea Club Rush among foragers they give you a very blank stare. Understandably so. It was a fall-back…

• Sea Kale
  Sea kale is nearly the perfect primitive food. It’s difficult to imagine it not being on primitive man’s menu.We know from middens that seafood was…

• Sea Lettuce, UlvaUlva: Sea Soup & Salad
  Ulva is the greenest seaweed you will ever see from shore, or in the sea for that matter.Ten species, all edible, are…

• Sea Oats

  Uniola paniculata: Feeling your sea oats
  Opinions vary on Sea Oats. Not on flavor. They taste good. The questions are, are they endangered or not, and which…

• Sea Oxeye: There are edible plants, and there are inedible plants. Then there are those that sit on the cusp of edibility: Edible but not tasty, edible in small quantities, edible but with a horrible texture, edible but strong-flavored.
• Sea Purslane, Salty Nibble, Potherb

  Sesuvium portulacastrum: Maritime Munch

  It looks like garden purslane on steriods growing in sand. And it grows all over the local beach, and other beaches…

• Sea Rocket Siblings

  The Cakile Clan: Seaside Edibles

  Food is where the water is, be it fresh or salt, and one of the waterway foods of North America is Sea Rocket. There are at…

• Sea-Grapes: Maritime Marvels  (4)

  Sea-Grapes: Costal Caterer

  A lifetime ago I spent many a night on a dark Florida beach near the Space Center sleeping out under Sea-Grapes.…

• Seminole Pumpkin

Cucurbita muschata: Seminole Edible
Unlike watermelons which are from Africa, pumpkins and their kin are North American. When Panfilo de Narvaez was…

• Seminole Wekiva Trail

  Seven-Mile Appetizer
  The squirrels are in hog heaven, if you’ll pardon the menagerie metaphor.

  It’s Thanksgiving, 2007, in central Florida and I…

• Sesbania Grandiflora  (1)
  Any plant called the Vegetable Hummingbird has to be written about.Sesbania grandiflora, has managed to work its way into warmer areas of the world…

• Seven Year Apple

  Genipa clusiifolia: An Acquired Taste

  Like a Suriname Cherry, you’ll either find the Seven Year Apple edible or disgusting. In fact, a lot of folks can’t…

• Sida, Wireweed  (5)
  Sida is barely edible. A member of the Mallow mob it’s an object de interest because it is also a significant herbal medication, of which I am totally…

• Silverhead, Beach Carpet  (1)

  Blutaparon vermiculare: Beach Potherb
  My first thought on seeing Silverweed “was what is clover doing growing on the beach.” Well, Silverweed isn’t a clover…

• Simpson Stopper

  Myricanthes fragrans: Nakedwood Twinberry
  I took me about a year to know the Simpson Stopper.

  While most people think of Florida as flat there’s actually…

• Skunk Vine

  Paederia foetida: Much Maligned Skunk Vine
  Sometimes botanists go a little too far, or at least Carl Linnaeus did when he named a particular vine Paederia…

• Slugs, Snails and Fresh Water Mollusks  (1)

  Are Slugs edible? What about Snails?
  There is only one rule you have to remember: When it comes to land snails, land slugs, and fresh water mollusks you must…

•   Smartweed 
  Polygonum punctatum: Smartweed. I can remember my first taste of a smartweed leaf… kind of like trying a piece of burning paper. Indeed,…

• Smilax: A Brier And That’s No Bull  (40)

  For The Edible Love of Krokus and Smilax

  No, that is not a “Walking stick” insect. It is the growing end of a Smilax, a choice wild…

• Snakewood, Nakedwood, Mauby  (1)

  Colubrina elliptica: Mauby has Moxie
  First there was Moxie, then Mauby… actually it was historically the other way around though few until now would know…

• Society Garlic  (3)
  Because I am asked about it all the time I decided to do an article on it: Yes, you can eat Society Garlic… well… most of it, maybe all of it.The…

• Solar Cooking

  Solar cooking. Something new under the sun
  Once you cook your first solar meal, you’re hooked.
  Does it cost less than conventional methods? It can, but…

• Sorrel: Not A Sheepish Rumex
  Of all the Rumex that grow in the South, Rumex hastatulus is probably the most pleasing. The tart-tasting intensely green leaves are hard…

• Sourwood:  Sourwood honey is considered by some to be the best-flavored honey in North America, perhaps the world.

