Black Gum’s fall fruit are sour and bitter

 Nyssus: Tart Botanical Tangles

The Black Tupelo is an old friend from around ponds where I grew up in Maine to around ponds (called lakes) here in Florida. (In Maine a lake must be 10 acres or larger to be called a lake, otherwise it is officially a pond. In Florida if you can’t throw a baseball across it, it is a lake. If you can it’s exclusive waterfront.)

Ogeechee Tupelo juice used like lime juice

Like many trees, the Black Tupelo, also called the Black Gum tree and the Sour Gum, barely makes it into the edible realm. The pulp of its fruit is technically edible, extremely sour and extremely bitter, which is why it is usually used in sweetened preserves. Its sibling, the Water Tupelo is likewise edible as is the Ogeechee Lime, another Tupelo. The juice of the latter is used like… lime juice.

Depending on who is doing the counting there are seven species in the genus, five in the North America, or nine to eleven total (and here you thought botany was a settled science void of monumental egos.) The most common one is Nyssa sylvatia, which is joined by Nyssa aquatica in the Southern states, or the Black Tupelo and the Water Tupelo respectively. While the Black Tupelos favor eastern North American then can grow quite well on the west coast of the U.S. The Ogeechee Lime (N. ogeche) however grows in a crescent from Massachusetts into the South, across the lower states, then up to southern Canada.

Water Tupelo’s broad base helps keeps it stable

Most have horizontal or hanging branches and broad alternate leaves and are either male or female. The Black Tupelo, which has many 90-degree branches from the trunk, likes to have its feet in damp dirt. The Water Tupelo prefers to be in water. The Black Tupelo is deciduous, slow growing to 50′ tall and 30’ wide. Over time it forms a flat top with horizontal branches that may droop. Its leaves are generally elliptical and arranged alternately along the stems. The leaves are 3”-6” long and 1.5”-3” wide, and can have a wavy edge. Flowers are generally small and not notable. The female of the species has half-inch long dark blue-black fruit in the fall around when the leaves turn scarlet, purple, and yellow.

A variety of the Black Tupelo is called the Swamp Black Tupelo (N. sylvatica, var. biflora.) It grows in swamps along the east coast and in the Deep South.  However some botanists think the swamp version is a different species and call it Nyssa biflora. And just to make that more complicated there is Nyssa ursine, the Bear Tupelo, which some think is a variety of N. biflora. So in this paragraph there might be one species and two variations, two species and one variation, or three species.

The Water Tupelo (N. aquatica), also called the Cotton Gum, or Swamp Gum, grows in — taah-daah — swamps of the southeastern and gulf coasts states and in the Mississippi River valley to southern Illinois. It grows in pure stands or in with bald cypress and other swamp trees. The Water Tupelo can reach 100 feet tall and its trunk is conspicuously enlarged at the base.

There is one aspect about the Water Tupelos range that prompts fascinating speculation. Its natural range comes down the east coast from the Carolinas, then diagonally across southern Georgia to the panhandle of Florida then west and up the Mississippi River valley. What’s intriguing about that is before there was a Central America (and thus no Gulf of Mexico say geologists) Florida was an island off Georgia. A channel — the Suwannee Channel — flowed north across what is now southern Georgia emptying in to the Atlantic. When the sea level dropped that low spot stayed wet but with fresh water and that is where one finds the Water Tupelo crossing Georgia into Florida. If that is a coincidence, it’s a good one.

The Ogeechee Lime (N. ogeche) is one of the rarer North American tupelo but has the largest range, from Cape Cod to the old South, across the southern US and then up the west coast to Washington State and southern Canada. It produces edible fruits. Often found in flooded sites in the southeastern U.S. the fruit is very sour and has been used as a lime substitute.

In the Dogwood family, Tupelos are also found in Mexico, China and Malaysia. They are famous for their monofloral (one flower) honey. Indeed the honey of the Ogeechee Lime doesn’t crystalize because of its high ratio of fructose to glucose. The center for Tupelo honey production is the Apalachicola River in the panhandle of Florida. Because of its rarity and singularity compared to other honeys it is a million-dollar business.

