A forager’s typical view of a Queen Palm, photo by a White Washed Cottage

The Queen Palm and I got off on the wrong frond. Before I met one I had read it was toxic. There are a few toxic palms but the Queen Palm is not one of them.

Fruit branches can be up to six feet long, photo by Hawaiian Dermatology

A rain forest native of Brazil, Paraguay and northern Argentina, Queen Palms, Syagrus Romanzoffiana, are more a landscaper’s delight than a forager’s. The palm is tall, stately, single-trunked with a crown of glossy, bright green, soft feather-like fonds. It forms a graceful, drooping 20-foot crown with bright orange fruit (dates) that favor ripening in the winter months but can be found at other times as well. They are popular adornments along streets or walkways usually planted every 15 feet. Their gray trunks are attractively ringed with dropped leaf scars. From Florida to California it is the most commonly planted palm. It’s also common in northern Australia and they’re easy to grow in pots indoors if you live in cooler areas.

Queen Palms have a lot of fiber and a large seed, photo by Green Deane

The elements that make it a choice palm for landscaping makes it a headache for foragers. Unlike the much shorter and also edible Pindo Palm, the Queen Palm is usually too tall to harvest the dates easily. One is left to picking them up off the ground where they can develop a white mold. Aromatic and sweet the dates are sticky and fibrous with a very large seed. Usually you don’t eat the date meat but you can. One just chews on the pulpy coating getting the sugar off of it then spit out the fiber out. However, some people like to eat the fiber as well but it can cause a tummy ache in some people. Besides being loaded with simple carbohydrates the date has antioxidant qualities almost on par with vitamin C, according to a 2012 study.

From a landscaping point of view the palm while desirable is also a lot of work. They are not “self-cleaning” so the older fronds have to be removed (at just the right time or the palm suffers.)  Also for many gardeners who turn a plot of land into a living painting a messy pile of orange dates is a visual blight on a highly coiffeured landscape. Thus the striking seed spikes are often cut off before the fruit gets a chance to ripen and drop.

The Queen Palm’s scientific name is a bit of a hodge-podge. When I first moved to Florida the palm was Cocos plumosa. Then it became a mouthful:  Arecastrum romanzoffianum. Now it is the tongue twisting Syagrus Romanzoffiana (sigh-AY-gruss roe-man-zoff-ee-AY-nuh or see-A-grus ro-man-zof-fee-A-na)  Though those and at least a half-a-dozen other names most people just called it the Queen Palm (or occasionally the Giriba palm.)

Center, the Cape of Fartak, or in the ancient world Cape Syagrus. Photo by NASA.

Syagrus (SEE-ah-grus) was a Greek poet who commented about Troy before Homer. Copycat references say the genus was named after the poet. That is Internet nonsense. On the Arabian seacoast there is a point called the Cape of Fartak, now in eastern Yeman, which is in the part of the world where dates were first cultivated and still grown. The ancient Greeks called it Cape Syagrus named after the σύαγρος (SEE-ah-gros) date. Greeks often named an area after what grew there. We also know the Roman author Pliny the Elder also referenced a Syagrus date. The genus is clearly named for the date not the poet.

Count Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev

Romanzoffiana is more obtuse. It honors Count Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev (1754-1826) which after going through the Dead Latin filter becomes Romanzoffiana. Who was he? Apparently a count you could not count on. Rumyantsev was a foreign minister to Alexander I of Russia.  He sought closer ties between Russia and France in the early 1800s. Rumyantsev also, understandably, suffered a stroke when he heard that Napoleon had invaded Russia. Ooopse, slight miscalculation there. As a result of the stroke Rumyantsev lost his hearing and by then his career was in ruins.  So why is a palm named after him? In private life Rumyantsev was a bit of a historian, collector of odds and ends, and patron of exploration voyages including the first Russian navigation around the globe. In short, he bought the honor. Nearly 200 years after his death all that remains of him is a painting and a palm.

