Sesuvium portulacastrum: Maritime Munch

Young sea purslane

It looks like garden purslane on steriods growing in sand. And it grows all over the local beach, and other beaches in the South and as far north as the Delaware River in Pennsylvania.

Sesuvium portulacastrum (sess-SOO-vee-um por-too-luh-KASS-strum) was widely used by Native Americans. The stems were eaten raw or pickled, or cooked in two or more changes of water to reduce its saltiness. Often these days it’s found in Asians markets. One of the best-kept secrets of sea purslane is that it is a rich source of ecdysterone. Haven’t heard of ecdysterone? It’s an important chemical for molting insects and crustaceans. But, in humans it is reported to enhance athletic performance. That should make foragers out of jocks.

The blossoms stays open only one day

The lowly sea purslane forms an important and primary function in dune creation. Salt tolerant, it sets roots just above the high tide line. Sand-carrying wind hits the plant, slows slightly and drops the sand it is carrying. That helps build the dune and in time bring in other plants.

It is also found down the coasts of Mexico and South America to islands across the Pacific, Australia, Africa and Europe. As for Pennsylvania, it was found in Philadelphia county there in 1865, and presumed to still be thereabouts. On the west coast of the United States (and the salty desert southwest interior) your edible sea purslane is Sesuvium verrucosum.

It is a nice, salty, trail-side nibble. The word Sesuvium comes from the country of the Sesuvii, which was a Gallic tribe mentioned by Caesar. Why the plant was named after that is unknown. Portulacastrum means like the Portulaca, or purslane. In fact Sesuvium was originally put in the same genus as purslane but then got it own genus.

Sea purslane cooks up nice and tender, including the thick stems (remove old dead leaves first.) I’ve never found it too be salty. That said, raw, to me, it has a slightly bitter after taste, but not as strong as a raw yucca blossom. Actually it is a back-of-the-throat feeling that is between slightly puckery and slightly bitter… Easily ignored, and goes away. Cooked it looses that distraction. The older stems can be fibrous though tasty. I chew the pulp off the fiber and spit out the fiber.

Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile

IDENTIFICATION: Herbaceous perennial, thick, fleshy leaves narrow to slender obovate on succulent, reddish-green stems, branching regularly forming dense low-growing stands. Five-petaled flowers, small, showy pink, year round, Each flower opens for just a few hours each day. Leave up to more than an inch long.  S. maritima very similar  but leaves are no more than an inch long and are oblong to spatulate oblong.

TIME OF YEAR: Available year round

ENVIRONMENT: Along coastlines, grows on the ocean side of dunes to the high tide mark.

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Raw, pickled, cooked in two changes of water or more to reduce saltiness

Genipa clusiifolia: An Acquired Taste

Unripe and ripe fruit

Like a Suriname Cherry, you’ll either find the Seven Year Apple edible or disgusting. In fact, a lot of folks can’t get past the looks of the fruit.

The Genipa clusiifolia (JEN-ni-puh kloo-si-FOH-lee-uh ) fruit is edible only when black ripe, and then only the pulp, not the seeds. It’s actually a berry the size of a lime. You “eat” it by poking a hold in the tough rind and sucking out the pulp. (Again, don’t eat the seeds, they will make you throw up.)  The flavor reminds some of prunes, others of liquorish. Many find it  just plain awful.

While the great majority of the plants on this site are available throughout much of America, this is a South Florida, Caribbean native. Its Caribbean cousin, the Genipa americana, is used to make a common drink among the islands.  (Nutritional information on G. americana below.)

Fruit goes fromg green to yellow then spotted ending black and shriveled

Genipa is a latinized form of the Guyanian phrase nandi’pab meaning a “dark color on the chest.” It was used as a body dye among natives of South American.  A metabolite in the pulp (iridiod genipin) turns black on contact with human protein and lasts for about three weeks. When used on fabric it’s a blue/purple dye. Juice from the green fruit has been used externally to treat syphilis. Clusiifolia relates to the resemblance of the leaves to the Clusia, a common tropical, subtropical shrub.  For a century or so its name was Casasia clusiifolia (CASS-see-uh kloo-see-if-FOLE-ee-uh) and is still found under that name in many references. It honored a Captain General of Cuba, Louis de las Casas.

