Search: Beautyberry

We have several species Reishi mushrooms in North America. This one is Ganoderma curtisii if growing on hardwood. Photo by Green Deane

The question isn’t whether Reishi mushrooms grow in North America. The question is what to call them. Some would argue there are only six species of Reishi mushrooms on this continent. Others say many more. Just as the botanical world is in DNA flux so to is the fungal realm. Regardless of the species the Reishis are all Ganodermas, a genus name that that always suffers from translation. One sees Ganoderma translated as “shiny skin.” That’s not exactly right. In Greek it actually means “polished leather.” When I think of shiny skin I think of what my fingers and toes looked like after getting chilblains or frost bite. My skin was shiny. It did not look like polished leather. By the way once you get chilblains you always have them. I can go into a well air-conditioned building in Florida and my fingers and toes will ache from frozen nights spent ice skating 60 years ago. 

Ganoderma lobatum. Photo by Green Deane

Pictured on top is Ganoderma curtisii,  an easy to identify Reishi mushroom. It’s almost always shaped like a P, or a golf club, some say a cobra. All the ones I have spied have been growing on oaks. In 1988 it was decided that a slightly different species grows on Pines especially in the Gulf Coast states. That is G. meredithiae name for fungal expert Meredith May Blackwell. As for use my herbalist friends tell me our Reishi mushrooms can be used like their more famous Asian relatives and do stimulate the immune system. Consult your local herbalist for detail

White Beautyberries. Photo by Green Deane

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

Cuban Anole

The smallest roundup ever happened once during one of my classes. At the end of all my classes we always relax and chat a bit. I happened to mention that the invasive, aggressive Cuban anoles taste like bacon (when deep fried.)  That led to how to catch them and I told of one student who would make a noose out of panic grass and lasso them. One of the people at the class agreed that was how to do it and fashioned a noose for other students to use. Three of them went searching and one actually managed to catch an anole with a grass loop. Truth is stranger than fiction. To read about cooking them go here.   You also might want to read: Ignite of the Iguana.

An edible Bolete with no name, Gyroporus subalbellus. Photo by Green Deane

One of my favorite mushroom had a name change, the Chestnut Bolete. It was Gyroporus castaneus the latter meaning chestnut. This worked well as the top of the bolete is often chestnut colored. The fungal powers that be decided the name Gyroporus castaneus can only be used for the European bolete. Those mushrooms called Gyroporus castaneus in the northern part of North America are now Gyroporus borealis. Those called Gyroporus castaneus in southern North America are now Gyroporus smithii. (Too bad Brownii wasn’t in the offering.) The genus name is from two Greek words that mean “round pores” as the mushroom does not have gills. There is no “eye” sound in Greek thus they never would say the other name for a hero sandwich gyro, g-eye-row. They would  not call the mushroom  “gye-ROPE-poor-us.”  They say: “year-ROPE-poor-us,” or, “year-row-POOR-us.” Castaneus is “cass-TAN-ee-us.” Borealis is boor-ree-AL-us. Smithii is SMITH-ee-eye. The Boletes are a user-friendly group to study. There are no deadly ones per se if you’re in good health or ones that cause lasting organ damage should one err. Some can make you quite ill but you will live (unless your health is already compromised some way.) 

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

Foraging Classes:

Saturday September 21, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, 32127. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the pavilion.

Sunday September 22nd, Eagle Park Lake,1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. to noon, Meet at the pavilion near the dog park, 

Sept 28-29. The unknown track of a hurricane predicted for that time of the month, precludes scheduling any classes that weekend.

For more information on these classes, to prepay or sign up go here.  The cost is $30 per adult (the class is usually three hours long and examines five-dozen or so species.) If cost is a hardship email me at: GreenDeane@gmail.com.

Crowfoot grass can have five to 14 “digits.” Photo by Green Deane

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

Green Deane Forum

Tired of Facebook and 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

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. 

Now in  second printing.

EAT THE WEEDS, the book, 274 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 #612. 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.

Groundnuts Photo by Green Deane

Fruiting now and making it easy to spot are Ground Nuts, or Apios americana. This is a vine found in wet spots nearly everywhere east of the Rockies. It has clusters of maroon pea blossoms, which means “wings and keels.” The four petals of pea blossoms arrange themselves differently than most blossoms. Two flare out and two form together creating what looks like a boat’s keel and two wings. It has an edible pea pod thayt looks more like a string bean. Grounds Nuts are a foraging staple and were also the second plant product exported from the New World to the Old World. The first was Sassafras wood. While we find Ground Nuts in damp spots they will happily grow in a regular garden producing edible tubers for many years. More to the point, once you know what the underground tubers look like you can easily identify them anywhere you find them. To learn more about Ground Nuts go here.

Allium canadense also called Meadow Garlic, the blue blossoms are spiderwort (also edible.) Photo by Green Deane

Wild Garlic usually cloves in April making it easier to spot. Photo by Green Deane

It’s April and locally that means wild garlic month. Allium canadense, starts its annual cycle in December. For several months is looks like grass with a small onion bulb. Then approaching April it puts three or more cloves on top making it quite distinct. One does not find this species often but when you do it is usually prolific. We marveled over them last week during a foraging class at Eagle Lake in Largo. They can be found in several locations near Gainesville, and a few east of Orlando. Email me if you want more specific locations. (GreenDeane@gmail.com)

The cloves can be used like commercial garlic (as can the rest of the plant.) Or they can be used like seeds to grow more garlic. The species like sunny damp spots (roadside ditches is a favored location.) The onion bulb on the bottom end is often about six inches deep in the soil. Further north in the South there is allium carolinianum which is actually native to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, western China, and Mongolia not the carolinas. It is far taller around two feet and has smaller cloves. It is also a prime example of why plant name’s can or cannot be changed. As it is native to western Asia and not the Carolinanas, the specie name cannot be changed because the region is wrong. There has to be a botanical reason to change a name. Pinus palustris has the same problem. Palustris means it likes to grow in swamps whereas it prefers dry soil. Just because the location is wrong the name can’t be changed. You can watch my video on wild garlic here.

These prime Ringless Honey Mushrooms are cespitose, all growing out of one spot. Photo by Green Deane

Maybe it’s about time to make a prediction. Locally we had several inches of chilly rain.  The ground temperature has not greatly warmed up from winter, nights are still cool. It is April. Those are acceptable conditions for a spring flush of edible Ringless Honey Mushroom. They don’t do it every April but the conditions might be right this year. Ground temperature and rain directly affect fungi production. Cool rain and cool ground in April equals Ringless Honey Mushrooms. Warm rain and warm ground in May/June equals Chanterelles.  

Ringless Honey Mushrooms have a good texture and taste. Photo by Green Deane

“Honeys” come with some conditions and warnings. Not all people can eat them. I know at least four folks for whom Honeys give severe gastro-intestinal distress, to put it mildly. This includes cooking them twice such as parboiling them first then frying. So the first time you try Honeys eat only a small amount. Next is method of preparation. Some people can’t eat them just fried, they have to parboil them first then fry them. I just fry them but much longer than store-bought button mushrooms. And parts…. most folks eat just young caps. They use the stems for flavoring. Honeys, in my opinion, is a good stewing mushroom. They holds its flavor and texture in a wet medium though frying the caps is my most common means of cooking them. Once they are cooked then I add other ingredients to the pan. I have a video about them  here  and an article. 