A Tiki made from a Queen Palm trunk. Photo by Tiki Room.

Curiously the University of Florida refers to the Queen Palm date as “ornamental” and classifies the palm as a category II invasive species. In Australia the palm is a threat to a bat called the Flying Fox. They eat the green dates and get sick. Also the large seed lodges behind their back teeth preventing them from eating thus starving. And the bats themselves get stuck in the fronds, which apparently throws off their radar. Despite that they do spread the seeds around causing it to be invasive there.  In South America the seeds are spread by the tapir. In fact, in one study, which I would not have wanted to conduct, 98% of the tapir dung piles had Queen Palm seeds in them (averaging 200 seeds each.) That must be  difficult to put on your resume: Tapir Dung Expert… Anyway, Queen Palms can hybridize with Pindo Palms producing some hard to identify palms and fruit. The hybrid species is called X Butiarecastrum. Why cross them? To get the grace of the Queen but the cold hardiness of the Pindo.

 Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile.

IDENTIFICATION: An upright palm to 50 feet, pinnate compound leaves to three feet. Flowers white to cream, fruit green turning light orange then bright orange.  Often you will see a palm with a bulge in the middle with a skinny trunk on bottom and top. That means it was neglected, then fed and watered well, then neglected again.

TIME OF YEAR: Fruits in late fall or the winter months

ENVIRONMENT: Acidic, well-drained sandy soil in full sun. Likes ample moisture and is slightly salt tolerant. Cold hardy to 20 F.

METHOD OF PREPARATION: The sticky, sweet pulp can be eaten off the seed, or made into wine or jelly. The seed oil is used for cooking. The palm’s inner pith dried might be a flour substitute.

Betula nigra, the Black Birch or River Birch, photo by SIU.EDU

One could easily write a book about Birches because they are so valuable to foragers. While I grew up with white birches in Maine Birches don’t grow locally though if you plant one about 100 miles north of here as an ornamental it will survive. The Black Birch, Betula nigra, however is a native and can be found in northwestern Florida.

Birch Bark Cup, photo by Etsy

Let’s talk first about the well-know facts about Birches: Yes you can drink the sap and make syrup, beer, wine or vinegar out of it, or sugar. You can make a tea from the root bark, leaves or branch tips or eat the tips. Very young leaves can be eaten or used for flavoring. And you can make cups to baskets to canoes out of the bark. Birch sawdust can be added to flour to extend it. The inner bark, the cambium, is edible and can be used as a flour-like substitute (that won’t rise.) The wood, solid or rotten, can make a smokey burn to cure fish and meat, or the wood can also be used for a fawn-colored dye.  (The wood of Birches catches fire even if wet.) The species’ “wintergreen” aroma is methyl salicylate which is closely related to aspirin and has medicinal applications. The Creeks used the Black Birch to treat tuberculosis of the lungs, the Catawbas boiled buds and added sulfur to make a salve to treat ringworm and sores. The Alabama boiled the bark to treat sore horse hooves, and the Cherokee chewed the leaves or made a tea to treat colds, dysentery and urinary issues. The species’ oil was also used to treat dandruff and as a perfume.

Birch tar cooled to a hard resin, photo by Green Deane

What you may not know is that Birch resin, or tar, was the first super glue. I even have my own chunk of it, left (thank’s Bill!) Archaeological research shows it has been used for at least 80,000 years: A spear point is extant with a Neanderthal thumb print in the tar. There also exists 11,000 year old bits of Birch tar with human teeth marks… crude chewing gum. Ancient Greeks used the tar to mend broken pottery. Birch tar is solid at 65°F, moldable at 85°F, a stiff putty at 105°F, a soft sticky putty at 135°F and boils at 352°F. Birch tar is not made from the sap but rather the bark itself, heated in an oven with little air (similar to making charcoal.) The bark expresses an oil that runs out a small hole in the bottom of the oven. When it cools it’s waterproof and not brittle. Among the tar’s many uses was to glue arrowheads to shafts.