• Sow Thistle, Prickly, Common, Field  (4)

  Sonchus: Sow Thistle, In A Pig’s Eye
  As I write it is in mid-January in Florida two of three local species of sow thistles are invading my lawn in great…

• Spanish Moss  (3)
  Spanish Moss is not edible. Well, barely an edible. The bottom of the growing tips (pictured above) provide about one eight of an inch of almost tasteless…

• Spanish Needles, Pitchfork Weed  (13)
  Bidens Alba: Medical Beggar Ticks
  Some plants just don’t get any respect. If there were a contest for under appreciated plants, Bidens alba , above…

• Spiderwisp, Cat’s Whiskers, Spider Flower  (6)
  The spiderwisp looks like a mustard that lost its way or got some psychedelic-laced fertilizer. It has four-petaled flowers as the mustards do, seed pods…

• Spiderwort: Pocahontas and Gamma Rays  (4)
  There are 404 years, as of Dec 20th, 2012, between the sailing of John Smith to the New World and spiderwort gamma rays, but they are…

• Spinach Vine  (1)
  I like to think of myself as biclimatic, living part of my life (thus far) in a cold climate and  part in a warm climate.

• Spring Beauty  (2)The Spring Beauty is aptly named.Actually there are several “Spring Beauties” and most of them are edible in similar ways. We’ll focus on…

• Spurge Nettle: The Nettle With The Mettle  (15)
  Cnidolscolus Stimulosus: It’s The Real Sting
  This is how to not dig up a spurge nettle root: Take a shovel, find a plant, and start digging.When…

• Stinging Nettles

  Urtica chamaedryoides: Nettle Knowledge
  Stinging Nettles Know How
  I was hiking one day when I saw what I thought was a mint I had not seen before. I…

• Stork’s Bill, Cranesbill

  Erodium circutarium, Geranium carolinianum: Two Bills You Want to Get

  Stork’s Bill is one of those little plants that’s not supposed to grow locally…

• Strawberries of Spring  (1)

  Fragaria virginiana: Be A Strawberry Sleuth
  Fragaria don’t like Florida. Only one northern county in the state reports having wild strawberries. But that’s…

• Strawberry GuavaPsidium littorale var. cattleianum: Strawberry Guava
  One man’s fruit tree is another man’s weed. My one Strawberry Guava tree is a fruiting…

• Strawberry Tree Curse

  Strawberry Tree, Koumaria, Koumara, Pacific Madrone, Madrona
  Any plant called “strawberry” other than a strawberry is doomed. Strawberries pack a lot of…

• Strongback  Not strong bark Bourreria succulenta: Soapy Fruit and Viagra
  Botanists are feisty in their own way. The Strongback is a good example. Is it B. succulenta or B. ovata? One…

• Sugar Cane on The Run  (4)

  Saccharum officinarum: Sweet Wild Weed
  Among the edible wild plants on this site are a few escaped fruit trees and ornamentals that have become naturalized.…

• Sugarberries & Hackberries  (3)

  Sugarberries are Hackberries with a Southern Accent
  Sugarberries like to be near water and that’s why it caught my eye as I coasted by: It was growing on top…

• Sumac: More Than Just Native Lemonade  (4)

  Sumac, Rhus Juice, Quallah: Good Drink
  Sumacs look edible and toxic at the same time, and with good reason: They’re in a family that has plants we eat and…

• Sunflowers: Seeds and More

  Sunflowers: Sun Sentinels

  His name was Bob Davis and he grew sunflowers some 15-feet high. I dated his niece, Edie May. I remember her and the…