The Eastern Coral Bean is easy to spot this time of year. Photo by Green Denne

Also blossoming this time of year is the Eastern Coral Bean, sometimes called the Cherokee Bean. What is odd about this plant is the edible flowers produce toxic beans.  So we do not eat the red and black beans. A few of the red blossoms are edible raw — with precautions — but they are usually boiled then mixed with other foods notably scrambled eggs. When you boil the blossoms they turn light green. The distinctive uterine shape of the leaves makes the shrub easy to identify. Young leaves are edible boiled but are marginal fare. Like Pawpaws they prefer dry, sunny places. A few raw red blossoms seem okay but if eaten in larger amounts they can be mind altering and approaching dangerous. Boiled they are fine. (Juice from the shrub’s stems, by the way, has been used to treat scorpion stings and the toxic beans have a chemical that is close in structure to the alkaloid curare which can cause breathing paralysis.)  You can see my video about the species here or read more about the Eastern Coral Bean here. 

Marlberries aren’t too edible. Photo by Green Deane

Marlberries and I don’t meet too often, about once or twice a year and then usually while I’m conducting a class so I don’t have the time to get acquainted better. There is also a certain lack of motivation because even at its best marlberry is not a great trailside nibble. A complicating headache is there are several malberries of varying quality. They are also related to the invasive species Coral Berry, Ardisia crenata, which has been implicated in cattle poisoning. Reportedly found mid-Florida and south I have found Marlberries in Dreher Park in West Palm Beach, LaStrange Preserve in Ft. Pierce, and Emerson Point near Sarasota.  Around the same time and in the same habitat you find Marlberries you can also see Rapanea punctata, Colicwood, one of those mystery pants one finds in wet woods this time of year. It looks like a drab cross between a mangrove and a beautyberry and used to be called Myrsine guianensis. Colicwood’s small yellow blossoms and black fruit grow directly on the branches, helping you identify it. There’s not a whole lot of literature on the species so the berries are probably not edible. As it is called “Colicwood” suggest some medicinal uses. To read more about the Marlberry and its strange relatives go here.

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

Foraging classes: Steady weather prompts more foraging classes:

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 Road 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. 

Sunday, May 5th, Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St.,  Gainesville, FL 32641. Meet at the picnic tables next to the pump house. 9 a.m. to noon.

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

Pineapple Guava blossoms are always attractive. Photo by Green Deane

Also starting to blossom is the Pineapple guava. Perhaps no ornamental has been championed as much as the Pineapple Guava, aka Feijoa,  Acca sellowiana, Feijoa sellowiana. However the perfect shrub for many places never really caught on. There could be several reasons. It probably didn’t help that the Strawberry Guava is a severe invasive species in some locations.  The shrub also does not get showy. You have to hunt for the extroverted blossoms. While the entire blossom is edible most people only eat the petals. Five or six months from now they will be dark green fruit that stay green as they ripen. They just get softer. The shrub is easy to identify when in blossom. To read more about both guavas, go 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 #596. 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.

Chickasaw Plum fruit won’t ripen until June or so, but it is easy to identify the shrub now. Photo by Green Deane

Wild Plums can be as sweet as cultivated plums. Photo by Green Deane

This is the time of year to easily locate a wild edible and an invasive non-edible ornamental.The edible is Chickasaw Plum, the non edible is Bradford Pear. Both can be found with small white blossoms this time of year and no leaves, thus they standout in the landscape.  The plum creates a tasty fruit that is usually ripe by June. The pear produces a woody acorn size fruit that is too tough to eat.  The plum is usually short, the pear tall, the plum has sweet-smelling blossom and a few small thorns, the pear has foul-smelling blossoms and many large thorns. You can watch my video here. You can read about the Chickasaw plum here.

Deer Mushrooms like wood and cool weather. Photo by Green Deane

Deer Mushrooms are edible but not too well liked. They are not difficult to identify down to the genus. And while edible, they are not sought out because of unremarkable taste and not much body (the caps are mostly gills.) They are better than what you can buy in the supermarket but not as good as many other wild mushrooms. My neighbor had a large Live Oak removed last fall and this spring the roots are sprouting mushrooms, in this case Pluteus cervinus or P. petastus. Necessary  microscopic spores analysis requires a microscope stronger than the two I own. However, P. cervinus prefers whole pieces of hardwood in the woodlands, P. petasatus can grow on wood chips in suburbia. The name comes from the fawn-colored patch on top of the cap. Its free gills are whitish at first and become pinkish. The spore print color is pink/salmon. 

Eastern Coral Beans are easy to find this time of year. Photo by Green Deane

Soon to blossom this time of year is the Eastern Coral Bean, sometimes called the Cherokee Bean. What is odd about this plant is the edible flowers produce toxic beans.  So we do not eat the red and black beans. A few of the red blossoms are edible raw — with precautions — but they are usually boiled then mixed with other foods notably scrambled eggs. When you cook the blossoms they turn light green. The distinctive shape of the leaves makes the shrub easy to identify. Young leaves are edible cooked but are marginal fare. Like Pawpaws they prefer dry, sunny places. A few raw red blossoms seem okay but if eaten in larger amounts they can be mind altering and approaching dangerous. Boiled they are fine. (Juice from the shrub’s stems, by the way, has been used to treat scorpion stings and the toxic beans have a chemical that is close to the alkaoid curare which can cause breathing paralysis.)  You can see my video about the species here or read more about the Eastern Coral Bean here. 

Watercress/Wintercress grew in a ditch behind an apartment complex I lived in near Sanford, Florida, some 35 years ago. How did the Eurasian native Nasturtium officinale, get there? It came to North America with the Europeans, found a good home, and stayed. Alabama became the epicenter of cultivating it then later Central Florida. Sanford, by the way, is named for Henry Sanford one of Lincoln’s ambassadors. He is called “General Sanford” but the gentleman never served in the military. He got the title for donating a cannon to the Union effort. Sanford was, however, big on big farming and for a few decades made the city of Sanford the big place to go in Central Florida not Orlando.