Peeling Birch Bark also makes excellent tinder.

Betula is Dead Latin for the tree and genus (BEH-too-lah and beh-TOO-lah.) “Birch” is from Old English berc or beorc which again is from Betula. Another view is that “birch” is from the Germanic word Birka. In Gaelic it is beith, which is also the first letter of the old Gaelic alphabet. Native Americans had many names for Birch including: mianoo’s (Potawatomi) onaguchscha (Onondaga) wigwass (Ojibwa) winachk (Delaware) and wuskwiy (Plains Cree.) The Black Birch. or River Birch found north and west of the Suwannee River, was called the akcelelas’kv by the Muskogee, lokapi by the Choctaw, onaget by the Onondaga, and yap koko’ha by the Catawba which means “tree breaks, brittle.”

The White Birches of New England in fall color.

Depending upon which authority you consult there are 30 to 150 species of birches in the temperate world (don’t forget cooler South America!) There’s 13 to 15 species in North America, four or so in the Old South.  Found in North America are the Yellow or Gray Birch (Betula alleghaniensis) Sweet Birch (Betula lenta) Black Birch or River Birch (Betula nigra) Water Birch (Betula occidentalis) Paper Birch (Betula papyrifera) European Birch (Betula pendula) Gray Birch (Betula populifolia) and the Virginia Roundleaf Birch (Betula uber) which is endangered. The South has Betula lenta, Betula nigra, Betula alleghaniensis and Betula papyrifera var. cordifolia. There also might be in North America — again depending upon whom you ask — Betula cordifolia, Betula glandulosa, Betula kenaica, Betula michauxii, Betula minor, Betula nana, Betula neoalaskana, and Betula pumila, most of which are dwarf species and just might be smaller versions of the aforementioned species. Record birches tend to be about 60 feet tall and can live to around 140 years.

Birch Polypores only grow on Birches, photo by Hitch Hiker’s Notebook

A hardwood the specific gravity of North American birches ranges from  0.55 to 0.65 and has been used for furniture. Where ever they grow Birches are… appealing. An adult birch tree can produce a million seeds a year which is food for birds including the American goldfinch, pine siskin, northern junco, blue jay, chickadees and sparrows. Birches can also be important nesting sites for red-tailed hawks and vireos as well as cavity nesting sites for chickadees and woodpeckers. Strips of birch bark are the main building materials used by vireos for their hanging nests while other birds and squirrels use the bark to make nests and line dens. The Yellow-bellied sapsucker drills into birches to make the sap weep to attract ants which the bird then eats. The Birch Polypore, Piptoporus betulinus, used for sharpening knives, also only grows on birches.

Birch Tree Train Depot, 1955.

By the way, the town of Birch Tree is in Missouri, elevation 991 feet, population 679. Nestled in the Ozarks it was named for the tree growing near the post office. Don’t laugh, Viburnum, Missouri, got it’s name in a similar way. Between the 2000 and the 2010 census Birch Tree’s population increased by 45 people. Small as it may be the governor of Missouri from 2001 to 2005,  Bob Holden, was born in Birch Tree. And the governor directly before Holden, Mel Carnahan, was also from Birch Tree. While governor in 2000 Carnahan ran for the U.S. senate and was elected post posthumously, the only time that has ever happened. He died in a plane crash three weeks before the election. As Carnahan’s name could not be removed from the ballot his wife Jean stepped in and won the election by a 2% margin. She was then appointed senator by the lieutenant governor, Roger B. Wilson.

Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile: Black Birch, River Birch

IDENTIFICATION: Betula nigra: Medium size deciduous tree to 35 feet, reddish to yellowish brown, scaly flaking bark. Leaves alternate, simple, almost triangular in shape, doubly serrated. Male flowers pendulous catkins, female flowers short, erect catkins,

TIME OF YEAR: Different parts different times of the year.

ENVIRONMENT: Floodplains and wooded stream banks. It is the only Birch found a low altitudes in the southeastern United States.

