The Western Crabapple. Photo by Ken Morse.

The Pacific Crabapple, Malus fusca, was put in a separate entry because it’s the only crab apple on the west coast of North America from about San Francisco north. It’s a wild apple that manages to survive in Alaska and deserves to be mentioned. (See a separate entry for Wild Apples.) 

The western carbapple has a different shape than the eastern crabapple.

This small apple was highly important to indigenous peoples who lived anywhere near the tree. At least 19 groups — mostly coastal — harvested it annually. As of 1990 many were still picking it. A hundred grams of Pacific Crabapple have 90 calories, 1.2 grams of protein, 1.6 grams of fat, 17.7 grams of carbohydrates, and 6 grams of fiber. B vitamins are B1 (thiamin) 0.03 mg, B2 (riboflavin) 001 mg, B 3 (niacin) 1.9 mg.  A second study puts the vitamin C level at 8 mg, vitamin A 4 RE and potassium 194 mg. As for the rest of the minerals phosphorus 33 mg, calcium 29 mg,  magnesium 28 mg, sodium 21.2 mg, iron 0.6 mg, manganese 0.33 mg, zinc 0.2 mg and copper 500 mcg.  

Malus is Dead Latin’s version of Greek Malon/Melon for apple. Fusca means dark, swarthy, dusky.  Often called “deer candy” as deer are fond of the fruit.

Distribution map, Pacific Crabapple

IDENTIFICATION: Small tree, leaves irregularly lobed, toothed edges, pointed at the end.  Branches have sharp shoots, fragrant apple blossoms white to pink.  Fruits are small, to half-inch, oblong unlike eastern crabapples, and yellow to orange to purplish-red.  Older bark deeply fissured.

TIME OF YEAR: Late fall to after first frost. Often picked when slightly under ripe to sweeten off the tree. However they turn soft after a frost, turn brown, and become sweeter. 

ENVIRONMENT: Moist woods, edges of wetlands, estuaries. Prefers full sun. 

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Edible fresh, cooked and preserved. Can be mixed with sweeter fruits, are made into jelly and are a good source of pectin. They were often preserved with fish oil and also served with fish oil (ooligan grease.) Their acid content also helps in their preservation.  The bark was used medicinally but contains cyanide-producing compounds. 

It’s easy to see the Coralwood is in the pea family. Photo by Green Deane

Coralwood seeds and leaves are edible cooked. The tree has been used for centuries as food and medicine so why is it controversial? There are two possible answers: Lack of definitions and the habit of the Internet to cut and paste.

Coralwood seeds are usually weigh a quarter of a gram each. Photo by Green Deane

Adenathera pavonina (ah-den-ah-THER-rha pah-vo-KNEE-ah) is an Old World tropic tree. In the New World it has been introduced from Venezuela to southern Florida. The species is a nitrogen fixer, is cultivated for animal forage, is a garden ornamental, has a huge array medicinal uses and dozens of common names. It is safe to say it’s been the subject or many research papers from food to medicine. The issue is raw seed edibility. 

Cornucopia II, a standard published reference, says on page 152 “Seeds are eaten raw, or roasted and shelled and eaten with rice, tasting like soy beans. The husked kernels contain 25% of their weight of oil with a protein content of 39%. Young leaves are cooked and used as a vegetable.”  That’s from the 1998 edition of Cornucopia II. 

The Internet, revealing cutting and pasting from Wikipedia, references an 1889 Australian book that they say says the uncooked seeds are toxic. I happen to have a copy of that book: “The Useful Native Plants of Australia.” It does not say the seeds are toxic. This is exactly what the author, J.H. Maiden, wrote on page 5:

“In India these seeds are occasionally used as an article of food. They are the size of a kidney bean. They would doubtless require boiling, or some similar preparation, for it should be borne in mind that the Leguminosae must be regarded as a poisonous Natural Order in spite of the fact that it yields some of the most valuable foods used by man and beast.”

Heck, in my classes I tell students the pea family is not a friendly one. A lot of species in the pea family are toxic from weeds to trees. What Maiden wrote is far from saying Coralwood has toxic seeds. He wrote a warning in general about the legume family (which also holds true for uncooked kidney beans et cetera.) 

Coralwood is used for firewood, lumber and building houses. Photo by Green Deane

At any rate are doubts: In all the professional studies I read the seeds were cooked. They were made into everything from a nut milk to ground chicken feed. Most of the internet authors who say the raw seeds are edible also say the seeds often have to be cooked to reduce “toxicity.”  That “toxicity” is usually unstated. Perhaps getting closer to the truth a government website in Singapore says “Uncooked seeds (though toxic) have been used as [an] intoxicant.”  Not reported are  the effects of the intoxication. To be on the safe side we should cook the seeds which includes roasting and boiling (which in itself is confusing. Roasting usually degrades a bad chemical, such as calcium oxalate. Boiling often carries a toxin away as when we boil poke weed.)  More digging reveals a possible answer: One study says the seeds “are believed to be toxic when eaten raw.” They think the “toxin” might be a trypsin inhibitor which reduces the breakdown of digested protein thus prevents the body’s utilization of the proteins. Cooking would reduce the trypsin inhibitor.   