Seven Year Apple blossom

The common name, Seven Year Apple, is an exaggeration of how long the fruit takes to ripen, 10 months. The tree itself is in fruit year round. It’s the larval hose of the Tantalus Sphinx moth. As a tree, the wood is dark brown or reddish brown, closed grained, very heavy and hard. The bark is mostly smooth and gray. It provides cordage that can be used to make rough cloth. The wood, particularly of the G. americana,  has been used for spears, rifle stocks, shoe lasts, frames for sieves, barrel hoops, ammunition chests, boxes, packing cases, plows, tool handles, flooring boards, door frames and cabinetwork.

Stipules opposite leaves

The trees are in the Rubiaceae family and are closely related to the Gardenia; several Gardenia species were originally placed in Genipa genus. The metabolite genipin mentioned above is also obtained from the gardenia and is used in Chinese medicine to treat type 2 diabetes.

Evergreen, this shrub or small tree is one of Florida’s most exceptional native, salt-tolerant plants. It will grow right up to the first dune near the ocean. The leaves are glossy, leathery, and clustered near the branch tips. Flowers are clusters of white, pink-tipped blossom that show in spring and early summer. They have a very sweet, heavy fragrance. The fruits are green then yellow then spotted brown and finally black. While humans are divided on the taste of the Seven Year Apple mockingbirds love the emetic seeds and leave hollowed out black fruit skins hanging on the tree.

The fruit of the G. clusiifolia can be used like the fruit of the G. americana. In Puerto Rico, the G. ameriana is sliced up and put in a jar of water with sugar to make a drink like lemonade, occasionally it is allowed to ferment some. A concentrate is served with ice by street vendors. In the Philippines it is used to make jelly, sherbet and ice cream. The ripe pulp can be a substitute for commercial pectin. In rural Brazil they use it to make preserves, syrup, a soft drink, genipapada, wine, and a potent liqueur.

Food Value per 100 g of Edible Portion:  Calories 113, Moisture 67.6 g, Protein 5.2 g, Lipids 0.3 g, Glycerides, 25.7 g, Fiber 9.4 g, Ash 1.2 g, Calcium 40.0 mg, Phosphorus, 58.0 mg, Iron 3.6 mg, Vitamin B 0.04 mg, Vitamin B2 0.04 mg, Niacin  0.50 mg, Ascorbic Acid 33.0 mg, Amino Acids (per g of nitrogen [N 6.25]) Lysine 316 mg, Methionine 178 mg, Threonine, 219 mg, Tryptophan 57 mg.

Green Deane’s “Itemized Profile”

IDENTIFICATION: Shrub or small tree to 10 feet,  pale bark, leaves elliptical with edges recurved, two to six inches long, leathery, very glossy, clustered at the ends of branches. Flowers tubular, five white petals, an inch wide, often pink tipped and fragrant like jasmine. Fruit oval, two to three inches long, often dark spotted, then entirely black, jelly like pulp.

TIME OF YEAR: All Year

ENVIRONMENT: Can be found in the mainland, keys, coastal hammocks and sand dunes

METHOD OF PREPARATION: A hole is made in the fruit and the pulp sucked out. Do not eat the seeds. A drink can be made from the pulp. It can also be made into jelly and jam if you like the taste. The fruit is often used for fish bait.

Silver head in blossom

Blutaparon vermiculare: Beach Potherb

My first thought on seeing Silverweed “was what is clover doing growing on the beach.” Well, Silverweed isn’t a clover and I soon noticed it didn’t look like clover close up, but the association was made. The next headache was what was it called.

Silvehead can crawl over low obstacles

Some writers call it Samphire, but there are several seaside plants called that now. Saltweed is also common, and again several maritime plants are called that now. That leaves Silverweed and Silverhead. There are quite a few Silverweeds as well, so Silverhead it is. Botanically, it has changed names as well. It is currently Blutaparon vermiculare (blew-tap-AIR-on ver-mick-you-LAIR-ee) That means “near Amaranth wormlike.” Bluta is from the Latin word blitum for Amaranth. Paron or para is Greek for near. Vermiculare is Latin for “breeding worms.” In this case it is referring to how the plant grows along the ground. A second opinion says Blutaparon is a corruption of the Latin phrase volutum laparum which means “loose climber” and indeed it is often found climbing on driftwood and other plants nearby.

