Search: wood sorrel

There are at least four edible species in this picture. Can you identify them? Photo by Green Deane

While the temperatures have been slightly on the cool side at night it’s been warm enough for plants in the day to know it’s spring and they are happy! In Gainesville this past week our foraging class saw two species of Blueberries blossoming and two species of pawpaws in flower. Also getting ready to blossom is the Toothache Tree. While the most prolific Morning Glory in area was up it’s still waiting for warmer days before flowering. We also saw three mushrooms jumping the season. They usually don’t start in earnest until after heavy rains in April or May.

Sparkleberries are in blossom. Photo by Green Deane

April is a transition month. Many of winter edibles are ending their season and some of the spring and summer plants are starting. There is overlap and that can vary depending which end of the state you are on. The blueberries, also mentioned in last week’s newsletter, were impressive. I think they were Vaccinium arboreum, also called Sparkleberry and Farkleberry (and mistakenly Tree Huckleberry because they are not huckleberries.) We saw individual trees and a small hurst of them. V. arboreum is the only blueberry locally that gets to tree size. It has a flaking outer bark that reveals a reddish brown smooth inner bark. We also saw two Deerberry bushes, Vaccinium staminuem. That species is easy to identify because the blossoms have long stamens and the underside of the leaf is white. You can read about blueberries here. Incidentally, blueberries can have any number of seeds in them. Huckleberries, however, always have exactly 10 seeds. There can be bits of grit in a huckelberry but only 10 seeds. The leaves also have bright gold glands. You can read about Huckleberries here.

Wild Garlic puts the cloves on top. Photo by Green Deane

Also doing well now is Wild Garlic. You could also call it Wild Onion but its aroma is definitely garlic. I have found the Wild Garlic in numerous places in and about Gainesville. One of the most prolific sites is across the street from the official parking spot on Newnan’s Lake. And they are just down the street from fruiting Paper Mulberries. Our Wild Garlic is odd in that it puts an onion-like bulb on the bottom of the plant (usually three or four inches in the ground) and it puts cloves of garlic on the very top of the plant… and the part in between is edible as well. This garlic is seasonal and can be found for six weeks or so.  You can read about it here. I used to conduct part of my class at the small park Newnan’s Lake but it is a haven for ticks. Speaking of which I got one last week and one this week. As tick season is not really here perhaps this year they will be worse than usual. Interestingly there is a study the suggest the allergy medication, Claritin, might be useful in fighting Lyme Disease.

Watercress. Photo by Green Deane

As our cooler months is when we usually see wild members of the Brassica family most of them are nearing the end of their cycle as we warm up. Past season for the most part is Western Tansy Mustard. Wild Mustard and Wild Radish are nearing the end of their bloom and seed cycle. Poor Man’s Peppergrass is here all year but likes the cooler months. The one nice find this past week was Watercress. It’s an import from Europe but found throughout most of North America. Florida once was the winter Watercress growing capital of the United States. Consequently you can find it in nearly any drainage ditch that used to service agricultural land. You can also find in along the banks of local rivers. One thing you have to be very careful about when picking Watercress is not pick any deadly Water Hemlock leaves. They look different but both plants tend to grow in the same area at the same time. I have often seen them intermixed.  So when I pick Watercress I examine every steam and leaf at least twice. To read more about Watercress go here.

Shells of the berries can make a pepper substitute. Photo by Green Deane

A couple of hundred miles can make a botanical difference. In Melbourne, some 20 miles south of the space center, we saw a Toothache tree, Zanthoxylum clava-herculis, setting fruit. In Gainesville the same species was getting ready to blossom or had a few here and there. Also called Hercule’s Club, the thorns, bark and leaves have been used at least for centuries to numb aching teeth. It will also make you drool, a small inconvenience to silence an aching tooth. You can read about it here. Many Americans have actually eaten part of a relative of the Toothache Tree, Szechuan Pepper, Zanthoxylum simulans (and Z. bungeanum.)  That spice is made from the seeds hulls of the species. We can use the seed hulls of our tree as well. The tree is covered with thorns so approach with care (And another thorny tree we saw this week was Aralia spinosa, which is not related but is sometimes also called Hercules Club.) 

Long Left Pine left, Slash Pine right.

A few odds and ends from this week’s classes: We noticed Gopher Apples and Tallow Plums blossoming (interestingly green Tallow Plums were also used to numb toothaches.) Pawpaws were blossoming in both locations but with two different species in Gainesville. Also Sorrel in the Rumex genus is nearing the end of its seasons. That tart plant starts it seasonal run around November and usually fades in April. The leaves and seeds are edible and are related to Buckwheat. And by chance we also happened to see two species of pine that are often confused. As two were growing together it was worth a picture to help you sort them out. The Long Leaf Pine is on our left, and the Slash Pine is on our right.

Classes are held rain or shine or cold. Photo by Kelly Fagan

Foraging Classes: Perhaps because of the northern location but Gainesville has this past week probably the last sighting for Chickweed and Goosegrass for the season. While the Chickweed was still edible Goosegrass gets tough as it ages. But one can still roast the seeds. 

Saturday April 7th, Colby-Alderman Park: 1099 Massachusetts Street, Cassadaga. Fla. 9 a.m., meet near the restrooms.

Sunday April 8th, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park

Saturday, April 14th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion east of the tennis courts near the YMCA.

Sunday, April 15th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233, 9 a.m. 

Saturday, April 22nd, Spruce Creek, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, 32127, 9 a.m., meet at the pavilion. 

Saturday, May 5th, Florida State College,  south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246.  9 a.m. We will meet at building “D”  next to the administration parking lot.

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

Green Deane DVD Set

All of Green Deane’s videos available for free on You Tube. They do have ads on them so every time you watch a Green Deane video I get a quarter of one cent. Four views, one cent. Not exactly a large money-maker but it helps pays for this newsletter. If you want to see the videos without ads and some in slightly better quality you can order the DVD set. It is nine DVDs with 15 videos on each for a total of 135 videos.  Many people want their own copy of the videos or they have a slow service and its easier to order then to watch them on-line. The DVDs make a good gift for that forager you know especially on long, cold winter months. Individual DVDs can also be ordered or you can pick and choose. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right hand side of this page (if your window is open wide enough.)  Or you can go here

Green Deane Forum

Want to identify a plant? Looking for a foraging reference? Do you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object you want identified? On the Green Deane Forum we chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations around the world share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. One special section is “From the Frightening Mail Bag” where we learn from people who eat first then ask questions later. Recent topics include: Lyme Disease and Manganese, Vacciniums 2018,  When to Harvest Betony Tubers,  What Tree/Plant is this?, My Claytonia, Thistle Flower Buds, Pond Question, Compass Question,  and Common Sweetleaf.  You can join the forum by clicking on “forum” in the menu.

Donations to upgrade EatTheWeeds.com and fund a book are going well and has made the half way mark. Thank you to all who have contributed to either via the Go Fund Me link, the PayPal donation link or by writing to Green Deane POB 941793 Maitland FL, 32794.  Recent upgrades have been paid now the Forum needs work and several function problems need to be fixed specifically the search and categories ( a partial solution is that when you do a search other finds are directly below the main one shown. Scroll down.)   A new server also has to be found by April 9th. The other issue is finding  an indexing program or function for a real book. Writing programs used to do it automatically if you designated a term for indexing. Now that most books are ebooks most writing programs do not provide and indexing function. The hunt continues. 

This is weekly issue 298.  (By the way,  for any locals: At the intersection of Dirksen Drive and 17-92 in South Volusia County, the north end of the field in the southeast corner of that intersection is heavy in Pawpaw blossoms now. In total there’s about 100 Pawpaws there in bloom… and later bearing fruit.) 