Research in the Czech Republic (reported in Emirates Journal of Food and Agriculture. 2020. 32(2): 100-108) reports:  “The analyses showed that the lignoceric [acid] (17.59% and 18.24%), linoleic {acid  an Omega 6 oil found in soybean and canola et cetera] (39.80% and 37.88%), and oleic acids [such as found in olive oil] (14.67% and 14.75%) were the most abundant in the oil of raw and roasted seeds, with the unsaturated forms present in higher amounts than saturated. The seeds were found to be rich of vitamin E (33.09 and 15.94 mg/100 g), whereas the contents of vitamins B1, B2, B3, and B6 were rather low. Calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and sulphur were the minerals found in the highest concentrations. Salicylic acid (201.01 and 151.95 µg/100 g) has been detected in higher amounts than other phenolic compounds. In summary, the findings of this study indicate that the both raw and roasted seeds of A. pavonina are good sources of various health-beneficial nutrients, including those reducing the negative effects of obesity. The seeds also contain many phenolic compounds and vitamin E was in four forms: Alpha, Beta, Delta and Gamma.

Adenanthera is a genus with about 13 species found in India and China. Coralwood is endemic to Southern China and India. It has been widely introduced and naturalized in Malaysia, Western and Eastern Africa as well as most islands of Pacific. It is listed as one of the worst invasive species in Jamaica and it has been classified as an invasive plant in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and many islands in the Pacific including American Samoa, Hawaii, French Polynesia, Micronesia and Australia. 

In the medicinal realm the species has anti-diabetic activity, hypo-lipidemic activity, anti-hypertensive activity, anti-diarrheal activity, anti-cancer activity, antioxidant activity, antiviral activity, anti-inflammatory activity and antimicrobial properties. In India a decoction of young leaves is used for  rheumatism and gout. It is also used for inflammations, blood disorders, arthritis, cholera, paralysis, epilepsy, convulsion, spasm and indigestion. Pulverized wood is mixed with water and taken orally for migraines and headaches. Bark and leaf decoction are used to treat dysentery, diarrhea and tonsillitis. Decoction of the seeds were used in pulmonary infection and externally applied in chronic opthalmia. 

As it is fast growing after the first year it is used for shade trees and firewood as well as lumber for furniture, cabinets, decorative wood products and house construction. The leaves are used for fodder — high in protein, low in minerals — and breakdown easily for green manure. 

Adenanthera is from the Greek ‘aden’ (sticky gland) and ‘anthera’ (anthers.) It refers to the flower anthers being tipped with sticky glands. Pavonina comes from the Dead Latin word ‘pavo’ meaning peacock-blue. While no reference is given explaining the name the leaves are dull green on top, blue-green underneath. Other scientific names for Coralwood are Adenanthera gersenii Scheff, Adenanthera polita Miq, and Corallaria parvifolia Rumph. 

GREEN DEANE’S ITEMIZED PLANT PROFILE

IDENTIFICATION: A medium- to large deciduous tree, A. pavonina ranges in height to 45 feet. The tree is generally erect, having dark brown to grayish bark, and a spreading crown. Leaves are bipinnate with 2-6 opposite pairs of pinnae, each having 8-21 leaflets on short stalks. The alternate leaflets are oval-oblong with an asymmetric base and a blunt tip, being a dull green color on top and a blue-green beneath. The leaves yellow with age.

Flowers are narrow spike-like racemes, to five inches long at branch ends. They are small, creamy-yellow in color, fragrant. Each flower is star-shaped with five petals and 10 prominent stamens bearing anthers tipped with minute glands.

The curved pods are long and narrow to eight inches long with slight constrictions between seeds, dark brown in color turning black upon ripening. The leathery pods curve and twist to reveal the 8-25 showy seeds. The hard-coated seeds, are lens-shaped, vivid scarlet, and stick to the pods. The ripened pods can remain on the tree into the next season. There are some 1600 seeds per pound.

TIME OF YEAR:  Early fall locally, seeds can persist into spring. In it’s native range it peaks in May.

ENVIRONMENT: It likes lowland tropics. Can be found as far north as West Palm Beach in Florida. Can tolerate a variety of soil. Growth is slow at first then very fast. 

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Cooked seeds (usually roasted or boiled) and are eaten out of hand or used like soybeans. The red coating on the seed is not eaten. Boiled leaves are considered a famine food. A nut milk made from the seeds is more nutritious than nut milk made from soybeans. The seeds are roasted in a manner similar to peanuts.    