When President Calvin Coolidge came to Central Florida in 1929 it was to Sanford he went not little-ol’ backwater Orlando. The city of Sanford had everything: River, rails, road and Rollins college. But it lacked leadership giving Orlando a chance to make its mousey mark. Rollins moved to Winter Park. As Coolidge did so did watercress which is why it ended up in the ditch behind the apartment complex in Sanford. The entire area was truck farms and one of their winter crops was watercress. Peppery like nasturtiums it is edible raw or cooked but make sure you get it from wholesome water. Nasturtium by the way literally means “twisted nose.” Where I collect watercress to be eaten raw is about a half mile down stream from the Wekiva River boil (its main spring and headwater.) But there’s a lot of water hemlock around so I have to pick carefully. This time of year the river is mostly water hemlock. To read more about watercress go here. I have a video on watercress here. To read about the deadly Water Hemlock go here.  It i also found in Wickham Park were I have a class this Weekend. (See below) 

Marlberries aren’t too edible. Photo by Green Deane

Marlberries and I don’t meet too often, about once or twice a year and then usually while I’m conducting a class so I don’t have the time to get acquainted better. There is also a certain lack of motivation because even at its best marlberry is not a great trailside nibble. A complicating headache is there are several malberries of varying quality. They are also related to the invasive species Coral Berry, Ardisia crenata, which has been implicated in cattle poisoning. Reportedly found mid-Florida and south I have found Marlberries in Dreher Park in West Palm Beach, LaStrange Preserve in Ft. Pierce, and Emerson Point near Sarasota.  Around the same time and in the same habitat you find Marlberries you can also see Rapanea punctata, Colicwood, one of those mystery pants one finds in wet woods this time of year. It looks like a drab cross between a mangrove and a beautyberry and used to be called Myrsine guianensis. Colicwood’s small yellow blossoms and black fruit grow directly on the branches, helping you identify it. There’s not a whole lot of literature on the species so the berries are probably not edible. As it is called “Colicwood” suggest some medicinal uses. To read more about the Marlberry and its strange relatives go here.

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

Foraging Classes: With moderating weather, attending classes should be easier as we go into spring. 

Saturday, March 16th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL, 9 a.m. to noon, meet at the dog park. 

Sunday, March 17th Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park. 9 am. to noon.

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

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. 

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. And let me add an apology regarding page access. We have been having computer and word presses issues, restricting site availability.

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

To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Monarda punctata, Horsemint, Beebalm. Photo by Green Deane

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

Crowfoot Grass seeds are gluten free. Photo by Green Deane

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

White Beautyberries. Photo by Green Deane

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

The nose doesn’t always know.

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

Carl Linnaeus had a dirty mind.

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

Pedanius Dioscorides

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

You get the USB, not the key.

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

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

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

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

 To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Sugar maples are famous for their syrup but how many species of trees can you actually tap? In North America the answer is at least 22. “Sugaring” was a special time of year in New England. Warm days and near freezing nights in the spring started the sap flowing out of the roots back towards the top of the trees. A tap and a bucket produced pails of mildly sweet sap. Hours of boiling reduced that to maple syrup. Have you ever heard of Maple Walnut Ice Cream. It was common in sugaring country.

Sycamores drop a lot of leaves. Photo by Green Deane

The largest group of trees you can tap are maples ( Sugar, Black, Red, Silver, Norway, Boxelder, Bigleaf, Canyon, Rocky Mountain, and Gorosoe.) The birches can also be tapped (Paper, Yellow, Black, River, Gray, and European White Birch.) If I remember correctly no native group of Europeans ever tapped them for food until they learned of the practice in North America. Trees in the walnut group can also be tapped: Butternut (my mother’s favorite) Black Walnut, Heartnut, and English Walnut.

There are two outliers which grow locally. One is Hophornbeam or as I called it growing up, Ironwood. It also has edible seeds. The other tappable species is a very common native and ornamental: The Sycamore. It takes about four to five times more Sycamore sap to get a gallon of syrup than from a Maple. The biggest surprise is that Sycamore Syrup tastes like butterscotch. Processing a natural plant does not always have the outcome you intend. Seagrapes, for example, have a unique taste. Make them into jelly, however, and their originality disappears and they taste like apple jelly. And while birch syrup is a unique and commercial product. It can taste quite similar to molasses.  You can read about Sycamores here, Ironwood here. 

Ten Global Trends (although there are 78 trends in the book.)

In the book Ten Global Trends there is an article called “Improving Sanitation.” It states regarding human history: “In the rural areas, people lived with their animals, including chickens and cows, and used both animal and human waste to fertilize their crops — an extremely dangerous practice compounded by the fact that people could go throughout much of their lives without ever washing their hands.”

Historically people did not wash their hands.

Never washing your hands… I thought of that as I ate two mangoes with very dirty hands during a foraging class in Port Charlotte last Sunday. I had dug up — with my hands — two yam roots in an overgrown lot. I strongly advise against digging with your hands not because of germs per se but rather broken glass. A lot of drinkers toss bottles into empty lots and they can give you some horrible cuts. (As can booze bottles in mangrove mud.) In the same area as the bubils are several champagne mango trees that produce a lot of fruit that just rots on the ground. It’s the only time I eat super sweet fruit. So I had two, from off the ground, unwashed, dirty hands and all.

Back yards can also be a litter box.

I grew up on a small farm. We had horses, chickens, ducks, dogs, cats, rabbits and pet squirrels. Moose and deer were a common sight in the barnyard scrimping for grain the hoses dropped. Us kids shoveled and played in a lot of manure… horse and chicken being the prime piles. One time while playing hide and seek under a barn I dropped down so not to be seen and gashed my right knee on a broken bottle in the horse manure pile. I still have the scar. Kids raised on farms, research shows, have less allergies (if they survive.) And I usually eat wild plants without washing them unless they are dusty et cetera. People ask me if I am concerned that animals using the wild as their bathroom. Not really. Urine is usually sterile, degrades quickly, and other matter is broken down fast. Most disease contraction today from scat is toddlers getting parasites from cat dropping in their own back yard. Cat manure, like most carnivore manure, is foul, and transmits disease to toddlers playing in the back yard or pregnant mom cleaning the litter box (toxoplasmosis.) Back yard chickens are not much of an issue either. It takes nine chickens to equal the manure of one dog, and the chicken manure is good side dressing (whereas horse and cow manure is weaker and can be used directly.)  

Mangrove Mud can be deep and hide debris.

Thus I am not overly cautious nor overly brave. Soil dirty hands and unwashed mangos fits into that spectrum for me. Last year I foolishly stepped into mangrove mud to retrieve a lure. I sunk to my knee and what ever stopped me from sinking further left three deep cuts in my heel. (Yes, I had wading shoes, but I left them in the van. That won’t happen again.) And I had a tetanus shot five years ago after a to-the-bone bite from an injured squirrel that did not want to be rescued (and I’ve had the rabies series [2005] as well though squirrels rarely have rabies. A squirrel in the position to be bitten by a rabid animal usually becomes that animal’s next meal. ) The heel healed without even a minor infection. Apparently the immune system is still working well for 70-plus and I’m not diabetic.

Another reason to be cautious about vacant lots is you don’t know what was there before its vacancy. I know a nice, green location, that was once a home that burnt to the ground. The soil is black with soot (and who knows what other chemicals.) Not ground for good eating. When I read glowing articles about community gardens growing food on vacant lots in cities I wonder if the lot used to be a  car garage or a tanning factory that used all kinds of chemicals. Before I would cultivate a vacant city lot I would do a historical search to find out what used to be at that location.

Foraging Classes We are entering the dodgy time of year, weatherwise. Long term forecasts say we could have much rain this weekend. I’d like to have a seasonal class at LeStrange Preserve before it is closed by flooding. 

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

June 17, George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, FL 9 a.m.

June 18,  Blanchard Park,  2451 Dean Rd, Union Park, FL,  meet next to the tennis courts. 9 a.m.