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Like all the other birches.

A couple of related issues: People who have an allergy to bananas often have an allergy to Birches. Grace Morley, 18, of England, suffers from one of the world’s oddest allergies. She goes into toxic shock if she eats an apple near a birch tree. Morley has no reaction to either the fruit or tree pollen on their own.

Birches

By Robert Frost, 1915

Robert Frost, in his mid-30s

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father’s trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I’d like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Cultivated Akebi, photo by Kyoto Foodie

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

Wild Chocolate Vine Fruit, photo by Tsure Zure Gusa

Oddly the Chocolate Vine reminds me of the Camphor Tree. They are not even remotely related but when  you read about the Camphor Tree it seems to have arrived everywhere from China in 1875, not 1874, not 1880, not 1896. Always 1875.  Whether New York, San Francisco or Tampa, they all got a Camphor Tree in 1875. With the Chocolate Vine it’s 1845… everywhere…. London to New York… 1845… only in Asia in 1844 and everywhere else in 1845.  While not impossible perhaps not probable. What we do know for certain is that it arrived in Britain from China in 1845. We know that because the Chocolate Vine was brought out of China by the most famous plant smuggler and secret agent of his day, a Scotsman called Robert Fortune.

Plant Smuggler Robert Fortune

Once Fortune got the Chocolate Vine to England it came to the United States, if not in 1845 then soon thereafter. Call that a training theft before the big heist because he then went back for all the tea in China, literally. It was Fortune who three years later single-handily smuggle tea plants and industry knowledge out of China — where the British had little influence — to India where they did. He did so by disguising himself as a Chinese peasant though he did not speak Chinese and knew nothing of botany. He also broke an agreement not to travel for more than a day’s journey from port cities. For the next 150 years India led the world in tea production. Only recently has China become the main producer of tea again. Fortune is why the British drink tea.

Wild “Akebi”ready for cooking, or eating raw. Photo by Ponkanchan

Most references are quick to say the Chocolate Vine produces an edible fruit but it doesn’t fruit often and isn’t interesting, as if to discredit any possible benefit this “invasive” might have. However, there is more to it. The mild, viscous pulp of the soft fruit is eaten raw with lemons juice or pureed and made into a cream or a drink. It has a slight coconut milk flavor. Young shoots are used in salads or for salt pickling. The bitter skin of the fruit is fried and eaten and the leaves used as a tea substitute. The empty pod is stuffed and deep fried. The fruit is also used to make wine. The seed oil is was used to make soap and as a vegetable oil. In fact the seeds are about 33% oil but on the bitter side. Most folks spit them out particularly the Japanese who view seeds in any food unappealing. The seeds, however, are edible. A relative, Akebia trifoliata, Mitsuba Akebi, is used in a similar way. Both are high in protein. A 70-gram serving of the fruit has 57 calories and 46mg of vitamin C. Akebi is also now cultivated as a crop in Japan providing a steady seasonal market.

Chocolate Vine in Blossom, photo by valentine.gr

Botanically the Chocolate Vine is Akebia quinata (a-KEE-bee-uh  kwi-NAY-tuh.) Akebia is the Dead Latin version of the native Japanese name, Akebi (AH-ke-bee.) Quinata means having five parts, in reference to the five-leaflet palmate leaves. It is in the quixotic Lardizabalaceae family, name for Miguel de Lardizabel y Uribem, a Spanish naturalist in the 1700s. The vine was scientifically classified by Brussels-born botanist Joseph Decaisne in the 1800s who used the Japanese name. Decaisne had gained some reputation in France for studying new plants from China. He was the natural choice to classify it. Fortune had called the species Rajania. Naive to Japan, Central China, and Korea it is found in Connecticut, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington state near Seattle. It is also invasive in New Zealand, southwest England,  and threatening to become invasive in other parts of Europe.