• Sunny Savage

  I had the pleasure this past week of having the well-know forager Sunny Savage visit two of my classes here in Florida (If you think she is attractive on TV…

• Surinam Cherry: Only Ripe Need Apply  (18)

  Surinam Cherries: You’ll love ‘em or hate ‘em

  The Surinam cherry is not a cherry nor is it exclusively from Surinam. It’s also not from…

• Swamp Lilly Wrap

  Thalia geniculata: Swamp Wrap
  You won’t find the “swamp lilly” in many foraging books. For a big plant it receives little attention.

  Thalia geniculata…

• Sweet Clover

  Melitotus: Condiment to Tea to Blood Thinner
  When I was growing up we owned horses. Lots of horses. And they eat a lot of hay in the winter. Lots of hay.…

• Sweet Gum Tree  (4)
  The Sweet Gum tree is the sand spur of the forest. You painfully find them with your feet. The vicious seed pods have impaled many a forager and has done…

• Sweetbay MagnoliaMagnolia viginiana: How Sweet It Is
  Let’s say you want or need to trap a beaver. First you need a trap, but then you need to bait the trap. And…

• Swinecress, Wart Cress: Micro MustardsCoronopus didymus/squamatus: Smelly Pot Herbs?
  Opinions are mixed on Swinecress. I think it’s a nice walkabout nibble and pot herb. Others…

• Sword Fern’s Secret

  Nephrolepis cordifolia: Edible Watery Tubers
  Edibles are often right under your feet, or my feet as it were.

  I had a yard of non-edible ferns. If you like…

• Sycamores Get No RespectSycamores: Not Just Another Plane Tree
  Sycamore trees are not high on the edible list, unless you’re in need.Actually, sycamores, Platanus occidental…

• Take Things Lying Down
  Early in life I settled on a hobby I can do on a summer’s day, in a hammock, on my back….. No, it’s not napping. I watch clouds. Call it reclining…
• Tallow Plum

  Ximenia americana: Known by Many Names
  If I listed this edible under its botanical name few would find it. On the other hand it has some three dozen commons…

• Tamarind: I drove past a dozen Tamarind trees for a decade or so until I looked up one day. The lumpy brown pods on pretty trees had finally caught my attention.
• Tansy Mustard, Western

Descurainia pinnata: Abandoned Seed
What shall we call this little member of the Brassica family? Western Tansy Mustard or Tansy Mustard? We could always…

• Tape Seagrass  (3)
  It is said that all seaweed is edible but that’s not true. There’s at least one species that is not, Desmarestia ligulata. Why? Because it is laced…

• Tar Vine, Red SpiderlingBoerhavia diffusa: Catchy Edible
  Some times you just can’t identify a plant. Some times you’re frustrated for a few days, other times for a few…

• Tassel, Musk and Grape Hyacinths  (2)
  There are dozens of edible species that are wild in Europe and cultivated or escaped in North America. Three related species with a multitude of names are…

• Thistle: It’s That Spine of Year  (3)

Thistle: Touch me not, but add butter. Thistles, you’re either going to love ’em or hate em. Of course, I think eating them is the sensible…

• Ti, Good Luck Plant

  Cordyline fruticosa: Food, Foliage, Booze
  Simply called Ti (tee) Cordyline fruticosa spent most of its history with humans as a food, a source of alcohol, or…

• Tick Clover  (2)
  Tick Clover barely makes it into our foraging realm.I have found only one reference to its edibility. In the 47th volume of the Journal…

• Tiger Lily
  The word “lily” causes more confusion than four letters ought to be able to make. There are true lilies, usually not edible, some of them quite toxic, a…

• Tomato Tobacco Hornworms  (4)

  Manduca Cuisine: Eating Green Gluttons
  You’re picking tomatoes and suddenly there it is: Big, ugly and green, a tomato hornworm. To which I say, get or the…

• Tools of the Trail

  Over the years I have added a few items to my back pack that can make foraging more easier. You might want to add one or two of these items.