Bring cash on the day of class or  click here to pay for your class

Seen recently: Pawpaw fruiting and still blossoming, and grapes still blossoming and dropping fruit

One of two batches of experimental Beautyberry Wine.

Locally the American Beautyberries are blossoming and soon they will have magenta berries. I have about four gallons of Beautyberry Wine working, two different recipes, perhaps ready in a year or two.  That said Beautyberries are near the bottom of the list on flavor when eaten out of hand, insipid more than offensive. But they make a great jelly… and perhaps a blush wine. They are not good pie material and in muffins they turn green. The shrub itself has been known for its ability to repel insects. You can read about Beautyberry here .

You get the USB, not the key.

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

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.

Sweet acacia, Dreher Park. West Palm Beach. Photo by Green Deane

In the works: Sweet Acacia, Vachellia farnesiana (Acacia farnesiana) has mixed reports on edibility, some say yes others say toxic. The tree was pointed out to me during a foraging class Saturday in Dreher Park, West Palm Beach. Cornucopia II, usually reliable, says on page 151 “leaves may be used as a substitute for tamarind in flavoring chutneys. Sprouted seeds are reportedly consumed. the pods are roasted and eaten.”  Julia Morton skipped the tree in her “Plants for Survival in South Florida.” Daniel Austin in Florida ethnobotany mentions only herbal applications. The bark is used for tanning leather, and arrow poison, and that the seeds  have an alkaoid used to kill dogs in Brazil. James Duke for Perdue University, wrote: “The bark is astringent and demulcent, and along with leaves and roots is used for medicinal purposes. Woody branches used in India as tooth brushes. The gummy roots also chewed for sore throat. Said to be used for alterative, antispasmodic, aphrodisiac, astringent, demulcent, diarrhea, febrifuge, rheumatism, and stimulant” (Duke, 1981a). Morton (1981) notes that Guatemalans value the flower infusion as a stomachic. It is also used for dyspepsia and neuroses. Mexicans sprinkle powdered dried leaves onto wounds. The flowers are added to ointment, rubbed on the forehead for headache. Green pods are decocted for dysentery and inflammations of the skin and raucous membranes. Colombians bathe in the bark decoction for typhoid. Costa Ricans decoct he gum from the trunk for diarrhea, using the pod infusion for diarrhea, leucorrhea, and uterorrhagia. Panamanians and Cubans used the pod to treat conjunctivitis. Cubans use the pod decoction for sore throat. For rheumatic pains, West Indians bind bark strips to the afflicted joint. The root decoction has been suggested as a folk remedy for tubersulosis.

Sweet Acacia blossoms. Photo by Green Deane

“Dried seeds of one Acacia sp. are reported to contain per 100 g: 377 calories, 7.0% moisture, 12.6 g protein, 4.6 g fat, 72.4 g carbohydrate, 9.5 g flber, and 3.4 g ash. Raw leaves of Acacia contain per 100 g: 57 calories, 81.4% moisture, 8.0 g protein, 0.6 g fat, 9.0 g carbohydrate, 5.7 g fiber, 1.0 g ash, 93 mg Ca, 84 mg P, 3.7 mg Fe, 12,255 mg b-carotene equivalent, 0.20 mg thiamine, 0.17 mg riboflavin, 8.5 mg niacin, and 49 mg ascorbic acid. Reporting 55% protein on a dryweight basis, Van Etten et al (1963) break down the amino acids as follows: lysine, 4.7 (g/16 g N); methionine, 0.9; arginine, 9.2; glycine, 3.4;. histidine, 2.3; isoleucine, 3.5; leucine, 7.5; phenylalanine, 3.5; tyrosine, 2.8; threonine, 2.5; valine, 3.9; alanine, 4.3; aspartic acid, 8.8; glutamic acid, 12.6; hydroxyproline, 0.0; proline, 5.1; serine, 4.1; with 76% of the total nitrogen as amino acids. Cassie has been reported to contain anisaldehyde, benzoic acid, benzyl alcohol, butyric acid, coumarin, cresol, cuminaidehyde, decyl aldehyde, eicosane, eugenol, farnesol, geraniol, hydroxyacetophenone, methyleugenol, methyl salicylate, nerolidol, palmitic acid, salicylic acid, and terpineol (Duke, 1981). The leaves contain lipids, carotenoids, alkaloids, and reducing and non-reducing sugars (Morton, 1981). El Sissi et al (1973) isolated and identified from pods, seven polyphenols (gallic acid, ellagic acid, m-digallic acid, methyl gallate, kaempferol, atomadendrin, and narigenin). Also they found narigenin-7-glucoside and naringenin-7-rhamnoglucoside (naringin), as well as naringenin, glucose, and gallic acid.” The flowers are used to make perfume. We also know the seeds have protein-binding lectins. Is the tree edible? Who knows, and is that really the species we saw?  Clearly more research is needed. 

This is weekly newsletter #562. 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.

Chickasaw Plums are starting to ripen. Photo by Green Deane

Chickasaw Plum leaf tips have red terminal glands. Photo by Green Deane

This was a “Prunus” foraging week. While rummaging around our usual class location in Gainesville we sampled Chickasaw Plums. They were not completely ripe but give them a week or two. They are usually all gone by the 4th of July.   Black Cherries are also ripening but are often more difficult to find because the birds also like them. Cherries and plums are in the same genus, Prunus, so it’s not surprising they are ripening at about the same time.  Also setting fruit are the Flatwood Plums but they are different story and are included in my related article. I have a video on the Chickasaw plum here, Black Cherry here. To read about the Black Cherry go here, the Chickasaw Plum, here.  . 

Neolentinus lepideus which until recently was Lentinus lepideus.

It’s been a strange week for edible wild mushrooms. Ringless Honey Mushrooms favor the fall but the right weather conditions in the spring can cause a minor flush of them. This week there were sporadic reports of said about the South and we found some in Port Orange last weekend. I have even seem them on a Banyan in West Palm Beach in July. They give some people digestive upset. Also seen this week was a Neolentinus lepideus, an edible tough mushroom that grows on pines or pine stumps. It’s fairly easy to identify. The stem is extremely strong. It has scales and the gills are ragged. The cap is often brown on top. Nice aroma. DO not eat if growing on treated wood like fence posts (which if often does.) 

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

Before COVID I had monthly classes on the campus of Florida State College in Jacksonville. Then whether the school was open became a constant problem so classes were switched to a different location. We return to the campus this week. 

Saturday, June 11th Florida State College, south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246. 9 a.m. We meet at Building A next to the administration parking lot. Whether the college bathroom are open is always  in question. 

Sunday June 12th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. Meet at the picnic shelter by the tennis courts. 

Saturday, June 18th Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789. 9 a.m.  Meet at the bathrooms.

Saturday, June 25th Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park.

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

No plant produces more starch per acre than cattails.