Tupelo wood, usually from the water tupelo, is pale yellow to light brown, fine-textured, strong, and hard to split when dry.  It is used for crates and boxes, flooring, wooden utensils, and veneers. The fluted base of the Water Tupelo is especially favored by carvers. Birds that feed off Tupelo fruit include the American Robin, Swainson’s Thrush, Gray-cheeked Thrush, Hermit Thrush, Wood Thrush, Cardinal, Mockingbird, Blue Jay, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Flicker, Pileated Woodpecker, Eastern Phoebe, Brown Thrasher, Eastern Bluebird, European Starling, Scarlet Tanager, Catbird, Cedar Waxwing, and the  Crow.

The genus name, Nyssa (NISS-ah)  refers to mythical water nymphs, read a fondness for wet places. Nysa was a water nymph and nurse to Bacchus.  Sylvatia  (sil-VAHT-ee-kuh) means of the woods. Aquatica (ah-KWA-tee-kuh) is living in water. Ogeche (oh-GEE-chee) is from Ogeechee, which is Creek for “our mother.” That species was first discovered by the white man — William Bartram — on the Ogeechee River, which is the longest river in Georgia.

Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile

IDENTIFICATION: Considerable variations. Except for the N. ursine, the tupelo is a tree with horizontal branches at right angles, leaves simple, alternation along the stem. Some in damp soil, others in water, fruit from round and dark blue to long and dark red to blue. Sour. Flowers small. Species ranged from 5 feet high to 100 feet high. N. ursine is basically a shrub of limited distribution in a few counties of western Florida.

TIME OF YEAR: Fruits usually in September or October

ENVIRONMENT: Damp soil or in water

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Berries can be chewed like gum (without the stone.) Used to make preserved. The Ogeechee Lime juice can be used like lime juice.

Traveler’s Plam is related to the banana and Bird of Paradise

Ravenala madagascariensis: Palm, NOT!

The Traveler’s Palm is reportedly known for providing wayfarers water, but it also has some food to offer as well.

Traveler Palms are tall-growing.

Related to the bananas and the Bird of Paradise, the Traveler’s Palm does indeed capture water at the base of its fan-like leaves, up to a quart per leaf. But it is usually buggy and or fermented from various debris caught there. A thirsty traveler would have to be desperate and hopefully have something available to strain the water with.

A better source of liquid is the sap, which can be tapped from the base of leaf stalks. It can also be boiled down to a syrup.  Young leaves of the palm are edible cooked, but bitter. The starchy young fruit is edible as well. Its other claim to edible fame is the fuzzy metallic blue aril on the seeds are edible though tasteless. The mealy oily seeds are also edible.

The distinct blossoms are easy to find. 

However, the oil content of the seeds and arils is 4% and 68%, respectively. The oils in composition is intermediate between palm oil and cocoa butter (oleic acid 39% and palmitic acid 34–42%.) As oil is very important and one of the more difficult foraging needs to meet.

One odd aspect about the palm from Madagascar is that it is the only species in its genus, Ravenala madagascariensis, like the Nandina and Florida Pennyroyal which is Piloblephis rigida. Ravenala is what the Madagascarians call the plant.

Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile

Mealy seeds contain nutritious oil

IDENTIFICATION: A large and erect palm-like plant that can grow to 75 feet tall and two feet through. It’s crown looks like a gigantic flat fan comprised of many 10-foot long banana-like leaves. Its large green fan-shaped flower are borne in cluster and can be  to three feet long. Leaf stalks have been used to make paper.

TIME OF YEAR: Year round.

ENVIRONMENT: Very adaptable but will not tolerate any salt conditions. Partial shade, or full sun.

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Seeds and arils raw or cooked, young leaves cooked, young fruit cook (but they get woody quickly.) Sap can be made in to syrup or sugar.