  The handiest…

• Topi Tambo, Leren, Guinea Arrowroot  (2)
  A lifetime ago off the Maine coast at low tide there were many mussel shoals. The vertical tidal change near the rock-bound coast can be measured in…

• Torchwood
  One reason to write about the Torchwood is very few people know about it these days yet it was once an esteemed wood and produces an edible, citrusy…

• Toxic tomatoes: I rarely write  about toxic plants because this site is about edibles. However there are enough prickly nightshades around to justify an article about them and how to identify them even if they aren’t edible.
• Traveler’s Palm Travails

  Ravenala madagascariensis: Palm, NOT!
  The Traveler’s Palm is reportedly known for providing wayfarers water, but it also has some food to offer as well.

• Trilliam Trifecta: Every May Day — the first of May — we kids would hang a May Basket on our teacher Arlene Tryon and disappear off the school grounds.
• Tropical Almond: I went to Ft. Myers one Friday to look at plants on an 11-acre monastery. On the property there was a large tree they didn’t know nor did I. The following Sunday while teaching a class across the state in West Palm Beach two students knew a tree there that I didn’t know. It was the same tree at the Monastery. Small botanical world. The tree was a Tropical Almond.
• Tropical Chestnuts: Pachira aquatica  (1)
  My foraging existence is slightly schizophrenic. I grew up in a northern climate, and I write about many northern plants, or it is accurate to say that…
• Tuberous Pea: Anyone who has mowed fields for hay hates vetch… wild pea.  It binds up the machinery and a lot of livestock won’t eat it. That’s a lose lose all around unless the vetch is Lathyrus tuberosus.
• Tuckahoe, Arrow Arum  (2)Peltandra virginica: Starch Storer
  You wouldn’t think there would be a connection between the United States’ Capital and a toxic bog plant, but…

• Tulip Tree  (9)
  Not every edible plant has to be a nutritional powerhouse. Some are “edible” by the barest of means. A good example is the Tulip Tree, Liriodendron…

• Tulips  (2)

  Tulips: Famine Food, Appetizer Assistant
  Many years ago a social acquaintance upon learning I ate weeds said she and her mother had eaten tulip bulbs. If I…

• Tupelos: Black, Swamp, Bear, Water, OgeecheeNyssus: Tart Botanical Tangles
  The Black Tupelo is an old friend from around ponds where I grew up in Maine to around ponds (called lakes) here in…

• TurtlesThe Shell Game: Eating Turtles
  The evidence is clear: Man has been eating turtle for a long time. But which turtles and how?While land turtles…

• Unresolved Botanical Ponderings  (2)Cnidoscolus stimulosis: Can the leaves be boiled and eaten like other species in the genus? I personally know of two account of…

• Usnea: Likable LichenUSNEA is not an international committee. It’s a likable lichen. In fact all but two of the 20,000 lichen are forager…

• Valuable Viburnums: The only significant problem with Viburnums is choosing which one to use, and which ones to write about.
• Velvet Leaf: Velvet Leaf is a commercial failure but a successful foreign invader.

• Vinegar: Your own unique strain  (5)
  The vinegar mother above —three inches across and a half in thick — was collected from the wild in Lake Mary, Florida, in 1996 and has been making…

• Violets’ Virtues

  Viola affinis: Florida’s Sweet Violet
  My introduction to violets was seeing my mother eat “Piss-a-beds” in the spring (Viola rafinesquii. VYE-oh-lah…

• Wapato: All It’s Quacked Up To Be  (2)

  Sagittaria Lancifolia: Duck Potatoes, Wapato
  Artificial grass is not grass. Non-dairy creamer contains a dairy product. And ducks don’t eat duck potatoes.…

• Water Arum, Water Dragon, Wild Calla: 

  Calla palustris: Missen…Famine Bread. Like so many in the same family the starchy rhizome of the Calla palustris is laced with calcium oxalate crystals…

• Water Chestnut: The Water Chestnut is a plant of contradictions.