Sometimes in Japan the purple-ripe version is called Murasaki Akebi, whereas a brown version is “Ishi Akebi” (stone akebi.) In Japanese the fruit is  通草, or 木通, though in native Hiragana it is あけび… (I lived in Japan a few years and would like to thank Avi Landau’s Tsukublog and Japan Homesteading.) 

The Akebi is closely related to the Mube, or Stauntonia (Stauntonia hexaphylla) which also has an edible fruit except it does not split open when ripe. It is sometimes planted as an ornamental.

Green Deane’s Itemized Plant Profile: The Chocolate Vine

Akebi Pod Miso Itame, see recipe below

IDENTIFICATION: Akebia quinata , a twining vine green when young, turning brown with age, lenticels noticeable. Leaves palmately compound with up to five 1.5 to 3 inch long, oval leaflets, is deciduous to semi-evergreen to evergreen depending on the climate it is growing in. Flowers are fragrant and monoecious with both male ( 1/4 inch) and female blossoms (1 inch) on the same raceme, the aroma ranges from lightly chocolate to lilac to vanilla to allspice. Noses can’t agree. The dangling flowers produce fruit that resemble little egg plants. Seed pods purplish with white pulp, black seeds. Vine can grow to 40 feet long. There are five cultivated varieties. Alba: Vigorous with white flowers, Leucantha: White flowers, similar to Alba, Purple Bouquet: Most common in trade, desirable for its compact size, growing about half the height of other varieties, Rosea: Flowers are more pale than the unnamed species, helping them to stand out against the dark foliage, and Variegata: Showy splashes of white on foliage make an attractive backdrop for pink blossoms. Besides having a chocolate aroma (to some) the blossoms sometimes are also dusky in color hence a second reason for calling it the Chocolate Vine.

TIME OF YEAR: Flowers in mid-spring. Fruits September to October. Like apples in the northern United States ripening Akebi tell the Japanese fall has arrived.

Akebi is often used for its vigorous growth, as here in Potsdam / Brandenburg, Castle Park Sanssouci, photo by Fassaden Grun

ENVIRONMENT: Grows easily in most soils, does best in well-drained sandy loam with regular moisture and full sun.  Can form dense mats as an understory species.  It can also climb and kill small trees and shrubs. In its native range it is found along forest edges, streams banks and mountain slopes. For best fruit production there should be more than one vine for good cross-pollination. Hand pollinating increases fruit production. They do not self-pollinate. Propagate by using tip layering or softwood stem cutting. From seed the plant takes five years to mature.

Joseph Decaisne who botanically named the Akebi

METHOD OF PREPARATION: When ripe the wild pods will look like purplish-blueish little mango-shaped eggplants that have been slit open. Pulp of the fruit eaten raw or made into a drink or wine, young shoots in salads or pickled with salt, bitter skin fried (often with miso) or cooked with sugar, leaves used as a tea substitute. The fruit dehydrates well whole. Pulp-less pods can be stuffed and deep fried. You can eat the seeds or spit them out. Better, plant them for edible shoots. Seeds of A. quinata usually germinate in one to three months at 59°F or 15°C. Medicinally sliced inner vine is used to make a diuretic. Young vines are used to make baskets.

Akebi Pod Miso Itame あけび みそ炒め by Kyoto Foodie

Ingredients

• 1 akebi pod (inner fruit removed)
• 2 tablespoons oil (sesame oil is nice)
• 1-2 teaspoon miso paste (same as for miso soup)
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon shoyu (Japanese soy sauce)
• 2 tablespoons of ryorishu (cooking sake or sake)
• shiso leaf (fresh green shiso leaf) optional

Use at least two teaspoons of Kansai-style sweet miso paste which is light in color. Tohoku style miso is red and saltier and you might want to go easy on the amount if you are using that style of miso. Adjust amount based on the kind of miso you are using and of course your taste.

Preparation
If you would like to remove some of the bitterness you can soak the pod halves or slices in warm water for 30 to 60 minutes. Pat dry before sauteing.

Mix all the liquid ingredients together in a bowl, dissolving the miso paste and sugar.