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No other root east of the Rockies has the growth pattern of the Groundnut. Photo by Green Deane

The first export from the New World back to Europe was Sassafras wood. It was thought to be medicinal. The second export on any large scale was groundnuts, Apios americana. While gold fever later became a motive early explorations were for plants. John Smith, of Pocahontas fame, made careful botanical notes as he was good friends with the king’s gardener, John Tradescant. In his 909-page book, Florida Ethnobotany, Dr. Daniel Austin references Smith. In at least one case Austin prefers Smith’s observations over 400 years ago over that of a PhD. botanist in the 1930s. Smith incidentally, lived a full and a rather amazing life. You can read a little about him in my article about Spiderworts.

Groundnuts have leaflets of three, five and seven. Photo by Green Deane

We found a young groundnut during our foraging class in Largo last Sunday. No other plant east of the Rockies has a similar root growth pattern making it easy to identify. A legume with lumps on its root, it usually grow to about egg size but can be as large as a potato. It also has up to 26% protein, which is a whopping amount for a root. The University of Louisiana developed a commercial cultivar and it can be bought on the internet if you don’t want to go find it. If folks ate groundnuts some 400 years ago — it was a staple for the natives from Maine to Florida — and it was shipped off to Europe as a food, and has been developed into a cultivar, why aren’t we eating it? Why isn’t it in the grocery stores? The answer is it takes a year to first establish itself. In the fast pace of modern agriculture that does not meet commercial practices. But it’s fine for people who like to grow their own food. You can read about the “lost crop” here.

On the foraging wane now are Stinging Nettles and Chickweed. Both are winter edibles along with Dandelions — which are always sparse — and Pellitory (Cucumber Weed.) The latter is definitely peaking. More warm weather in March should drop its production off significantly. By April one usually can find it only in deep shade. Still in seasons are sow thistles and various mustards. Could can find these species on this site by clicking on ARCHIVE then doing a word search.

Lemon Bacopa left, Water Hyssop right with blossom. Photo by Green Deane

Before I forget it is time to write about Bacopa again. Actually there are two Bacopas locally; Lemon Bacopa and Water Hyssop. They are quite different and perhaps it takes a trained botanical eye to appreciate their similarities which strike me as few. Perhaps their greatest difference is texture. Lemon Bacopa is soft, fuzzy, and crushes easily. Water Hyssop is tough and shiny, resiliant. Lemon Bacopa is aromatic and fruity in flavor, Water Hyssop is just pain bitter. Water Hyssop definitely can help with memory issues, Lemon Bacopa is more iffy on that score. One does not find Lemon Bacopa too often whereas Water Hyssop is nearly everywhere the soil is wet. I have found Lemon Bacopa only three times; two of them in the wet ruts of woods roads. There is also a lake near me that has a little growing near a boat ramp when the water level is just right. As my article speaks more towards Lemon Bacopa I will adress Water Hyssop here. It basically stimulates the brain to make new nerve endings, specifically in the hippocampus. It is anti-inflammatory and interacts with the dopamine and serotenergic systems. As you might expect growing new memory cells enough to notice takes time. So Bacopa has to be taken daily for at least three months. I have had several people tell me it has made significant differences in their lives. It does not work on all causes of memory problems but if it does work it does so dramatically. You can read about both Bacopas here. 

Ganoderma curtisii. Photo by Green Deane

When will we be seeing and reading about mushrooms again? The answer is probably after spring rains in April or so. One can find various edible and medicinal mushrooms all year here but April to November is prime time. I harvested several pounds of chanterelles last year. The topic of mushroom came up in the foraging class this week as we saw some Ganodermas starting their seasonal growth. Also known as the medicinal  mushroom Reishi, we have several species locally which is a bit of contention. The debate is how many species are there, what are they called, and are they as good as the ones that are sold for medicinal use? As for the latter my herbalist friends say yes, they are as good as the commercial kinds. As for how many and what they are called that probably won’t be settled for decades. I see three, or five, regularly, it’s hard to tell. With certainty I see G. curtisii, G. sessile, and G. zonatum. G. curtisii grows like a short golf club and is the closest relative to G. lingzhi, which is the well-known Chinese Reishi.  G. sessile has no stem and grows horizontally (a smaller form is G. sessiliforme.)  G. zonatum, more yellow than the rest, is found exclusively on palms and will kill the palm. If your palm has G. zontaum on it there is no hope for it.  There is a Ganoderma that grows on citrus and that might have been what we saw this past weekend sprouting on left over citrus roots, G. tuberculosum. To my knowledge none of the Reishis are toxic — but stick to identified species — and local herbalists report good results with them. These mushrooms stimulate the immune system by providing various molecular “keys’ that unlock and turn on immune cells in the gut. By the way I moderated these pages on Facebook: Southeast U.S. Mushroom Identification, Florida Mushroom Identification Forum, Edible Mushrooms: Florida, and Orlando Mushroom Group (which also will start to have meetings and fungal forays as soon as the season turns.) 

Classes are held rain or shine or cold…

Foraging Classes: I cross the state this weekend with a class at Haulover Canal on Saturday and one in Port Charlotte Sunday. The bridge at Haulover Canal has reopened allowing us to look at all four quadrants of that historic canal. This class is always conditional in that the federal agency in charge can close the canal, bridge and park at any time for any reason. That is one reason I hold a class there only once or twice a year. Of all the foraging class locations this is the most rustic. The only official bathroom is a Port-O-let, there’s no running water, it is often hot and dusty, and we walk quite a ways. Some classes are an easy stroll. This is a bit more demanding.  

Saturday, March 10th, Haulover Canal, Merritt Island National Refuge, north of the Kennedy Space Center. 9 a.m. If northbound go over the bridge, take next left, a dirt road, at the canal turn right, go to west end. Park anywhere. If southbound a quarter of a mile before the bridge turn right onto dirt road, turn right at the canal, go to west end.  

Sunday, March 11th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, Bayshore Drive, Port Charlotte. 9 a.m. Meet at the parking lot on Bayshore Drive across from Ganyard Street.

Saturday, March 17th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. Meet at the Pavilion east of the tennis courts near the YMCA.

Sunday, March 18th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405, 9 a.m. Meet just north of the Science Center in the northern half of the park. 

Saturday, March 24th, Florida State College,  south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246.  9 a.m.We will meet at building “D”  next to the administration parking lot.

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

Donations to upgrade EatTheWeeds.com and fund a book are going well and is approaching the half way mark. Thank you to all who have contributed to either via the Go Fund Me link, the PayPal donation link or by writing to Green Deane POB 941793 Maitland FL, 32794.  Recent upgrades have been paid now the Forum needs work and several function problems need to be fixed specifically the search and categories.  A new server also has to be found by April. The other issue is finding  an indexing program or function for a real book. Writing programs used to do it automatically if you designated a term for indexing. Now that most books are ebooks most writing programs do not provide and indexing function. The hunt continues. 

Pawpaws will be blossoming soon. Photo by Green Deane

Pawpaws (or papaws per Random House) can be among the most difficult wild fruits to find. They like to hide and woodland creatures like to eat them making it difficult for us. The easiest way to locate pawpaws is to find them when they’re blossoming. They will be blossoming soon if not already. The most common place to spy pawpaws is and around pastures. Grazing livestock don’t eat the plants, blossoms or fruit. Look for bushy shrubs around five feet tall with magnolia-like cream-colored blossoms, or, much smaller foot-tall shrubs with dark ruby blossoms. I can remember the first time I found a pawpaw. It was along a walking trail in Longwood, Fla. At first I thought I had found a lumpy green pear but it was an unripe pawpaw. Interestingly pawpaws change greatly from hot Florida to the Smoky Mountain area. There, pawpaws are small trees. There are two caveats: A chemical in pawpaws is still used to control head lice. And, some people have a severe allergic reaction when eating them which is the prime reason they have not become a commercial fruit though cultivars have been developed. It’s not a significant health threat to the population at large but it is enough to give the lawyers fits… kind of like inventing peanuts today.  To read more about pawpaws, or papaws, click here.