Like the amaranth, it’s in that family, the B. vermiculare provides leaves and stems are used for the herb pot.  Consider it already salted greens. No reports of it being eaten raw by humans. It is commonly fed to chickens in warmer parts of the world.  Should you be unable to find in books the plant used to be called Philoxerus vermicularis…. dry loving worm breeder.

Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile

IDENTIFICATION: Succulent, creeping, prostrate herb with branches one to six feet long. Leaves opposite, spindly or club shaped, from narrow to 3/8 inch wide, one half to 1.5 inches long, thick, fleshy. Flowers silvery white, a dense round or oblong spike. Fruit oval, flat, dark brown, the seed is glossy.

TIME OF YEAR: Generally year round

ENVIRONMENT: Dunes, waste places, inshore from mangrove thickets, keys and mainland.

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Stems and leaves boiled.

Skunk Vine's Lavender and White Blossoms

Paederia foetida: Much Maligned Skunk Vine

Sometimes botanists go a little too far, or at least Carl Linnaeus did when he named a particular vine Paederia foetida  (pay-DEER-ree-ah FET-uh-duh). It must have really offended him because that means, in English, stinking opals. Its common name is “skunk vine.” A close cousin, Paederia cruddasiana, found locally only in Dade County in south Florida, is called the Sewer Vine.  I’m not convinced such names are deserved.

"Pearl-like" Skunk Vine fruit

Paederia is from the Greek word paederos meaning opals, for some of the species have translucent drupes. (Some say Paederia comes from the Latin paedor meaning filth or stench, but that would be over kill and I think the Greek is more realistic, particularly in conjugating, though dirty-minded Carl was not past using double entendres.)  Foetida means stinking. So stinking opals, or stinking filth, sums it up. Leaves can be eaten raw or cooked. The odor goes away on cooking but a slight bitterness remains. The leave are rich in carotine and Vitamin C.

Almost every website you go to — no, every website  you go to — says it smells awful. One gets the impression one has to hold ones nose to eat it cooked, and raw it would just about make you gag. As my late father would say, “it must stink to high heavens.” The Japanese are not poetic at all about it and cut to the chase: They call it the “fart vine” the Chinese the “chicken shit” vine.  I have shoveled a lot of chicken manure, and the P. foetida does not smell that bad.  But to be frank the aroma is more like someone who needs a bath than someone who has bad gas. I couldn’t get much smell out of some of the leaves I collected recently until I accidently ran over one with my desk chair. I certainly had the right plant. To me it is a persistent aroma but low grade… similar to kim chee but no where near as strong… call it kim chee lite…

I think the folks who write about the plant on the internet have never met it personally. It is aromatic but there are a couple of local edibles that smell far worse, the Passafloria incarnata and the Momordica charantia come to mind. Those two smell like moldy old gym shoes that have been in a damp high school locker for a few months with some underwear. To me the P. foetida raw smells and tastes similar to raw broccoli. Indeed, both plants get their aromas from sulfur compounds, the P. foetida specifically from carbon disulphide (some say dimethyl disulfide.) I don’t find the plant offensive raw and not at all when cooked, which is a good thing because there is a lot of it.

Paederia foetida was imported from Asia by the USDA to its Brooksville Field Station in Hernando County Florida before 1897. The reason given was that it was a potential fiber plant — read wild twine when you need it. Western nations had shown an interest in Paedera’s fine fiber since at least 1873. As for Brooksville, that area of the state was ground zero for several imported Asian plants later to be troublesome. By 1916 P. foetida had become a local nuisance. You would have thought they had learned their lesson but in 1905 they imported the Dioscorea bulbifera (air potato) to Orlando and let it crawl over the state. By 1933 the Skunk Vine was escaping the region via all points north, east and south. In 1977 it was recognized as an economic problem and is now found in all southern states though the USDA official maps don’t show that. Indeed, I have located it in several places in the county I live in yet the USDA says it does not exist in my county. In fact, it grows in my yard and I didn’t plant it. I sometimes think the USDA maps are a century out of date. And, if you write and tell them the maps are inaccurate about a particular plant in return for letting them know you get a load of bureaucratic fertilizer for your efforts. I wrote extensively to one agent about a tree and he wrote back telling me to write to him about the tree… With such federal employees on the job I don’t sleep well at night.