• Water Hyacinth Woes
  Water Hyacinth Stir Fry: The state of Florida minces no words about the water hyacinth: “Eichhornia crassipes is one of the worst weeds in the…

• Water Lettuce  (5)
  No one knows if Water Lettuce is native to North America or not. Botanists disagree with some saying it’s from Africa, a few South America. Explorer and…

• Water Shield Salad

  Brasenia schreberi: Palatable Pond Weed
  The Water Shield is edible. The problem is getting it sometimes. It likes water … up to six feet deep. On the good…

• Watercress: Ancient Flavor

  Florida is the Winter Watercress Capital of the U.S.

  Nasturtium officinale (nas-STUR-shum oh-fis-in-AY-lee ) is one of the oldest leaf vegetables…

• Wax Myrtle Jewels  (1)

  Myrica cerifera: A Tree That Makes Scents
  Wax Myrtle was the Indians’ minimart of the forest.

  Need some spice? Drop by the Wax Myrtle tree. How about a…

• Weeds and Wolves  (2)

  I am often invited to see someone’s vegetable garden, and it’s usually growing well. Then I’m asked if I see any edible weeds, and usually there are some. I…

• Weeds of Southern Turfgrasses
  The link to the university’s site to buy the book — I do not get a cut — is here.The list of known edibles in the book is below. Many of…

• Welcome to EatTheWeeds.com  (28)

  No description found for this item.

• What’s Green and What’s Not?

  An arctic express of frigid air recently sped down and across the United States. Here in Florida it snowed for the second time in 33 years, delivering a week…

• When Is A Lawn A Lake?  (2)

  It sounds like a trick question, when is a lake a lawn, but there is a non-tricky answer: When it is in Florida.

  Regular followers of this writer know I am…

• When Scholarship Isn’t Enough

  I saw a religion-themed movie once that actually holds an instructive point for us foragers.

  In it a Catholic priest is facing a moral decision that could…

• Where Do You Forage?

  It’s a simple question with a complex answer. When I was younger the 1000 acres behind the house and the 2000 across the road answered that question. Today it…

• Where the Weeds Are

  There is little doubt that man has been foraging for food for a long time. As one might guess, in different places he foraged for different plants. He also…

• White Indigo Berry Has A Dark Side

  Randia aculeata
  The White Indigo Berry is not high on the food list. Dr. Daniel Austin, author of Florida Ethnobotany, has this to say on page 562:

• White man’s Little Foot: Dwarf PlantainWhite man’s Little Foot: Dwarf Plantain
  Plantain, Plantagos To Go
  When I was about 10 a bee stung my hand while I was being a pest in the…

• Who’s Manipulating Whom?
  I don’t care for Salvia coccinea. It’s not edible and it likes to crowd out my herbs. I’m forever removing it from flower pots. The other day I was about…

• Why Forage?  (1)

  Often I am asked “why forage for wild food?” Why that question is asked is probably worthy of an article unto itself. But here let’s focus on one answer (out…

• Wild Carrots and Queen Ann’s LaceDaucus Carota & Pusillus: Edible Wild Carrots
  I’ve never understood the confusion over identifying the Wild Carrot also called Queen Ann’s…

• Wild Citrus, Footloose Plants

  Feral Citrus: Snack, Seasoning and Soap
  Citrus, like apples when left unattended by man, tend to revert to their natural state of being sour and acidic. A lot…

• Wild Coffee But Not Kentucky  (5)

  Psychotria nervosa Florida Style
  Because I am constantly asked about it: Yes, you can eat the pulp off the seeds of the wild coffee, and yes, you can make a…

• Wild Dilly, Wild Sapodilla

  Wild Dilly: Almost Chique
  If the Natal Plum and the Wild Dilly could sit down and have a conversation they would probably agree that having a famous…

• Wild Fennel: One of the outstanding sensory experiences of hiking in Greece is smelling in the wild herbs one usually buys in little plastic containers.