Green Deane DVD Set

All of Green Deane’s videos available for free on You Tube. They do have ads on them so every time you watch a Green Deane video I get a quarter of one cent. Four views, one cent. Not exactly a large money-maker but it helps pays for this newsletter. If you want to see the videos without ads and some in slightly better quality you can order the DVD set. It is nine DVDs with 15 videos on each for a total of 135 videos.  Many people want their own copy of the videos or they have a slow service and its easier to order then to watch them on-line. The DVDs make a good gift for that forager you know especially on long, cold winter months. Individual DVDs can also be ordered or you can pick and choose. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right hand side of this page (if your window is open wide enough.)  Or you can go here

Green Deane Forum

Want to identify a plant? Looking for a foraging reference? Do you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object you want identified? On the Green Deane Forum we chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations around the world share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. One special section is “From the Frightening Mail Bag” where we learn from people who eat first then ask questions later. Recent topics include: Cleavers, Five-Petal Yellow Vine, That’s Poor Man’s Pepper, Coconut Purslane Salad, Green Leaves Inner Purple Outline, New Foraging Seasons, Plant’s In Obama’s Portrait, American Nightshade, and What Plant is this? You can join the forum by clicking on “forum” in the menu.

This is weekly issue 294. 

If you would like to donate to Eat The Weeds please click here.

What Do You See 04? (photo above) is a bit of a hodgepodge and a mystery. There are three Oxalis in the picture, and like all Oxalis, all edible. One is native to Florida and the other two come (perhaps) from the Caribbean islands. 1A looks like Oxalis intermedia. It has delta or “butterfly” shaped leaves. Is very tart and has pink blossoms. You can seen the blossom under the upper 1A. 1B also has a pink blossom and looks like O. corymbosa but with several hundred of them the exact identification can be iffy. Also in the picture is the native. 1C, O. stricta which has yellow blossoms (one of which not quite open can be seen above the upper 1A) All of these are tart with oxalic acid. The median lethal does is to eat 12 pounds of these at once. They are quite safe in lesser amount unless you have a family history of calcium kidney stones. THEY ARE NOT CLOVERS. The internet is just plain wrong about that. A clover leaflet is shaped like a T with each little leaf having a short stem. These leaves are equally distributed around a center stem and the leaves themselves do not have stems. They are Oxalises not clovers.#2 is a spiny sow thistle with our two examples at different ages. #3 is the Western Tansy Mustard. It is here only a couple of months in the winter in dry areas. #4 is a Wild Geranium, Cranesbill, very bitter, usually not considered an edible but is medicinal. The mystery plant is #5. The lawn where this was shot has a lot of swine cress in it. And swine cress can sometimes look like this. The blossoms have not opened but will be yellow. The taste right now at this age is non-committal. Besides a possible mustard member it could also be the toxic Senecio glabellus aka Packera glabella. That plant destroys mammalian livers. The leaf arrangement of the S. glabellus is very close to the plant in the picture. And while S. glabellus usually grows in damp spots I have seen it in dry lawn settings. So this would be one to watch. The blossoms when they open will solve the mystery because they are very different between the Senecios and the Mustards. What is irritating is that if you are used to harvesting plants in the mustard family the Senicoes before they blossom can initially trick the eye. They look “mustardy” and are mild in favor (but NEVER eat one… only taste to help in the identification.)

https://www.eattheweeds.com/oxalis-how-to-drown-your-sorrels/
https://www.eattheweeds.com/sonchus-sow-thistle-in-a-pigs-eye-2/
https://www.eattheweeds.com/descurainia-pinnata-abandoned-seed-2/
https://www.eattheweeds.com/erodium-circutarium-geranium-carolinianum-two-bills-you-want-to-get-2/

WHAT DO YOU SEE #25: There are at least three edible species in this picture, some writers would list four. Can you identify them?  Photo by Green Deane

Wild Pineapple fruit. Photo by Green Deane

It may be December but locally there is still plenty to forage. Beautyberries are still producing. I had a student tell me recently she made Beautyberry Bread. Now that’s innovative! One can still find Simpson Stopper berries here and there. One of the more odd edibles still in fruit are Wild Pineapples. I’m not sure how “wild” they are but they are in the pineapple family and were planted long ago as ornamentals. Many jurisdictions don’t even acknowledge the species grows here. What is odd about the apricot-sized fruit is edibility. Some people seem to be able to eat them and others not. I think like other members of the pineapple family they may have enzymes at affect proteins. When I eat a ripe fruit my tongue gets “scruffy” and my taste buds don’t work well for a while. Other people have no problem with them. You can read more about them here.

Weeds are opportunist. Photo by Green Deane

New foragers often complain they don’t know where to look for edible weeds. Foraging is much like dating: Knowing where to look is important. Fundamentally we look for disturbed ground (such as land clearing, holes, piles of dirt) wet spots including low lawns and ditches, and transition zones. Those are areas between grass and shrubs, shrubs and forest, paths and forests, reparian places such as shore lines. Another place to look is neglected area and or places that have not been tended to, as one sees in the photograph to the right. While this roadside is not a good place to forage the point is the signs prevented mowing and Amaranth not only sprouted but had enough time to grow to maturity and seed.

Classes are held rain or shine.

Foraging Classes: Except for hurricanes foraging classes usually are held as scheduled. We’re hungry when we are cold and wet so foraging classes are held when it is wet and when it is cold, as it might be this weekend.  Sometimes during the holiday season classes are moved around some.

Saturday, December 10th, Colby-Alderman Park: 1099 Massachusetts Street, Cassadaga. Fla. 32706. 9 a.m.

Sunday, December 11th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. We meet near the tennis court.

Sunday, December 18th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. 9 a.m.

To learn more about the classes, go here. 

Forestiera segregata, Florida Privet, not edible.

The following is sheer speculation. While teaching a class in the coastal area south of Daytona Beach we saw a salt-tolerant shrub with blue berries. This is not the first time I’ve seen the plant and mentioned it in a newsletter last year. The species is Forestiera segregata, or Florida Privet aka Swamp Privet. I suspect it has never worked its way into ethnobotanical literate because the berries taste bad. I’m not sure, however, if the story ends there. The straight limbs were used for arrow and the berries possibly used for ink. The berries are considered not edible. That said I have not found any references to toxicity but that might be because they are too foul to eat. However, it is in the Olive family and olives don’t taste good unless “cured.” What I wonder is 1) if the fruit are edible if 2) they are treated like olives?  It’s pure speculation on my part. They could be toxic for all I know. But it’s an idea.

Fruiting Banana. Photo by Green Deane

It may be winter but the Bananas don’t know that, yet. They are two-year herbs fruiting their second year. If the winter in between the two seasons is too cold there won’t be any Bananas. In fact, I had Bananas and Olives in my yard. If it was cold enough for Olives there would be no Bananas that following year. Or if the Bananas survived it was not cold enough for Olives.  There is also more to eat on a Banana “tree” than just the banana. It’s even medicinal and the leaves can be used for cooking. Incidentally commercial bananas might disappear from the stores. Indeed, the common banana now is not the commercial banana we ate when I was a kid. To read more about the Banana, go here.

WHAT DO YOU SEE #25.