Heat a fry pan and add several tablespoons of oil. Once hot, add sliced akebi pod and saute covered until akebi softens, this should take about 2 minutes.

Pour in liquid ingredients, reduce heat and simmer down until little liquid remains. This should take 1 to 2 minutes. Due to the high sugar content, the mixture will quickly burn – don’t allow that to happen. Once the liquid has been reduced, serve on a plate and garnish with chopped shiso leaf.

Hydrilla verticillata, photo by Indoaquascape

I am often asked can we eat Hydrilla? The answer is no, and yes.

There is only one species of Hydrilla, verticillata. The Hydrilla you buy in the health food store is the same that clogs lakes around the world. Can you take it out of a lake, cook it up, and chomp it down? No… Well, I don’t know of anyone doing that. But you can buy it as a dried powder to add to soups and stews and smoothies. So what’s the difference?

Hydrilla floating on the surface, photo by Colette Jacono

Hydrilla is an Eurasian weed that entered the western hemisphere via Florida sometime in the 1950’s probably through one  aquarium dealer who imported live Hydrilla from Sri Lanka.  It was subsequently found in a Miami canal, and from there it spread.  In fact, for more than a decade no one knew it was Hydrilla. It was mistakenly called Elodea canadensis. However, within 10 years of its discovery Hydrilla became the most troublesome aquatic weed in the state.  (It can expand 1,000 percent a year grow an inch a day.) Florida currently spends about $30 million annually trying to control it.  The strain that was found in Florida was female. Twenty years later male Hydrilla was first reported in Delaware in 1976.

Hydrillas roots, photo by Alison Fox

Since that introduction some 60 years ago Hydrilla is now found in 19 states and Washington DC, from the endotrophic waters of Maine, west to wet Washington state. Called the perfect aquatic plant it adapts to a wide variety of climates and water conditions.  Hydrilla can also reproduce four ways: rhizomes, tubers, turions (buds) and fragmentation. It, and Water Hyacinths, are the two most expensive weeds in the world. Because of the economic impact of the species there is a huge amount of information written about Hydrilla as a problem. Historical use of Hydrilla prior to it becoming a “noxious” weed is scant limited to a few references to how it was named and its use in making white sugar (more on that in a moment.)

A search of Chinese literature, for example, shows Hydrilla being cultivated for crab farming, and certain fish farming as well. They eat it. Duck like it, too, and snails. These are all foods the Chinese eat but no mentioning of eating Hydrilla directly. In the Philippines much is made of its nutritional qualities, but again no references found about eating it directly.

Hydrilla powder, photo by The Healers Store

As for powdered hydrilla… in north Florida they raise Hydrilla in an isolated lake, sterilize it with pure water and ozone treatment, low-temperature dry it, powder it and sell it to you. The mild earthy-flavored powder is 13% calcium which some writers call the richest plant source of calcium on the planet. It’s also high in B-12 and iron. Further, Hydrilla has been investigated as possible animal fodder.  It has 16 percent more available dry matter for fodder than cattails and no bad chemicals were found in it during the examination for cattle food. In fact in one study when fed Hydrilla cows gave 20% more milk and chickens 14% more eggs, probably related to the calcium content. But what about Hydrilla as food for people?

Hydrilla Nutrition, courtesy of Nawebstore

As you know I developed and use the I.T.E.M approach to wild foods. Identification, Time of Year, Environment. M is for Method of Preparation. Here’s where the Hydrilla information trail breaks down. I’ve never found any reference in English about consumption of Hydrilla prior to the powdered form.  In theory there should be no problem with eating Hydrilla (beyond the possible problems associated with any aquatic plant such as environmental pollution and some algae.) No special processing is done to make it an edible powder. The entire plant is dried and only water removed. So why isn’t Hydrilla used as human food like a cooked green? Well… edible does not mean palatable. As Dick Deuerling used to say about wild food:  “I only eat the good stuff.”