• Wild Flours  (8)
  A wild flour is different than a starchy root. The Spurge Nettle has a starchy root that tastes like pasta but it does not lend itself to being processed…

• Wild Ginger: Wild Ginger is cantharophilic, sometimes myophilic or sapromyophilic.

• Wild Lettuce, Woodland Lettuce

  Lactuca floridana: Let Us Eat Wild Lettuce

  Wild lettuce is not as tame as garden lettuce.

  Garden lettuce is one of those nearly flavorless nearly…

• Wild Onion, Wild Garlic  (2)

  Allium canadense: The Stinking Rose
  Garlic and onions don’t like to set underground bulbs here in hot Florida. I got around it by growing wild onions,…

• Wild Pineapple  (2)

  Bromelia pinguin: Wild Pineapple
  I took the picture directly above while out bicycling on a Christmas Day, 2008. But, didn’t identified the object de green…

• Wild Rice  (4)
  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…

• Will Bisin Make GMOs Look Good?

  I have long criticized what I call chemists in the kitchen. They brought us such things as cancer-causing additives, artery-damaging trans-fats, insulin-skewing…

• Willow Weep For Me  (1)

  Salix caroliniana: Nothing Would Be Finer
  The willow is not prime eats. It’s not even secondary eats. In fact, it is famine food, but, willow can also cure…

• Winter Foraging:   The thermometer was near zero one day when I was on ice skates collecting frozen cranberries.

• Winter Soul-stice

  On the shortest day of the year one should take a long look around. It’s the inventory time of year, a bit of soul searching. That requires a little looking…

• Wisteria Criteria  (3)Wisteria, Wistaria
  There is a duality to Wisteria, starting with those who think it is an invasive weed and those who like to eat its sweet, fragrant…

• Wood Oats

  Chasmanthium latifolium: Edible Wood Oats
  Most people discover Wood Oats by mistake. They’re traipsing through the forest, come across a plant, and wonder…

• Yacon  (1)
  Is it a Polymnia or a Smallanthus? Botanists took some 70 years to make up their minds. Let’s call it Yacon like the natives.In publications before…

• Yam A: The Alata  (6)

  The Dioscorea Dilemma: Which ones are edible, and what parts?

  One wouldn’t think wild yams would be hard to sort out. It only took me about a dozen…

• Yam B: The Bulbifera  (9)

  The “Cheeky Yam, or Yam on the Lamb
  Yam B, Dioscorea bulbifera, is definitely second best to Yam A, Dioscorea alata. Why is Yam B, the D. bulbifera second…

• Yam C: The Chinese

  Dioscorea Polystachya: Yam C
  Just like Rambo movies, there is Yam A, Yam B and, yes, a Yam C, the Chinese Wild Yam or the Cinnamon Vine yam, either way we…

• Yaupon Holly, Ilex vomitoria  (10)
  History has many layers and shades. It’s not a straight timeline of great clarity but more like a meandering muddy river with much confluence, influence…

• Yellow Pond Lilly: Raising A Wokas

  Picking Pond Lillies: Nuphar Luteum subsp. advena

  Once upon a time there was just one Nuphar luteum… and it was good.

  The yellow pond lilly…

• Yew:  The Yew can kill you.

• You Can Learn To Forage For Wild Edibles

  There is such a thing as a free lunch, or almost free: The edible wild plants around you.

  With a little specialized knowledge and a “guidance” system…

• Your Choice for a New Vegetable  (2)

  If you could choose one wild plant to become a commercial product, what would it be?

  Many people have tried to make poke weed (Phytolacca americana) a green…

• Yucca’s Not Yucky  (5)Yucca, Yuca: Which is Edible?
  When isn’t a yucca a yucca? When it is spelt with one “C” as in yuca.What’s the difference? A belly ache, maybe…