In 1999 the state of Florida estimated it cost $4,006 per acre to remove Skunk Vine ($5,138 in 2009 dollars.) The state has tried unsuccessfully for seven years to find an importable insect to prey on the two species of Paederia it has. So far the bugs also like a trio of native plants as well so no go. The Paederia, by the way, is the host plant of the Macroglossum sitiene Walker moth. Mockingbirds like its seeds, which I think explains how it got to my yard after 10 years of not being there.

There are some 50 species of Paederia, maybe 52, eleven in south China alone. I do not know the edibility of the others. Cornucopia II says of the P. feotida:  “Leaves eaten raw as a side-dish with rice, grated coconut and chili peppers. Minced leaves are steamed and eaten, added to soups, or mixed with various vegetables and spices, wrapped in a banana leaf and cooked over a fire.” I have them as cooked greens or salad additions. Since I use a lot of garlic, Paederia isn’t a noisome problem.

P. foetida is also called P. chinensis. P. scandens  and P. tomentosa. In Hawaii it is called maile pilau (the rotten maile.) Other names include:

Malaysia:         Akar sekentut, daun kentut, kesimbukan

English:           Chinese moon creeper, Chinese fevervine, king’s tonic

Indonesia:       Sembukan (Javanese), kahitutan (Sundanese), bintaos (Madurese)

Philippines:     Kantutai (Tagalog), bangogan (Bikol), mabolok (Pampangan)

Cambodia:       Vear phnom

Laos:               Kua mak ton sua

Thailand:         Kon, choh-ka-thue mue (northern), yaan phaahom (peninsular)

Vietnam:         D[aa]y m[ow] l[oo]ng, d[aa]y m[ow] tr[of]n, m[ow] tam th[eer]

Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile

IDENTIFICATION: A twining vine in the coffee family. At eye level it twines from your lower right to your upper left. young stems can be green, purplish- or reddish-brown, almost hairless to densely hairy. The old stems are yellowish-brown to grayish, smooth and shiny. Leaves opposite, occasionally whorls of three, lance to oval shape, abruptly tapering point, two to four inches long, conspicuous stipules. Stipules obvate to cordate, triangular, may nor may not have two notches at top. Leaves can be hairy and non-hairy, or hairy below, smooth above, or have tuffs of hair on the underside in axils of major veins. Leaves and stems have a disagreeable odor when crushed, flowers are small, grayish pink or lilac, in broad or long, curving clusters,  petals are joined to form a corolla with 5 spreading lobes. Fruits shiny yellow to brown, persists through winter, round, inside are two black seeds, round, often dotted with white, needle-shaped crystals. Seeds of the P. cruddasiana, which resembles the P. foetida, are oval, flattened and have little wings. To my knowledge the Cruddasiana is not edible.

TIME OF YEAR: Year round

ENVIRONMENT: Disturbed areas, tree gaps, may grow high into the trees creating dense canopies in a variety of habitats, mesic hammocks to xeric sand hill communities, prefers sunny flood plains and bottomlands, can even grow under water. Found in the southern United States, Hawaii, and as an escaped ornamental in warm areas of the world.

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Leaves raw or cooked.  The plant can be killed by chemicals so don’t collect where it might be sprayed such as along railroads, roads, bike paths or powerlines. It is used to make soups, is minced in steamed food.

 HERB BLURB

Long used in Indian folk medicine for aches and pains, a 2004 study in Bangladesh showed it has analgesic properties.  Nutritionally, besides, carotine and vitamin C, the P. foetida contains nonanoic acid, capric acid, lauric acid, myristic acid, arachidic acid, palmitic acid,conjugated dienoic acid and trieonic acid. It also has antioxidant activity. A 2005 study also showed it was good for lessening the symptoms of diarrhea. Traditionally it was used to treat dysentery but a 1991 study showed antibiotics worked better. Leaf juice mixed with garlic is a folk remedy for arthritis. Juice of the root is given for indigestion.