What Do You See #25?  Usually the answer is printed next week but as this newsletter skipped a week and two of these plant are coming into season we’ll cover the answer now.  Easy to spot in the lower middle is an Oxalis, perhaps O. acuta. We have two large groups of Oxalis locally and this one is from the Caribbean Islands. They are tart. I call them ‘rhubarb lite.’ In the upper left corner with the scalloped leaves is a wild geranium, either a Cranes Bill or a Stork’s bill. They are extremely bitter and are used more medicinally but some writers include them in the realm of edible. In the lower left of the photograph is Pellitory, or Cucumber Weed. It is well into its seasonal run and will be around for a few months. It likes to grow in shade and does taste like cucumber (smells like it, too.) The majority of the plants in the photograph, however, are Goosegrass also called Cleavers. They are the ones with whorls. Edible when young they also have a short seasons, another reason to mention them here. While edible they are reportedly good for the lymph system.

The Nine-DVD set includes 135 videos.

All of Green Deane’s videos are available for free on You Tube. They do have ads on them so every time you watch a Green Deane video I get a quarter of one cent. Four views, one cent. Not exactly a large money-maker but it helps pays for the newsletter. If you want to see the videos without ads and some in slightly better quality you can order the DVD set. It is nine DVDs with 15 videos on each. They make a good Christmas gift. Many people want their own copy of the videos or they have a slow service and its easier to order then to watch them on-line. They make a good gift for that forager you know. Individual DVDs can also be ordered. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right of this page or you can go here. If that link is not working — there have been some issues — you can use a donation link and email me your order and address.

Do you know this edible? You would if you read the Green Deane Forum.

Want to identify a plant? Looking for a foraging reference? Do you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object you want identified? On the Green Deane Forum we chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations around the world share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food.  You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

This is Newsletter 235.   

If you would like to donate to Eat The Weeds please click here.

Stinging Nettles will be around for the next couple of months. Photo by Green Deane

Winter is upon us and that means stinging nettles. It’s too warm in Florida most of the year for any Urtica to thrive. But the cooler weather from about Christmas to Valentines Day coaxes up our “burning dwarf.” And make no mistake: Urtica chamaedryoides is not like the gentle stinging nettle found in northern climes. It is a potent assailant that is nutritious when handled carefully and very painful when not. A sting from this nettle burns me for days and leaves welts.  Animals are also not immune. Here’s what the University of Florida has to say about that:

This was my first sighting of nettles this season. They were spied in southwest Volusia County. Photo by Green Deane

“Fireweed is particularly troublesome because it possesses stinging hairs that easily embed in skin. Once exposed to the toxin, severe irritation can occur for several hours. Though generally avoided by cattle, horses are more likely to browse fireweed and develop stress symptoms. These symptoms commonly manifest themselves as weight loss, or difficulty in swallowing and breathing for many days after consumption. In extreme cases, young horses have died after rolling in fireweed and becoming over-exposed to the toxins in the leaf hairs.”

Is it edible? Absolutely, and has a good flavor for a nettle. But it is not to be handled carelessly. No doubt individual reactions to its sting will vary. But I know all too well that it makes me very miserable. Eating it is great revenge. Mowing the species, by the way, results in smaller plants with even more stinging hairs. To read more about this nettle go here.

Purslane can survive a Florida winter if there isn’t much frost or freezing temperatures. Photo by Green Deane

A lot of mail I receive is about people not being able to find this highly esteemed vegetable. I have the opposite problem. I see it everywhere and want to take some home with me but I’ve got a lot already. This was one of two lovely patches growing along a fence in Port Charlotte, where I had a foraging class Sunday. This is classic growth: Sprawling, half-a-foot high, young tender leaves, thick stalks for pickling. Many consider it the most nutritious green on earth. Its journey to Florida no doubt took thousands of years. The plant is native to Iran and was grown and spread by the Romans. It came to the new world from Southern Europe. Oddly the United States is one of the few countries that does not readily view it as a commercial vegetable. It’s very common on the eastern side of the United States but less so as one moves west and northwest. To read more about purslane click here.

A bed of tart, tasty Oxalis. Photo by Green Deane

Sometimes you just have to take a picture. This past week while out pedaling with the C.R.A.B.S (Crusty Retired All recumBent Society) I looked past a retaining wall and saw a large bed of Oxalis. This is a non-native species with big  leaves and large pink blossoms. Our native is much smaller with yellow blossoms (and in England there’s one with large leaves and a white blossom.) There are several hundred species and they are all edible. Most people and the internet mistakenly call them clovers which they are not. Three-leaf clovers are shaped like a T or a goatee and each leaf has a short stem. Oxalis leaves do not have short stems and are arranged equally around the main stem. I call them “rhubarb lite.” To read more about the Oxalis go here.

I ended up with a large box of non-edible roots. Photo by Green Deane

As one might suspect I grow wild plants in my garden as well as cultivated edibles. Last spring I planted one vine. When I was tilling the spoil over the holidays to plant my spring garden I found these roots. I have a big box of them and they are all from that one plant. What is most interesting is that the root does not smell like the rest of the plant at all. And as far as I know the root is not edible. Of course you’ll have to guess which species it is. It is also my intention to give the box of roots away so others can start new plants. I left a leaf or two on to help you sort it out.

Foraging classes held rain or shine except for hurricanes.

Foraging Classes:

Sunday, January 10th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, FL. 9 a.m.

Sunday, January 17th, 2016, Sunday, Nov. 15, Mead Garden, 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, Jan. 24th, George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, Jan. 31st, Jervey Gantt Recreation Complex, 2390 SE 36th Ave., Ocala, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, Feb. 7th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, Feb. 14, Mead Garden,1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, March 6th, Florida State College, south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd., Jacksonville, 9 a.m.

Sunday, March 13th, Mead Garden, 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL, 9 a.m.

Saturday, March 19, Colby-Alderman Park: 1099 Massachusetts Street, Cassadaga, 9 a.m.

Saturday, March 26th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 3rd, John Chestnut County Park: 2200 East Lake Road, Palm Harbor, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 10th, Wekiva State Park, 1800 Wekiwa Circle, Apopka, Florida 32712. 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 17th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, 2200 East Lake Road, Port Charlotte, FL. 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 24th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 9 a.m.

To learn more about the foraging classes go here. 

135 Eat The Weeds videos are available on DVDs.

All of Green Deane’s videos are available for free on You Tube. They do have ads on them so every time you watch a Green Deane video I get a quarter of one cent. Four views, one cent. Not exactly a large money-maker but it helps pays for the newsletter. If you want to see the videos without ads and some in lightly better quality you can order the DVD set. It is nine DVDs with 15 videos on each. Many people want their own copy of the videos or they have a slow service and its easier to order then to watch them on-line. They make a good gift for that forager you know. Individual videos can also be ordered. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right of this page or you can go here. 

Yes, it’s a papaya but do you know what parts are edilbe? You would if you read the 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, such as the one to the left. 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: Conyza and Chlorophyll. Can Anyone Tell Me The Name of This Plant? NJ Biennial. Crepis Japonica Nutritional Information? So Much Free Food! Berries! What Kind Of Shrub Is This? Oxalis Corymbosa. Water Hyssop Recipes. Where To Get LUS Groundnut Strain? Is This Lambs Quarters? Small Herb, Solanum americanum, Winter Fruits in Sanibel, Are These Plants Related to Canavalia maritima? Lawn Weed, Wild Cucumber, Melothria Pendula, Edibility of Flowers From Landscape Hibiscus, Primitive Survival Class, and Which Agave? You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

This is newsletter 190.

To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter or website click here.

Young Ringless Honey Mushrooms. Photo by Green Deane

The foraging is not done for the season. In fact we forage year round. There was plenty to find in West Palm Beach this past weekend. We started, unusually, with mushrooms. I usually don’t discuss mushrooms because I am not qualified to talk about most of them. But these were Ringless Honey Mushrooms, considered by some among the easiest to identify in North America.