If you were starving and came upon a patch of cattails (blossoming now) you would have great cause for celebration. You have found food and water. You will survive. But if you are not starving and do not have all the time in the inter-connected world you just might find cattails highly overrated. It is true that no plant can produce more starch per acre than cattails, about 3.5 tons under cultivation. And it can produce a lot of starch economically if you can mechanize the extraction. But hand extraction is time- consuming and labor intensive. It is also wet, smelly work all of which can be worsened significantly by harvesting in cold weather. So yes, cattails are food but the time demand is such that harvesting food has to be your prime occupation. A similar argument can be made for kudzu. The roots do have edible starch but it takes a gargantuan amount of work to get the starch out, literally hours of steady pounding. It is not a calorie positive activity. It moves you closer to starvation. But, mechanize the process with some hammers run by falling water — or hammers run by a horse fed on an endless supply of grass — and kudzo becomes a reliable calorie-positive food. You can see my video on cattails here. pounding. I also have an article on Finding Caloric Staples with links to relevant videos. 

Locally the American Beautyberries are blossoming and soon they will have magenta berries. I’m trying to make some into some wine.  That said Beautyberries are near the bottom of the list on flavor, insipid more than offensive. But they make a great jelly… and perhaps a blush wine. They are not good pie material and in muffins they turn green. The shrub itself has been known for its ability to repel insects. “Diane” wrote a letter from  in praise of the Beautyberry and insect control

Edible berries and the leaves repel insects.

“We have been plagued by mosquitoes and those biting deer and horse flies while riding our horses in the woods. Last week we had to dismount and brush about 30 of them from underneath our horses bellies just in order to keep them from going crazy and bolting off. Even though we don’t like using the traditional store-bought horse fly sprays, we did try several over the last couple of years and none of them really work all that well. After reading [your article] we experimented this weekend with the beautyberry. We cut small branches we tucked into their tack. We also rubbed some fresh leaves all over ourselves and the horses. We could not believe the results! We had a two-hour ride each day this past weekend and we’re not troubled by any biting insects. There was an occasional fly that attempted to make a problem but was easily shooed away. We are so lucky to have tons of this bush growing all over our pastures. It is also along every trail that we ride on so it is easily acquired along the ride as well. Thank you!”

You get the USB, not the key.

My nine-DVD set of 135 videos has been phased out and replaced by 171-videos on a 128-GB USB, see left.  The USB videos are the same videos I have on You Tube. Some people like to have their own copy especially if social order falters.  The USB videos have to be copied to your computer to play. If you want to order the USB go to the DVD/USB order button on the top right of this page or click here. That will take you to an order form. Or you can make a $99 donation, which tells me it is for the USB (include a snail-mail address.)  I’d like to thank all of you who ordered the DVD set over the years which required me to burn over 5,000 DVDs individually. I had to stop making them as few programs now will read the ISO files to copy them. Burning a set also took about three hours. 

Green Deane Forum

Want to identify a plant?  Perhaps you’re looking for a foraging reference? You might have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane and others from around the world — chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. Recent topics include: Fermenting potatoeswith yogurt, make a water filter, nixtamalization at home, Stale Bread and Cod Liver Oil, Life’s a Grind, Killing Bugs with Tobacco Plugs, Eating weeds: Is it safe? Have they mutated? Not the Eastern Red Bug but the Pink Tabebuia, African Tulip Tree, Asparagus densiflorus, Green Deane’s Book… You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

Unfinished businesss: You will note there are no foraging classes on SUndays towards the end of this month. I am moving from Orlando to Lithia Florida, some 100 miles or 20 miles east of Tampa. I hope to hold classes there next year. Thanks to all those who helped and offered suggestions. And my book Eat The Weeds is scheduled to be published the 12th of May 2023. Let’s hope there is still paper available then. National in scope it will have 296 species, color photos, 284,000 words and 753 pages (they cut out 75 species.) It will soon be available to pre-order.

This is my weekly newsletter #511. 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. My website, EatTheWeeds.com, which is data secure, has over 1500 plants on it in some 428 articles. I wrote every one myself, no cut and paste.

                             To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.  

Marlberries while edible are usually low on every ones taste  list. Photo by Green Deane

We are definitely into cool season foraging. In classes this week we saw Pellitory, False Hawks Beard and some young Poor Man’s Pepper Grass. We also saw our last Tallow Plum and Grapes for the year. If you look carefully now you can find a few blossoms on the Eastern Red Bud and fruit on the Mullberries. (They often have a token display in the fall, them and Surinam Cherries.) Marlberries, varied as they are, are happy right now and were fruiting heavily in F.t Pierce. The Ardisias are a complex family.

There is the native Marlberry (Ardisia escallonioides) that has edible black fruit that ranges from bad to almost good. There is the invasive Asian, Ardisia elliptica, whose berries are edible but insipid. Another escapee, the Ardisia solanaea, has berries and young leafy shoots that are edible and is a common food in its native range. There is also the self-liberated Ardisea crispa, with edible shoots. Lastly there is the dreaded Ardisia crenata, which is not listed as toxic but some think is potentially toxic. It’s suspected of killing cattle in 2001 and 2007. I ate the flesh off one seed and had no problem. It kind of tasted like a raw pea, but had the texture of a cooked bean. Neither appealing or offensive.

The foragibility of Marlberries is a matter of opinion or how hungry you are. Some think the pulp of the Marlberries taste close to blackberries, grapes or raisins. Others say they are unappealing and acidic. You eat the pulp only, not the seed. It’s called “marlberry” because the shrub grows in marl and it’s a marvel that it survives in marl. Marl is a calcium-rich limestone mud turned into semi-stone that is used for building roads in Florida because it drains well. 

The very edible Ardisia solanaea.

Native marlberries (A. escallonioides) often occur naturally with Sabal Palmettos, the Cabbage Palms. Locally Marlberries are found mid-state and south with more representation along the coasts than inland. You’ll see them in the interior of dense, shady hardwood hammocks, usually under a canopy live oaks and cabbage palms. It’s in the common shrub layer with Wild Coffee (Psychotria nervosa and Psychotria sulzneri) and American Beautyberry Callicarpa americana. Ardisia Elliptica, is on the state’s hit list. It’s very invasive and the fruit edible as well. Nibbling on A. elliptica fruit and destroying the seed is being a good citizen. Lucky you if you find non-native Ardisia solanaea as it is quite edible. The leaves are 7.3% carbohydrates, 31.25% crude protein, 6.6% fiber, no lipids and 154 calories per 100 grams. They have a good amount of vitamin C, about 44.5 mg per 100 grams, which is two-thirds your daily need. Beta-carotene is 240 mg/ml, vitamin E 7.29 mcg/g, and 113 mcg/g of phenols. The minerals are sodium 434.7 mg per 100 grams, potassium 126.3 mg, calcium 769.52 mg, 219.7 mg magnesium, 1.12 mg zinc, and 0.57 mg copper. 

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

My foraging classes are visiting both coasts this weekend, Largo Saturday and Melbourne Sunday. Cold long-term forecasts co-opted West Palm Beach Thanksgiving weekend rather than Jacksonville. 

Saturday November 20th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m to noon. Meet at the pavilion by the dog park. 

Sunday November 21st, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the “dog park” inside the park

Saturday November 27th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet just north of the science center.

Sunday November 28th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, 32127. 9 a.m. to noon, meet at the pavilion. 

Saturday December 4th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the parking lot of Bayshore and Ganyard St.