Hydrilla leaf, photo by 123rf

Here’s one possible reason: The plant is tough and prickly, not as bad as many land plants but noticeably so. In fact one quick and easy way to separate it from two similar looking plants (Elodea and Egeria) is to pull Hydrilla through your hand. Edodea and Egeria will feel smooth. Hydrilla will feel harsh and scratchy. It may simply be that texture kept the plant off the dinner table, that and the fact it can grow with just 1% of sunlight. That allows Hydrilla to inhabit cold dark deep areas of lakes one might not want to bother with if there are other edible plants around.

Ducks swimming in cyanobacteria.

One tentative down side is when water condition are just right (or wrong depending on perspective) there can be a blue-green algae bloom which can grow on the top leaves of Hydrilla. That cyanobacteria can produce toxic chemicals. And while that is a warning about Hydrilla is should be looked out for on every aquatic plant that one might eat (and that includes seaweed as well.) Always avoid blue-green algae.

In English most pre-1960 references to Hydrilla refer to making sugar or naming it. In sugar making a mat of Hydrilla was placed over crystallized brown sugar. Over the next few days moisture from the Hydrilla would percolate through the sugar lightening its color towards white from brown.  The whitened sugar would be scraped off and a new layer of Hydrilla added.  As for naming the plant…

French botanist and illustrator Louis Claude Marie Richard

Hydrilla is fairly easy. It’s from the Greek ύδωρ (EE-dor) or “hydro” in English meaning water thus referring to its water habitat. Verticillata means whorls, as in the leaves. Linnaeus himself named it Serpicula verticillata. Over the centuries it has had many different names. Hottonia serrata, Hydrilla angustifolia, Hydrilla dentata, Hydrilla ovalifolia, Hydrilla wightii, Leptanthes verticillatus, Vallisneria verticillata, and Udora verticillata. One Claude Richard (probably Louis claude Marie Richard, 1754 – 1821) came up with the genus name Hydrilla. As it was a monotypic genus — only one species in it — Linnaeus’ species name verticillata stayed. Thus in time Hydrilla verticillata was dubbed. And while in English we say high-DRILL-ah its botanical pronunciation is: HID-ril-lah ver-ti-ki-LAH-tah.

No, I have not personally tried some. When I find some clean water I will. And special thanks to “Josey” for providing some historical data. To seen an older but good video by the state of Florida on Hydrilla click here.

Green Deane’s Itemized Plant Profile: Hydrilla

IDENTIFICATION: Hydrilla is a submersed plant that can form dense mats. Its stems stems are slender, branched and up to 25 feet long. The small leaves are strap-like and pointed. They grow in whorls of four to eight around the stem. The leaf margins are distinctly saw-toothed. Hydrilla often has one or more sharp teeth along the length of the leaf mid-rib. The midribs of the leaves are reddish in color. Hydrilla produces tiny white flowers on long stalks. It also produces 1/4 inch turions at the leaf axils and tubers attached to the roots in the mud. Tubers are yellowish, potato-like, 1/2 in. long, 1/2 inch broad. They can remain viable for four years. One tuber can produce more than 6,000 new tubers. There are two kinds of Hydrilla in North America, plants with just female blossom and those with male and female blossoms. The easiest way to tell them apart is female flowers consist of three whitish sepals and three translucent petals. Male flowers have three whitish to red petals and three red or brown sepals.

TIME OF YEAR: In North America southern populations overwinter as perennials; northern populations overwinter and regrow from tubers.

ENVIROMENT: Hydrilla can grow in almost any freshwater: springs, lakes, marshes, ditches, rivers, tidal zones with 7% salinity or less. It can grow in a few inches of water, or in water more than 20 feet deep. Hydrilla can grow in low nutrient to high nutrient conditions. It is somewhat winter-hardy though its optimum growth temperature is above 68 F. As mentioned it can grow in only 1% of full sunlight.

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Dried and powdered.  Edibility of the tubers, if any, is totally unknown to me.