Another edible fungi seen this season were Deer Mushrooms. Photo by Green Deane

While Honeys can come up any time of year they favor late fall and early winter though their “flushing” can vary. Some years I see them as early as October or as late as January. This year they seemed to come up in mid-November then a month later. Opinions on their edibility range from “leave them alone” to “choice.” The literature has reports of some people getting ill after eating them, although I have never met anyone with that problem. They reportedly can cause digestive upset, short in duration for some, long in duration for others. This should not be surprising because the same thing happens with wild edible plants and cultivated ones. I know a lot of people who, for example, cannot eat mangos.  There are also various ways to prepare Honeys. Some eat only the caps. Some parboil the caps first then cook them in other ways. Others insist they just need to be cooked longer than other mushrooms. As you can see there is a range, as there is with common food. Even if one doesn’t eat wild mushrooms (or wild plants!) it is still good to know what wild plans are. You can read about Ringless Honey Mushrooms here.

Tamarinds are used for flavoring. Photo by Green Deane

One of the reasons why I like to hold classes from North Carolina to South Florida is I get to see edibles ranging from a temperate forest to tropical. In West Palm Beach there is a good mix. We did see a Cashew tree — now out of fruiting season— as were the Mangos and the Jambuls. There were a few cashew shells around but you have to be careful as the shells are extremely caustic. Mahogany trees are interesting to look at but their “nut” is not edible. Tamarinds, however, do have edible pods. There are two at the class location, planted side by side. I’m not sure why. Pollination might be an issue, or they like company. They are wildly used as flavoring particularly in Asian sphere of influence. I didn’t notice them until one year I was there at the right time when they were fruiting. The tamarinds are also not far from what I call the Child-Proof tree, the Silk Floss. It is huge can very well armed with thorns and tiny edible parts one can never reach.

The Mahoe manages to have two different colored blossoms. Photo by Green Deane

The Seagrape tree was out of season but a relative, the Pigeon Plum, aka Dove Plum, did have some fruit to try. It’s a very strange foragable. While the dark-purple ripe fruit can be eaten off the tree it is astringent. But if it is dried and then rehydrated the fruit becomes delicious. So I usually pick dry ones off the ground and also what dry ones I can find on the tree then soak them in a little water. They are well worth the effort becoming non-astringent and sweet. Another odd tree we sampled was the Mahoe, this time a variegated one. Flowers, young leaves, and inner bark are all edible. What is odd about the tree is that its blossom are yellow in the morning. If they are not pollinated by the afternoon they will turn red to attract a different insect to do the job. The texture of the blossom also changes through the day, the petals, delicate in the morning become tough and papery by late afternoon. You can read about it here.

Sea Almonds are not related to real almonds but are tasty. Photo by Green Deane

One of my favorite south Florida trees is the Tropical Almond, also called the Sea Almond. It’s not related to the almond at all but the weathering fruit looks like a large unshelled almond hence the name. If you hit the fraying dry pod between two rocks — very hard to find in Florida — or on edge with a hammer you will hear a distinct sharp “crack.” You can then open the pod to find a cylindrical “nut” inside that is quite tasty. It’s not really a nut but it looks, breaks, chews, and tastes like one. You don’t have to roast them, raw is fine. However, I might collect some next time I am teaching there — mid-January I think — and I will try shelling and roasting some, just for the taste of it. You can read more about the Tropical Almond here.

Pursane’s nutrition is well documented. Photo by Green Deane

Among the dozens of edible species we saw in West Palm Beach were Juniper, Yellow Pond Lillies, Purslane, Blue Porter Weed, Yaupon Holly, Poor Man’s Pepper Grass, Hairy Bittercress, Cocoplums, Simpson Stopper, two species of Amaranth, Pandanus Grass, Dollar Weed, Water Hyssop, Spanish Needles, Oxalis, Perennial Peanut, Cattails, Hairy Cowpea, Traveler Palms, medicinal Sida, Pellitory aka Cucumber Weed, Banyans and their relative Rubber Trees.

The annual Urban Crawl is a free event.

The  Fifth Annual Urban Crawl was fun. We started at Panera’s in downtown Winter Park a little after 10 a.m., negotiated AMTRAK and then passing showers of the cold front. (One forages regardless of the weather because in real life if one is hungry one forages regardless of the weather.) The educational element of this particular Urban Crawl is the mixture of weeds, natives and edible ornamentals. Among the more odd things we saw was a limequat, which was a self-created hybrid and I think the only citrus with striped fruit. We did get to taste some out-of-season Podocarpus fruit, blue and sweet. At the east end of Morse Avenue there was a flowering Natal Plum. We managed to find one almost ripe fruit on it. And a short distance away an attractive specimen of a Weeping Holly loaded with caffeine and anti-oxidants. Our three-hour stroll took us along Lake Virginia near Rollins College where we found an abundance of Wild Cucumbers still setting. They are a nice, crunchy find. The cold weather will knock them out until April or so. There was also a lot of wild mint, water hyssop, and The annual crawl is free to anyone who shows up.

Foraging classes held rain or shine except for hurricanes.

Upcoming Foraging Classes:

Sunday, Jan. 3rd,Bayshore Live Oak Park, 2200 East Lake Road, Port Charlotte, FL. 9 a.m.

Sunday, Jan. 10th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, FL. 9 a.m.

Sunday, Jan. 17th, 2016, Sunday, Nov. 15, Mead Garden, 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, Jan. 24th, George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, Jan. 31st, Jervey Gantt Recreation Complex, 2390 SE 36th Ave., Ocala, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, Feb. 7th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, Feb. 14, Mead Garden,1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, March 6th, Florida State College, south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd., Jacksonville, 9 a.m.

Sunday, March 13th, Mead Garden, 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL, 9 a.m.

Saturday, March 19, Colby-Alderman Park: 1099 Massachusetts Street, Cassadaga, 9 a.m.

Saturday, March 26th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 3rd, John Chestnut County Park: 2200 East Lake Road, Palm Harbor, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 10th, Wekiva State Park, 1800 Wekiwa Circle, Apopka, Florida 32712. 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 17th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, 2200 East Lake Road, Port Charlotte, FL. 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 24th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 9 a.m

To learn more about the classes go here.

Green Deane’s DVD set

All of Green Deane’s videos are available for free on You Tube. They do have ads on them so every time you watch a Green Deane video I get a quarter of one cent. Four views, one cent. Not exactly a large money-maker but it helps pays for the newsletter. If you want to see the videos without ads and some ins lightly better quality you can order the DVD set. It is nine DVDs with 15 videos on each. Many people want their own copy of the videos or they have a slow service and its easier to order then to watch them on-line. They make a good Christmas or birthday gift. Individual videos can also be ordered. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right of this page or you can go here. 

Do you know what this wild edible is? You would if you read the 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, such as the one to the left. 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: Small Herb, Solanum americanum, Winter Fruits in Sanibel, Are These Plants Related to Canavalia maritima? Lawn Weed, Wild Cucumber, Melothria Pendula, Edibility of Flowers From Landscape Hibiscus, Primitive Survival Class, Which Agave? Gallium or Carpetweed? Dichotomous Key: This made me smile, Foraging “For Real,” Spiky Fruits, Pine Cough Drops and Needles, Skullcap, Malodorous Plant? Another NJ Tree, and Maypops.  You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

This is newsletter 188, and Merry Christmas! 

To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter or website click here.

Common purslane, Portulaca oleracea, photo by Green Deane

From one point of view Purslane is a very easy topic: It’s edible, nutritious, and fairly easy to identify. It is sold in supermarkets around the world except the United States, so you have to find your own which is easy because it grows everywhere. From there things get complicated.