Sunday December 5th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  Meet at the bathrooms. The park entrance is on South Denning. Some GPS directions get it wrong.

The path of the urban crawl includes Rollins College and Winter Park Library.

My annual Urban Crawl, my twelveth,  is coming up on Friday, December 17th, in downtown Winter Park. A reasonable question is what about foraging in a city? There is some surprising research. Dan Brabaner is a geoscience professor at Wellesley College, Boston. With some undergraduate students they studied preserved food collected from fruit trees and the like in the urban Boston area. What they found was cherries, apples, peaches and herbs were relatively low in lead and arsenic. That is, a serving had less amounts of these toxins than the allowed daily amount for a child. The team also did not find a significant difference between peeled and unpeeled fruit. The fruit was low in toxic chemical because they are the furthest away from any toxins in the soil. This would apply to tree nuts as well. Leafy greens faired well, too, because they grow fast and 1) don’t have time to accumulate toxins and 2) most air pollution on them can be washed off. Brabander also analyzed foraged food from plants growing in the urban environment not growing on agricultural soil. These foods had higher micronutrients because they were not growing on worn-out agricultural soil. Calcium and iron were higher as were manganese, zinc, magnesium and potassium. Thus we know that not only do “weeds” pack more of a nutritional punch because they are wild but also because they can be growing in better soil. My Urban Crawl is a free class. We meet in front of Panera’s at 10 a.m. We wander south to the college, stop at Starbucks, go east to the public library area, then back to Panera’s. 

Desmarestia ligulata is not edible.

Non-edible seaweed is uncommon above the equator. The first is Desmarestia ligulata. It is laced with sulfuric acid but is used to make pickles. You’ll know it when you find it because it will burn your mouth. The other in North America (and Central America) non-edible is Cyanobacteria which is found in the Caribbean and linked to ciguarera poisoning. It’s not really a seaweed but is a blue-green algae found in the warmer waters. It is why one should never eat older barracuda. I should add never eat blue-green algae from fresh water either nor fish from a fresh water pond with a lot of blue-green algae. They are not on the menu. As for other parts of the world, there might be some toxic red seaweeds in the South Seas. Since most seaweed is edible, and nutritious, why isn’t it consumed more often? Taste and texture. I’ve collected Sargassum here in Florida and prepared it many ways. Semi-drying and frying isn’t too bad but Bladderwrack is better, Sea Lettuce better still. The latter makes very nice salads. Not surprisingly most land animals including birds don’t like seaweed. However, it does make good mulch and fertilizer. So while one may not use it directly in the diet it can still help sustain you with uses in the garden. During Victorian times it was highly used in English agriculture mostly as mulch and fertilizer. Here are some of my articles on seaweed: Bladderwrack,  Caulpera,  Codium,   Gracilaria,   Sargassum,  Sea Lettuce, and Tape Seagrass.

Stomolophus meleagris, one of our edible jellyfish.

While on the topic of the beach — I’m usually there this time of year for a Greek festival, a birthday, and Veterans Day — many jellyfish are edible, including some that are found in local waters. I had a friend from Taiwan who never ordered from the menu at Chinese restaurants. It was always off-the-menu and then after much discussion with the waiter and sometimes the chef.  One of those chats produced a dish of jellyfish. I was hooked. It was very tasty and jellyfish can be caught while casting for other fish. (I like castnetting and am a castnet junkie.) While a substantial food I’m not sure jellyfish would qualify as a staple because catching them by hand is by chance (which does increase however when in season.) They are also mostly water and need to be dessicated immediately, not a small process. It all depends on how hungry you are and how many of them you have. You should get them live out of the water, not dead on the beach. To read about jellyfish go here

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

My 150-video USB would be a good winter present and is now $99. The 135-DVD set has been phased out. These videos are the same first 150 videos I have on You Tube. Some people like to have a separate copy.  The videos on the USB have to be copied to your computer to play. They are MP4 files.  My headache is getting my WordPress Order page changed from the older DVD set. If you want to order the USB make a $99 “donation” using the link at the bottom of this page or here.  That order form provides me with your address, the amount — $99 — tells me it is not a donation. 

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.

Our little native plantain is ramping up its seasonal appearance. Photo by Green Deane

This is weekly newsletter #482. 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.

It’s a Sideroxylon but which one?  Photo by Green Deane

Old identification problems don’t go away. They just remain unsolved. Recently while stopping at an intersection near a gated cemetery (it must be exclusive) I noticed a shrub that looked familiar (photo above.) Actually what caught my eye was the amount of fruit. 

This underleaf is gray.  Silver? Photo by Green Deane

I returned twice the next day to take pictures and try to make an identification. The genus is fairly easy, Sideroxylon, which I originally learned in the early 90’s as Bumilia. The headache is which species is it because some of them are (barely) edible and some aren’t. The species don’t vary much: They have thorns, alternating leaves, sometimes in whorls, about an inch long, a third of an inch wide, dark green and smooth on top, hairy underneath. And that is where I hit two road blocks. The species I want to call it, S. tenax — my guess 24 years ago —  is supposed to have brown hair… maybe… I think my leaves are gray (see photo right.) The other issues is the subjective difference between “copious”  hair vs “densely matted hair.” I am not sure what the difference is, 

This underleaf is brown. Copper? Photo by Green Deane

Leaf length rules out S. lyciodes, arrangement of the leaves does not rule out S. reclinata. As for S. tenax one authority says the underside of the leaf is covered with “dense, silvery, golden, coppery or brownish pubescence, often contrasting sharply with the dark green upper surfaces.” Another says “narrowly oval leaves have a dense coat of silvery to rusty-brown hairs on the undersides.”  By chance yesterday while looking for pawpaws I found another Sideroxylon (photo left) with definitely brown leaves underneath. So within three days I find two examples of a genus I have not seen in 24 years and I can’t tell if they are the same species, a variation of one species, or two species. If I want to grow it from seed I have to “scarify in concentrated sulfuric acid for 20 minutes followed by stratification for 30-60 days at 41 degrees.” That means battery acid. I have some someplace. (They sell it by the half gallon at auto stopes and it lasts you a lifetime.) After soaking in acid — replicating the bird’s gut —  the seeds go into the fridge for a couple of months.  It’s an experiment in progress. Maybe a decade from now I will still have a mystery shrub but one of my own. You can read more about the genus here. 

We have several species Reishi mushrooms in North American. This one is Ganoderma curtisii if growing on hardwood, G. meredithiae if growing on pines . Photo by Green Deane

The question isn’t whether Reishi mushrooms grow in North America. The question is what to call them. Some would argue there are only six species of Reishi mushrooms on this continent. Others say many more. Just as the botanical world is in DNA flux so to is the fungal realm. Regardless of the species the Reishis are all Ganodermas, a genus name that that always suffers from translation. One sees Ganoderma translated as “shiny skin.” That’s not exactly right. In Greek it actually means “polished leather” like shoes or boots. When I think of shiny skin I think of what my fingers and toes looked like after getting chilblains or frost bite. My skin was shiny. It did not look like polished leather. By the way once you get chilblains you always have them. I can go into a well air-conditioned building in Florida and my fingers and toes will ache from frozen nights spent ice skating 65 years ago. 