Chamerion angustifolium is the prettier of the two fireweed/burnweeds.

The other Burnweed in blossom. Photo by Green Deane

Having two different edible plants both called Fireweed and Burnweed can be confusing. This species is showy, a tall wildflower with noticible pink flowers. The other is not showy at all, in fact its greenish flower barely open, see photo right. You won’t confuse the two in person though some of their territories overlap. For the other one see a separate entry under Burnweed which is Erechtites hieracifolia, the wallflower of the two. 

Fireweed is call that because it is ruderal, that is, it takes advantage of burned ground and sprouts soon after a fire scorches through. It can tolerate bombing and volcanos. When London was blitzkreiged in WWII Fireweed was one of the first flowers to emerge from the rubble. It was also the first blossom to appear after Mt. St. Helens blew her top in the spring of 1980. In the Evening Primrose family, it was in the genus Epilobium but was recently changed (as are so many plants now that DNA testing tells us botanists really got it wrong… an often.) Now it is Chamerion angustifolium.

Nutritionally fresh Fireweed shoots have per 100 grams 20 calories, 0.3 grams of protein, 0.4 grams of fat, 6.4 grams of carbohydrates, and 0.8 grams of fiber. They have 32 mg of calcium, 31 mg of phosphorus, 20 mg of magnesium, 0.7 mg zinc, 0.6 mg sodium, 0.5 mg iron, 0.18 manganese and 700 mcg of copper.

Found in most of North America except Texas and the Old South, Chamerion is from two Greek words, chamai and nerion, together meaning “dwarf oleander” (as it has a leaf shape like the Oleander.) That’s seems a waste of name space as angustifolium means narrow leaf.

Green Deane’s Itemize Plant Profile

IDENTIFICATION: Spikes of red to pink to white four-petaled flowers, boom begins in the middle of the stem, leaf veins are circular and to not terminate at the edge of the leaf. To six feet tall. Blooms most of warm weather, seeds are in pods.

TIME OF YEAR: Young shoots and stems in spring, older leaves for tea.

ENVIRONMENT: It likes disturbed ground such as where logging occurs, woodland borders, meadows, roadsides and after fires.

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Shoots raw or cooked, young stems and leaves cooked, steaming or boiling works, leave can be used for tea. Older stalks can be peeled. Old stem peelings twisted into twine for fishing nets.

Ribes glandulosum, Maine, not bad when fully ripe.

There are more than 80 species of Wild Currants and Gooseberries (Ribes.)  The latter is heavily armed with spines and prickles the former is not. Therein lies a great distinction and less pain. 

At least 42 different species of Wild Currants were eaten by Native American groups. There may be 50 species of currants and their names are always changing. Wild Currants like cooler weather as do Gooseberries.They are more above the Mason-Dixon line than below it. However, the USDA says currants are native or introduced to all of North America except Alabama. I used to see them around abandoned houses in the rural areas of Maine. 

A representative nutritional profile for one Wild Currant, 100 gram serving, has: 50 calories, 1.4 grams of protein, 0.2 grams of fat, 12.1 grams of carbohydrates, and 34 grams of fiber. It has 41 mg of vitamin C, about two thirds of your daily need, and 72 RE of vitamin A. As for B vitamins, B1(thiamin) 0.04 mg, B2 (riboflavin) 0.05 mg, and B3 (niacin) 0.1 mg. The minerals are: potassium 257 mg, calcium 32 mg, phosphorus 23 mg, sodium 20 mg, magnesium 13 mg, iron 1 mg, zinc and manganese 0.2 mg and copper 0.1 mg. 

The Natives had a wide variety of uses for the various Wild Currants as some were tart and other sweet, some strong smelling others not. They were eaten fresh, cooked or dried. They were mixed with other berries to produce certain flavors and or mixed to make wine. Through dried they were not usually stored for long b

Green Deane’s Itemized Plant Profile

IDENTIFICATION: Currants are shrubs rarely more than six feet high. The leaves remind one of a maple leaf. They usually have scalloped edges and three to five distinct lobes. The veins on the leaf fan out from the base like fingers on a hand. If you crush a leaf it can have a skunk-like aroma, be citrusy or spicy. Flowers can be white, yellow or red. The berries — in clusters —can be black and blue or red and gold. They usually have stripes up and down the berry. Unripe berries are green. There are numerous cultivars and they can liberate themselves into the countryside. 

TIME OF YEAR: Fragrant flowers April to June, ripe fruit early fall. 

ENVIRONMENT: Full sun, well-drained medium to heavy soil. Afternoon shade in warm climates. 

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Preserves, jams, jelly, pie filling, garnish, salad addition. Underripe berries have more pectin.