Edibility of ornamental Portulacas is not well-established. Photo by Green Deane

What about ornamental purslanes, the kind you find for bedding plants in home improvement stores like in the picture to the left? They often have colors other than yellow, such as orange and flamingo and the like. Their blossoms can be doubled or frilly.  Then there are native members of the genus, Portulaca: Are they edible? Lastly there is also a medicinal semi-look alike. Somewhere back in the 90’s I asked Forager Emeritus Dick Deuerling if ornamental purslanes were edible. He said he didn’t know and wasn’t interested in finding out. Some 20  years later that is my answer. I don’t know. My suspicion is if they are not they are not severely toxic.  That leads me to our local native Portulaca pilosa. I have tried it. The leaves burn my mouth a little and upset my stomach some. Nothing horrible but nothing I want to repeat. I’ve had some beginning foragers tell me they eat it but I have not had any experienced foragers tell me that. You can read about purslane here.  Also do not eat any plant that looks like purslane but has white sap. They are not edible.

Water Hyssop is half the size of Purslane and does not redden. Photo by Green Deane Do

And what of the semi-look alike medicinal? Perhaps “medicinal” is the wrong word. Water Hyssop, Bacopa monnieri,  is edible but very bitter. It looks like dwarf purslane except all green. The blossoms differ as well. Water Hyssop has four- or five-petaled blossoms. They can be off-white, light blue or even light pink. You find the plant growing in damp or inundated areas. What’s interesting about Water Hyssop is that two different studies show it can increase memory function. The plant causes a gene to upregulate or “express itself.” This means the DNA in the gene can stretch, literally like a spring losing tension. This in turn causes the gene to make a protein. That protein causes the hippocampus to make new memory cells. It takes three months for the difference to be noticed. So whether you are looking for some green cells or some brain cells purslane or a smaller look-alike is good for you.

Peppervine fruit is generally NOT edible.

Fruiting now is the controversial Pepper Vine, Ampelopsis arborea. It is closely related to the edible grape but also closely related to the toxic Virginia Creeper. It is one of those plants that some folks say is definitely toxic and others say definitely edible. My personal  experience is that it is not edible, but I know some credible foragers who say they have eating the ripe berries for a long time with no issue. No doubt the problem has to do with annual calcium oxalate production. In small amounts it’s tolerable. In high concentrations it can cause skin problems or internally upset digestion. Peppervine (so-called because the fruit can give a pepper-like burn) apparently can make little to a lot of the chemical each year, varying greatly. Another possibility is method of preparation. It might be that when the berries are juiced and the juice is allowed to set in a cold environment that acid precipitates out leaving useable juice. That is not a fact, but rather speculation on my part. Lacking any definitive information it is a fruit best avoided  unless you know for certain your fruit is edible. If you do experiment and survive, let me know.

Upcoming Foraging Classes for the next two months: 

Saturday, Sept. 19th, Mead Garden: 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789, 9 a.m.

Saturday, Sept. 26th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, 32127. 9 a.m.

Saturday, Oct. 3rd, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, 32935-2335. 9 a.m.

Saturday, Oct. 10th, Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St., Gainesville, 32641. 9 a.m.

Sunday, Oct 11th, Jervey Gantt Recreation Complex, 2390 SE 36th Ave., Ocala, 34471. 9 a.m

Sunday, Oct 18th, Florida State College, south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd., Jacksonville, 32246. 9 a.m.

Sunday, Oct. 25th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405, 9 a.m.

Sunday, Nov. 1st, Bayshore Live Oak Park, 23000 Bayshore Rd., Port Charlotte, FL 33980, 9 a.m.

Sunday, Nov. 8th, John Chestnut County Park: 2200 East Lake Road, Palm Harbor, FL 34685, 9 a.m.

To learn more about the classes, which are about four hours long, or to sign up, go here. 

Sorrel just starting its seasonal run.

In some parts of the country fall is upon the landscape and final harvesting is underway before plants shut down for the winter. When I was a boy in Maine this meant scrumping apples and concord grapes. Locally our winter foraging season is just starting and while it is still warm one edible to start looking for is the Heartwing Sorrel. This tart Rumex is closely related to Sheep’s Sorrel and is used the same way, usually as an addition to salads. This time of year there will be a plant here and a plant there. Look along grassy trails, pastures or fields particularly in northern areas. In a few months locally it can cover an entire field with a ruddy pink blanket of ripening seeds.  To read more about the Heartwing Sorrel go here.

Thistle with Butterfly. Photo by Green Deane

Need to identify a plant? Looking for a foraging reference? Maybe you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane — 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 articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. Recent topics include: Tea, Salt and Amla, Small Bush and Flower, Ragweed? Pine Cough Drops and Needles, Odd Vine? Hunting and Trapping Ethics. Knife Accidents. Some Kind of Lespendeza and Survival Garden.  You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

This is newsletter 176.  Recent problems regarding posting comments on site pages and caching issues on the forum have been at least temporarily resolved. If you have having posting problems let me know

To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter click here.

Kudzu can carpet the landscape.

Kudzu is known as the plant that smothered The South. It leaves the impression that if you fell asleep in a lawn chair at noon by supper time you would be covered by Kudzu. Driving or hiking through places like North Carolina one can see steep hillsides thickly blanked with the large, herbaceous vine. But it is the botanical beast it’s purported to be?

Kudzu leaves have hair on the margins (edges.)

Important to us is that nearly the entire plant is edible: Leaves, growing tips, grape-scented blossoms, young roots and older root starch. Only the seeds are not edible by humans. However the plant does support wild life and domestically goats are particularly fond of it. Turning Kudzu into goat products is profitable, tasty and sustainable.  While Kudzu can be a local problem its invasiveness has been exaggerated by regional writers.

Kudzu blossoms smell like grapes.

Kudzu was first championed during the Dust Bowl Era because it was the prime plant for fighting erosion. Folks were paid to sow it on their land (no complaining then.) About a million acres were planted in the next 20 years then the program ended. Kudzu meanwhile had worked its way into southern novels and folksy observations. It became a southern cliche. In reality Kudzu occupies about one tenth of one percent of the South’s 200 million acres of forest, or 227,000 acres. Asian Privet, which is rarely commented on by anyone, occupies some 3.2 million acres, 14 times that of Kudzu. The vine is spreading but at a thousandth-something rate of around 2,500 acres a year. And in time it might be significantly reduced: Six years ago a Japanese Kudzu bug was found in a garden in Atlanta (a city which is six times the size of the Kudzu infestation.) The bug was a stowaway on some plane. It is now successfully devouring Kudzu. In one test site it ate a third of the Kudzu in two years. In decades to come Kudzu might be but a bucolic memory, a quaint reference to how it used to be. To read more about Kudzu, go here.

No apple tree is like the parent tree.

I’ve never met a bad wild apple. There are sweet ones — edible off the tree — and there are bitter ones, often very good after roasting like a root vegetable. Nearly all apples are edible and are clones, well, at least commercial apples are clones. The experts tell us no two apple seeds are exactly alike.  Granny Smith apple seeds will not product a Granny Smith apple. The first Granny Smith apple tree was a unique tree and was cloned, as were all the other named apples we buy in the store or grow at home. Cloning might not be exactly the right term: Cuttings were taken from that tree and grafted on to other apple trees. That’s why it took nearly a century for the Granny Smith apple to get from Australia to our markets in the United States.

Feral apples can be wild or ignored cultivars.

What I noticed as a boy was the great variety of apple trees there were around the fields, old homesteads, and roads where I grew up. Near the house, where our horses could raid it, was an old small wild apple that had green fruit tasting tart to bitter. We made pipes out of the wood.  But, the apples cooked well and the horses liked them as is, right off the tree with a few leaves. Just outside their fence there was a large (I suspect cultivated) tree with apples that tasted similar to a Golden Delicious. Across the dirt road from the house were five apple trees by the road, offspring of a tossed apple core and subsequent generations.

I raid this apple tree every year near a general store in Valle Crucis, North Carolina.