Pictured above right is Ganoderma curtisii,  an easy to identify Reishi mushroom. It’s almost always shaped like a P, or a golf club, some say a cobra. All the ones I have spied have been growing on oaks. In 1988 it was decided that a slightly different species grows on Pines especially in the Gulf Coast states. That is G. meredithiae name for fungal expert Meredith May Blackwell. As for use my herbalist friends tell me our Reishi mushrooms can be used like their more famous Asian relatives and do stimulate the immune system. Consult your local herbalist for details.

White Beautyberries. Photo by Green Deane

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

Teaching in South Carolina. Photo by Donna Putney

Foraging Classes: The weekend after next I will be in South Carolina for two days of classes at an herbal festival. There will also be an herbal festival with a variety of vendors. There’s RV parking available but no hook ups. This weekend I will be in Largo, at a park that used to be a farm, and Sunday in Gainesville which includes plants along the Hawthorn Bike Trail. 

Saturday October 2nd, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. to noon, meet at the pavilion near the dog park. 

Sunday October 3rd, Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St.,  Gainesville, FL 32641. Meet at the picnic tables next to the pump house. 9 a.m. to noon.

Saturday October 9th, Honea Path, South Carolina, classes at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. each day. 1624 Taylor Road Honea Path, SC 29654. You can contact me or Putney Farm@aol.com

Sunday October 10th, Honea Path, South Carolina, classes at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. each day. 1624 Taylor Road Honea Path, SC 29654, You can contact me or Putney Farm@aol.com

Saturday October 16th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL,. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Sunday October 17th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789.  Meet at the bathrooms. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Saturday October 23rd, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. 9 a.m. to noon, meet just north of the science center.

Sunday October 24th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive. Port Charlotte.  9 a.m. to noon, meet at the parking lot of Bayshore and Ganyard.

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

Edible Sea Oats are protected but their edible relative Wood Oats are not. Photo by Green Deane

The grain pictured left, Uniola paniculata, is edible though it does not produce a lot of seed. It is also protected. It’s not protected because it is rare. In fact it’s very common. But the plant’s roots helps keep Florida’s coastal dunes in place thus Sea Oats are protected. I have known some folks to grow Sea Oats in their backyard as a long-lived perennial grass.  They are very drought tolerant and highly regarded by browsing animals such as deer but are lowly regarded by grazing animals such as cows. As Sea Oats are protected you might want to find a similar looking relative in the forests of Florida. They are called… Wood Oats… not too imaginative. Wood Oats are edible as well and not protected. Use them as you would cultivated oats. They are easy to identify: They look like Sea Oats just in the wrong place.  To read about Sea Oats click here.

Green Deane videos are now available on a USB.

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

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.

Ripe and unripe Pineapple Guava looks the same. They just soften. Photo by Green Deane

What is season locally? Persimmons are definitely available and some Jambul trees are still dropping fruit. Ground cherries are ripening and some American Lotus are producing seed heads as are wood/Sea Oats. Regular and ornamental bananas are ripening. Interestingly September is the month Pineapple Guava usually ripen but this year it might be in October. I know of two trees, 150 miles apart, and both with unripe fruit as of this writing. 

This is my weekly free newsletter #476. 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.

Sugar maples are famous for their syrup but how many species of trees can you actually tap? In North America the answer is at least 22. “Sugaring” was a special time of year in New England. Warm days and near freezing nights in the spring started the sap flowing out of the roots back towards the top of the trees. A tap and a bucket produced pails of mildly sweet sap. Hours of boiling reduced that to maple syrup. Have you ever heard of Maple Walnut Ice Cream. It was common in sugaring country.

Sycamores drop a lot of leaves.

The largest group of trees you can tap are maples ( Sugar, Black, Red, Silver, Norway, Boxelder, Bigleaf, Canyon, Rocky Mountain, and Gorosoe.) The birches can also be tapped (Paper, Yellow, Black, River, Gray, and European White Birch.) If I remember correctly no native group of Europeans ever tapped them for food until they learned of the practice in North America. Trees in the walnut group can also be tapped: Butternut (my mother’s favorite) Black Walnut, Heartnut, and English Walnut.

There are two outliers which grow locally. One is Hophornbeam or as I called it growing up, Ironwood. It also has edible seeds. The other tappable species is a very common native and ornamental: The Sycamore. It takes about four to five times more Sycamore sap to get a gallon of syrup than from a Maple. The biggest surprise is that Sycamore Syrup tastes like butterscotch. Processing a natural plant does not always have the outcome you intend. Seagrapes, for example, have a unique taste. Make them into jelly, however, and their originality disappears and they taste like apple jelly. And while birch syrup is a unique and commercial product. It can taste quite similar to molasses.  You can read about Sycamores here, Ironwood here. 

Ten Global Trends (although there are 78 trends in the book.)

In the book Ten Global Trends there is an article called “Improving Sanitation.” It states regarding human history: “In the rural areas, people lived with their animals, including chickens and cows, and used both animal and human waste to fertilize their crops — an extremely dangerous practice compounded by the fact that people could go throughout much of their lives without ever washing their hands.”

Historically people did not wash their hands.

Never washing your hands… I thought of that as I ate two mangoes with very dirty hands during a foraging class in Port Charlotte last Sunday. I had dug up — with my hands — two yam bubils in an overgrown lot. I strongly advise against digging with your hands not because of germs per se but rather broken glass. A lot of drinkers toss bottles into empty lots and they can give you some horrible cuts. (As can booze bottles in mangrove mud.) In the same area as the bubils are several champagne mango trees that produce a lot of fruit that just rots on the ground. It’s the only time I eat super sweet fruit. So I had two, from off the ground, unwashed, dirty hands and all. 

Back yard can also be a litter box.

I grew up on a small farm. We had horses, chickens, ducks, dogs, cats, rabbits and pet squirrels. Moose and deer were a common sight in the barnyard scrimping for grain the hoses dropped. Us kids shoveled and played in a lot of manure… horse and chicken being the prime piles. One time while playing hide and seek under a barn I dropped down so not to be seen and gashed my right knee on a broken bottle in the horse manure pile. I still have the scar. Kids raised on farms, research shows, have less allergies (if they survive.) And I usually eat wild plants without washing them unless they are dusty et cetera. People ask me if I am concerned that animals using the wild as their bathroom. Not really. Urine is usually sterile, degrades quickly, and other matter is broken down fast. Most disease contraction today from scat is toddlers getting parasites from cat dropping in their own back yard. Back yard chickens are not much of an issue either. It takes nine chickens to equal the manure of one dog, and the chicken manure is good side dressing (whereas horse and cow manure is weaker and can be used directly.)  Dog manure, like most carnivore manure, is foul. 

Mangrove Mud can be deep and hide debris.

Thus I am not overly cautious nor overly brave. Soil dirty hands and unwashed mangos fits into that spectrum for me. Two weeks ago I foolishly stepped into mangrove mud to retrieve a lure. I sunk to my knee and what ever stopped me from sinking further left three deep cuts in my heel. (Yes, I had wading shoes, left them in the van. That won’t happen again.) And I had a tetanus shot five years ago after a to-the-bone bite from an injured squirrel that did not want to be rescued (and I’ve had the rabies series as well.) The heel healed without even a minor infection. Apparently the immune system is still working well for 70 and I’m not diabetic. 