I thought of these while hiking in North Carolina earlier this month. Feral apple trees were common and good. I harvested apple every time I saw a tree. Not one tree looked as if anyone had bothered to collect any apples from them (low-hanging fruit was still low-hanging.)  This latter observation is perhaps the most telling. Humans have been eating apples for some seven thousand years. They are one of the best known foods even among people who never forage. It is difficult to think of a food more recognizable than apples yet they remained unharvested. Even ardent must-get-back-to-nature types leave them alone. To read more about apples, go here.

Blueberries ripening at 6,200 feet

Elevation makes a difference. While hiking through the Blue Ridge Mountains I noticed poison ivy didn’t like to grow over 4,000 feet or so. That made getting off the trail easier but timber rattlesnakes were happy to take poison ivy’s place. Saw one up close and personal. It was well-fed. We also helped rescue a fellow with a broken leg, which is another story for another venue. When you go up you go towards colder weather which influences plants and animals. On top of Roan Mountain on the North Carolina-Tennesse border blueberries were just in season (and totally unpicked.) Blackberries were fruiting as well, and also unpicked with many drying in place. Following the modern call of the wild does not seemingly include knowing the plants around you.

Chickweed blossoming in late August

Young sheep sorrel was just beginning to grow in mid-August and I even found luscious chickweed just starting to blossom. Said another way elevation can extend harvest seasons. I am often asked which plants are edible along the Appalachian Trail. I answer with three questions: Which way are you hiking (north or south) what time of year, and at what elevation? Flatland foraging is elevation static; mountainous foraging is dynamic.

A butterfly foraging for thistle nectar.

Upcoming foraging classes:

Saturday, September 5th, Colby-Alderman Park: 1099 Massachusetts Street, Cassadaga. Fla. 32706, 9 a.m.

Saturday, Sept 12th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, Fla, 34233. 9 a.m.

Saturday, Sept. 19th, George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, Fla, 34981. 9 a.m.

Saturday, Sept. 26th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, 32127. 9 a.m.

For more information about classes go here.

Do you know what this is? You would if you read the Green Deane Forum.

Need to identify a plant? Looking for a foraging reference? Maybe you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane — 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 articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. Recent topics include: Sweet And Toxic, Neat Stove Idea, Cordage Plants Video, Small Weed?, Preetty Flower Edible?, Lawn Weed? Weeds of NJ. and Vine ID Please.  You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

This is newsletter 174.

It is not surprising that the Paper Mulberry is related to the Breadfruit.

On the east coast of Maine about seven miles south of Portland is the Town of Scarbrough. There you will find Pine Point and Black Point separated by the Nonesuch River which empties into Casco Bay. These points are less than a thousand feet apart as the seagull flies. Pines predominant on southern Pine Point and the darker-colored spruce on Black Point. Why? Soil? Human intervention? No. A significant ocean current turns at those points making Black Point slightly cooler annually — attractive to spruces — and Pine Point slightly warmer and more attractive to pines.

The large “mitten” leaves of the Paper Mulberry.

Distance and or elevation can significantly affect plant selection and growth. Here in flat-iron Florida a 60-mile separation decides whether our Paper Mulberries pictured above and left, will have fruit or not. In the northern areas of the state the tree is putting on fruit. In the central part of the state it rarely if ever fruits because the winters are too warm. The Paper Mulberry is from a temperate climate and prefers cooler temperatures. This past weekend in Jacksonville — 136 miles to the north — the trees were full of “buttons” which will sprout orange pom-pom like fruit. The orange part is edible but not the seed in the middle. Locally Paper Mulberries stay barren (but sneakily can reproduce vegetatively, something the importers had not planned on.) If you want to read more about the Paper Mulberry you can go here.

Environmental preferences can also be seen in elevation changes such as when hiking the Appalachian Trail. Finding wild edibles on the trail is a function of time of year, elevation and direction of travel. In fact going up 1,000 feet can move one north 700 miles or even a season in regard to flora and fauna. It is not unusual to find in August at 6,000 feet in plants that were in season months earlier at sea level.  You can also one species of blackberry to be ending its fruiting in the valleys and another starting to fruit at higher elevations. There is one other advantage to elevation. When hiking the Appalachian Trail in the Carolinas I never saw Poison Ivy above 4,000 feet.

A “thumbless” mulberry leaf.

My foraging class this weekend did solve a mystery of several years running. The identity of a particular tree where I hold the Jacksonville class was elusive. It resembled a Basswood and it also kind of resembled a Red Mulberry (a different species of mulberry than the one mentioned above.)  While Basswood and Mulberries usually don’t resemble each other individual species can vary a lot. Basswood and Red Mulberry have very different blossoms as well as fruit but I was never at the right time of year to see the tree fruiting until this past weekend. The mystery was solved: It’s a Red Mulberry. Even on cultivated mulberries one can find  few leaves that are “mittens” that is they have a left or right thumb. This tree had none and the leaves tips were more acute than usual, more the the Basswood. To read about the Red Mulberry click here.

Basswood Blossom. Photo by Green Deane

While on the topic of Basswood it should be mentioned because its blossoming season will be running northward. The Basswood blossom resembles a tongue depressor so when they are blossoming the species is rather easy to identify. Also their first young leaves of spring are edible like lettuce. Basswoods tend to like damp areas rather than dry  but they don’t like to be too wet. Basswood are not denizens of the swamp unless there’s an elevated dry spot. My first contact with Basswood was not for food but rather for making pipes. My father used the young stems for pipe stems. To read about the Basswood, go here.

False Hawk’s Beard. Photo by Green Deane

The False Hawk’s Beard was first reported in North America in the early 1800’s. This Asian native and Dandelion relative has since conquered The South. The accompanying photograph is quite typical,  a basal rosette of leaves below branching stems. Locally they grow all year but prefer the spring and can get close to two feet tall. The genus and the species have had several name changes ranging from Crepis youngia to Youngia japonica. The genus — what ever it is called — is wide-spread and as far as I know all of the members edible. There should be a Crepis (or Youngia) near you. To read more about the species, go here.

A tessellated Green Deane teaching a foraging class. Photo by Kelly Fagan.

Upcoming foraging classes:

Saturday, May 2nd, George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, FL, 34981. 9 a.m.

Sunday, May 3rd, Mead Garden, 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789. 9 a.m.

Saturday, May 9th, Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St., Gainesville, FL. 32641. 9 a.m.

Sunday, May 10th, Jervey Gantt Recreation Complex, 2390 SE 36th Ave., Ocala, FL, 34471. 9 a.m.

To learn more about the foraging classes go here.

Stachys roots. WIth a couple of dozen species worldwide there is one near you.

Need to identify a root? Looking for a foraging reference? Maybe you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we chat about foraging all year long. 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 articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. Recent topics include: Love Me Some Betony. Passiflora edulis. Top Restaurant Serves Deer Moss, Uvularia sessilifolia? Where Have You Found Currants? Purple flowering plant ID, Bee Swarms, To Cook is Human, Can I get Some Suggestions, Making Butter, Heliculture, Tincture? What Kind of Weeds? Sassafras, Cherry Bark Tea, Biting Bugs, Firebow Tinder, Sheep Sorrel, Brown Bear and Greens, and Homemade Sauerkraut. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

Glasswort, Salicornia bigelovii.

Botany Builder #26: Torose, also torulose: Cylindrical with swelling or contractions at intervals. It comes from the Dead Latin “torus” meaning a bulge or protuberance. Some might immediately think of certain cactus as torose, and some are. But other plants are torose as well, such as Glasswort, Salicornia bigelovii, found growing in salt marshes. When young the plant is green but as the season goes on it sequesters salt in various area which then turn pink. So the green parts can be eaten raw or cooked and the pink parts used when you want a salty flavor. While the plant can be boiled to reduce the salty flavor the greens can also be put in what you’re cooking or flavor it such as a fresh caught fish or harvested squash. To read more about Glasswort go here. 

The blossoms of the Pineapple Guava have edible petals. Photo by Green Deane

Perhaps no ornamental was championed as much as the Pineapple Guava. However the perfect shrub for many places never really caught on. There could be many reasons. It probably didn’t help that a close relative, the Strawberry Guava, is a severe invasive species in some locations.  The shrub also does not get showy. You even have to look for the showy 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 never change color as they ripen. They just get softer. The shrub is easy to identify when in blossom. To read more about both guavas, go here.

Tallow Plum, a semi-parasitic edible. Photo by Green Deane

The learning never stops. There is a local semi-parasitic plum, the Tallow Plum or Hog Plum (there are so many “hog” plums we might as well stay with Tallow Plum.”)  When bright yellow ripe the plums are tangy but rather sparse. Over the years I have found them three times, all on the east coast of Florida, in the fall, all in hot, sandy places. These were on the south side of Haulover Canal, just north of the space center, at the Enchanted Forest, a park in Titusville, FL, directly west of the space center, and about 120 farther south near Port St. Lucie in the George LeStrange Preserve. All east coast, all in the fall, all in dry, sandy environments, commonly called scrub. Two times there were very low-growing and the third not tall at all.

Tallow Plums often look more like vines than shrubs. Photo by Green Deane

This Saturday past I had a foraging class in Redbug Sough in Sarasota. It’s coastal but fresh water damp, lots of shade. During the class a student asked “what this?” It was a yellow green fruit with a large stone inside. As in the article below, location is so important to identification. I was flummoxed for a few moments until I thought of Tallow Plum, and a subsequent check showed that’s what it was and that it does grow in that area of the state. I had to expand the descriptors. Hot, sandy, east coast, fall had to change though I suspect the fruit was a fall left over. But now I know where there is one on the west coast, in a humid, shady area. To read more about the Tallow Plum, go here.

Foraging is more than identifying edible wild plants. It also involves knowing how to cook them, when they are prime to harvest, and subject of this review, where to find them. In real estate the mantra is “location, location, location.” We could use that with plants but a refinement would be “environment, environment, environment.”

Sea Purslane(red stems)  easily transplant. Photo by Green Deane

We know not to look for swamp plants in a desert, unless there is an isolated spring there such as an oasis. Likewise, few cactus grow in swamps though there are exceptions. We also usually find salt tolerant plants near the shore or inland near salt licks (and sometimes along northern roads salted every winter.) But some of those salt-tolerant plants will grow in your garden and do not need to be in a salty environment. Sea Purslane is found on the shore or near brackish water where its job is to build soil by forcing the wind to slow down and drop sand. But, it will also grow in your garden, no salt or wind needed. Other plants are more picky and won’t grow well if not in their preferred location.

Blueberries are extremely soil pick. Photo by Green Deane

For example, one species I am long-familiar with is Blueberries. They like soil on the acidic soil, a pH below 7 on a 14-point scale. I grew-up in poor-soil Maine where one could find 120-acre fields of nothing but Blueberries. Yet where I live now, in Florida, Blueberries are found in small colonies in isolated pockets. Why? One answer is Florida is a limestone plate (alkaline not acidic) so it is a waste of time to look for Blueberries unless there are acid-producing pines, oaks or perhaps cypress nearby. I planted Blueberries specifically bred for Florida but one has to tend to the soil — the amount of acid — nearly as much as one has to work daily to keep a pool from turning green. They eventually died, one of my few failures.

Dandelions like acidic soil. Photo by Green Deane

Another example is Dandelions. I have observed for several decades that Dandelions don’t like Florida, or at least the areas of Florida I visit. They like acidic soil. It might be it is not Florida’s heat they don’t like but rather the alkaline (“sweet”) soil. The few places I have seen Dandelions growing have been areas of acidic soil. Dreher Park in West Palm Beach is a good example. What Dandelions there are there can be found growing in lawn grass amongst oaks. With that in mind let’s survey some plants and what soils and conditions they like.

Pokeweed does not like to grow near oaks. Photo by Green Deane

Some plants can do well in nearly any soil. Henbit, Dead Nettle and Shepard’s Purse are good examples. However, the close relative of Shepard’s Purse, Poor Man’s Pepper Grass, likes soil on the alkaline side. This means you probably won’t find Pepper Grass near Pines and Oaks. Plants that like acidic soil (below a pH of 7.0) and you can find near Oaks and Pines include Eastern Bracken Fern, Curly Dock, Mullein, Nettles, Violets, Pineapple Weed, Plantagos, Wild Radish, Sheep Sorrel, Sow Thistle, and wild Strawberries. Plants that like it on the “sweet” or alkaline side besides Pepper Grass? Wild Carrots, Lamb’s Quarters, Amaranth, Pokeweed, White Mustard, and Purslane. Don’t look for those in an oak scrub.

Wild Garlic likes heavy soil and low bacterial count. Photo by Green Deane

Besides the pH of soil the kind of soil can make a difference. Chicory likes “heavy” soil meaning lots of clay, or rocks. Also liking heavy soil is Broadleaf Dock, Daisies, Milkweed, Plantains, true Thistles, and Wild Garlic. Plants that can endure hard packed soil include Field Mustard, Morning Glories — some of which are edible — and Pineapple Weed (it used to grow in our gravel driveway.) Going the other directions, plants that like sandy soil include Goldenrods and Sandspurs. Plants too look for in agricultural soil include chickweed, Dandelions, Lambs Quarters, Plantains, Amaranth and Purslane. And while Florida Betony can grow edible roots in rich loam or sand it tends to grow larger and easier to harvest roots in sand.

Oxalises like soil high in magnesium. Photo by Green Deane

By their very presence some plants can tell you about what’s in or not in the soil. Burdock likes soil very high in iron and sulfate but low in calcium and manganese. Chickweed and Dandelions like low-calcium low-phosphorus soils. Crabgrass likes very low levels of calcium, phosphorus but high levels of chlorine, magnesium and potassium. Oxalis and Hop Cover, however, prefer low levels of calcium but high levels of magnesium. Purslane and Mustard like high phosphorus levels.

Red Clover like soil high in potassium. Photo by Green Deane

If you see a healthy patch of White Clover you know the soil is lacking in nitrogen. Or said another way, you won’t find happy White Clover in nitrogen-rich soil. I suspect that holds true for other members of the pea family as well. Because of preferences you will usually not find amaranth and clover growing together. Red Clover, however, prefers to grow in areas of soil high in potassium. Wild Garlic also likes high potassium as well along with high leaves of chlorine, magnesium, and sodium.

Knowing where to look can increase your chances of finding and identifying wild edibles.

Green Deane teaching on a cool, foggy morning. Photo by Kelly Fagan.

My upcoming foraging Classes:

Saturday, April 18th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, FL, 32127, 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 19th, Florida State College, south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd., Jacksonville, FL, 32246, 9 a.m.

Saturday, May 2nd, George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, FL, 34981. 9 a.m.

Sunday, May 3rd, Mead Garden, 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789. 9 a.m.

To learn more about the foraging classes go here.

Reindeer moss, one of the topics of discussion on the Green Deane Forum. Photo by Green Deane

Need to know a wild tea? Looking for a foraging reference? Maybe you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we chat about foraging all year long. 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 articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. Recent topics include: Top Restaurant Serves Deer Moss, Uvularia sessilifolia? Where Have You Found Currants? Purple flowering plant ID, Bee Swarms, To Cook is Human, Can I get Some Suggestions, Making Butter, Heliculture, Tincture? What Kind of Weeds? Sassafras, Cherry Bark Tea, Biting Bugs, Firebow Tinder, Sheep Sorrel, Brown Bear and Greens, Homemade Sauerkraut, Coconut Oil, and What Do You See #22. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

What do you see #23. In this photo there are four edible species and one deadly species. Photo by Green Deane.