Another reason to be cautious about vacant lots is you don’t know what was there before its vacancy. I know a nice, green location, that was once a home that burnt to the ground. The soil is black with soot (and who knows what other chemicals.) Not ground for good eating. When I read glowing articles about community gardens growing food on vacant lots in cities I wonder if the lot used to be a  car garage or a tanning factory that used all kinds of chemicals. Before I would cultivate a vacant city lot I would do a historical search to find out what used to be at that location. 

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

Foraging classes: As you will notice I have a weekend of classes coming up in South Carolina. Two classes each day at Putney Farm in Honea Path. It’s also a chance for me to see two cousins, perhaps for the last time. We are 74, 72, and 70. (The cousin that would be 68 was killed by a drunk driver some 40 years ago.) 

Saturday, June 19th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233. 9 a.m. to noon. 

Sunday, June 20th, Colby-Alderman Park: 1099 Massachusetts Street, Cassadaga. Fla. 32706. 9 a.m. to noon, meet at the bathrooms. 

Saturday, June 26th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. to noon, meet at the pavilion near the dog park. 

Sunday, June 27th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet beside the tennis courts. 

Saturday July 17th, Classes at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m at Putney Farm, 1624 Taylor Rd, Honea Path, SC 29654. 

Sunday July  18th, Classes at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m at Putney Farm, 1624 Taylor Rd, Honea Path, SC 29654. 

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

One of two batches of experimental Beautyberry Wine.

Locally the American Beautyberries are blossoming and soon they will have magenta berries. I have about four gallons of Beautyberry Wine working, two different recipes, perhaps ready in a year or two.  That said Beautyberries are near the bottom of the list on flavor when eaten out of hand, insipid more than offensive. But they make a great jelly… and perhaps a blush wine. They are not good pie material and in muffins they turn green. The shrub itself has been known for its ability to repel insects. You can read about Beautyberry here .

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 has been phased out. The USB videos are the same videos I have on You Tube. Some people like to have their own copy.  The USB videos have to be copied to your computer to play. If you want to order the USB go to the DVD/USB order button on the top right of this page. That will take you to an order form. I’d like to thank all of you who ordered the DVD set over the years which required me to burn over 5,000 DVDs individually. 

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.

Your donations to upgrade the EatTheWeeds website and fund a book were appreciated. A book manuscript has been turned it. It had 425 articles, 1326 plants and a third of a million words. What it will be when the publisher is done with it next year is unknown. It will be published in the spring of 2023. Writing it took a significant chunk of time out of my life from which I have still not recovered. (Many things got put off.) The next phase is to update all the content on the website between now and publication date. Also note as it states above the 135-video DVD set has been phased out for 150-video USB. Times and formats change. Which reminds me I need to revisit many plants and make some new videos. 

Sweet acacia, Dreher Park. West Palm Beach. Photo by Green Deane

In the works: Sweet Acacia, Vachellia farnesiana (Acacia farnesiana) has mixed reports on edibility, some say yes others say toxic. The tree was pointed out to me during our foraging class Saturday in Dreher Park, West Palm Beach. Cornucopia II, usually reliable, says on page 151 “leaves may be used as a substitute for tamarind in flavoring chutneys. Sprouted seeds are reportedly consumed. the pods are roasted and eaten.”  Julia Morton skipped the tree in her “Plants for Survival in South Florida.” Daniel Austin in Florida ethnobotany mentions only herbal applications. The bark is used for tanning leather, and arrow poison, and that the seeds  have an alkaoid used to kill dogs in Brazil. James Duke for Perdue University, wrote: “The bark is astringent and demulcent, and along with leaves and roots is used for medicinal purposes. Woody branches used in India as tooth brushes. The gummy roots also chewed for sore throat. Said to be used for alterative, antispasmodic, aphrodisiac, astringent, demulcent, diarrhea, febrifuge, rheumatism, and stimulant (Duke, 1981a). Morton (1981) notes that Guatemalans value the flower infusion as a stomachic. It is also used for dyspepsia and neuroses. Mexicans sprinkle powdered dried leaves onto wounds. The flowers are added to ointment, rubbed on the forehead for headache. Green pods are decocted for dysentery and inflammations of the skin and raucous membranes. Colombians bathe in the bark decoction for typhoid. Costa Ricans decoct rhe gum from the trunk for diarrhea, using the pod infusion for diarrhea, leucorrhea, and uterorrhagia. Panamanians and Cubans used the pod to treat conjunctivitis. Cubans use the pod decoction for sore throat. For rheumatic pains, West Indians bind bark strips to the afflicted joint. The root decoction has been suggested as a folk remedy for tubersulosis.

Sweet Acacia blossoms. Photo by Green Deane

“Dried seeds of one Acacia sp. are reported to contain per 100 g: 377 calories, 7.0% moisture, 12.6 g protein, 4.6 g fat, 72.4 g carbohydrate, 9.5 g flber, and 3.4 g ash. Raw leaves of Acacia contain per 100 g: 57 calories, 81.4% moisture, 8.0 g protein, 0.6 g fat, 9.0 g carbohydrate, 5.7 g fiber, 1.0 g ash, 93 mg Ca, 84 mg P, 3.7 mg Fe, 12,255 mg b-carotene equivalent, 0.20 mg thiamine, 0.17 mg riboflavin, 8.5 mg niacin, and 49 mg ascorbic acid. Reporting 55% protein on a dryweight basis, Van Etten et al (1963) break down the amino acids as follows: lysine, 4.7 (g/16 g N); methionine, 0.9; arginine, 9.2; glycine, 3.4;. histidine, 2.3; isoleucine, 3.5; leucine, 7.5; phenylalanine, 3.5; tyrosine, 2.8; threonine, 2.5; valine, 3.9; alanine, 4.3; aspartic acid, 8.8; glutamic acid, 12.6; hydroxyproline, 0.0; proline, 5.1; serine, 4.1; with 76% of the total nitrogen as amino acids. Cassie has been reported to contain anisaldehyde, benzoic acid, benzyl alcohol, butyric acid, coumarin, cresol, cuminaidehyde, decyl aldehyde, eicosane, eugenol, farnesol, geraniol, hydroxyacetophenone, methyleugenol, methyl salicylate, nerolidol, palmitic acid, salicylic acid, and terpineol (Duke, 1981). The leaves contain lipids, carotenoids, alkaloids, and reducing and non-reducing sugars (Morton, 1981). El Sissi et al (1973) isolated and identified from pods, seven polyphenols (gallic acid, ellagic acid, m-digallic acid, methyl gallate, kaempferol, atomadendrin, and narigenin). Also they found narigenin-7-glucoside and naringenin-7-rhamnoglucoside (naringin), as well as naringenin, glucose, and gallic acid.” The flowers are used to make perfume. We also know the seeds have protein-binding lectins. Is the tree edible? Who knows, and is that really the species we saw?  Clearly more research is needed. 

This is weekly newsletter #461. 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.