Prefers to grow in water or mud

   Peltandra virginica: Starch Storer

You wouldn’t think there would be a connection between the United States’ Capital and a toxic bog plant, but there is. Much of the fine, white marble in Washington DC came from quarries in Tuckahoe, N.Y., north of Yonkers. Tuckahoe was named for one of the staple vegetables of the Indians in the area, now called Arrow Arum or Peltandra virginica (pel-TAN-dra vir-JIN-ee-ca.) It’s a plant with a rhizome laced with a toxin though the Indians knew how to get rid of. That Tuckahoe should be named after the Tuckahoe is not unusual in that Sag Harbor on Long Island was named after the Sagabon, another local root now called Apios americana, or Ground Nut or Hopniss. It, too, has to be cooked to be edible. See my article on it here.

The Arrow Arum, or Tuckahoe, likes still or slow moving waters: Ponds, swamps, marshes, and the banks of streams. It can grow in full sun to shade. Its native range is from east Texas to Florida north to the Great Lakes and southern Maine, though I did not see it there too often. It also is also established in California and Oregon. On the move, it has been located in spots in Minnesota, Kansas, Iowa, and southeastern Canada. In northern climes it goes dormant in winter; in the South, it stays green unless we get a frost or freeze.

Dry heat destroys the burning chemical

Like other aroids the Tuckahoe is toxic and has raphides of calcium oxalate, microscopic needle-shaped crystals that cause severe swelling and a burning sensation as they puncture the membranes of the lips, mouth, throat, tongue, fingers et cetera. Swallowing too much of it can be a fatal mistake, though that is rare these days. The chemical can clog up your kidneys but that, too, rarely happens because of the one-minute after eating burning sensation. Like most aroids, this is a living-in-the-wild, long-term survival food. However, rid of the raphides the Tuckahoe is an excellent source of starch, very necessary for living off the land.

The raphides can be destroyed by very long cooking, heating or drying. The rhizome starch was dried and ground for making breads and soups. The spadix, fruit, and seeds were considered delicacies (after cooking them some nine hours or drying them and then cooking them for hours.)  William Bartram reported that the Indians ate the long-boiled spadix and berries as a luxury. They have a hint of cocoa flavor. The growth dynamic is the plant produces berries then bends over and literally buries the blackish green seeds in the mud. (Sometimes the seeds can be yellowish.)

What most foraging books don’t tell you is the plant can be a chore to dig up. The starchy payoff is worth it but it is more a shovel forageable than a hand-dug one, though I have done that. If you are going to dig it up by hand I recommend elbow-length tough dishwashing gloves. The rhizome is covered in spaghetti like rootlets and thousands of small hair-like roots. It also likes to grow horizontally between one and two feet down in wet soil. It does not give up easily and often the mud it is in is… ah… aromatic.

Like the Jack-in-the-Pulpit the best use is to slice it up and dry it for a few months. It can also be roasted in an oven for a day or more, which is not cost effective. The Indians would collect them, bury them in the ground, build a huge fire over them and cook them for a day or more. Tuckahoe also respond to microwaving but it is hard to get the right timing between made safe to eat and turning to charcoal. However, microwaving them some shortens the drying time to edibility significantly. I nuke the slices one minute to 90 seconds and then let them sit until edible, which can be immediately to a few weeks.

Another technique I’ve used is my solar oven. I peel the roots and put them in whole. It takes about 10 hours of solar drying over two days to make them edible, though hard. I haven’t tried making them into chips and using a shorter amount of time.

The edibility test is the same for the Jack-in-the-Pulpit. To test them: Chew a quarter-inch square piece on one side of your mouth for a full minute then spit it out and wait ten minutes. And I mean chew for a minute and I mean wait ten minutes and I mean one side of your mouth (to limit the area that burns.)  The effect can be quite delayed. If the calcium oxalate is still present it will make one side of your mouth burn, and your tongue and lips. That can last up to a half an hour or so. If no burn, try a bigger piece the same way. If no burn then, you’re ready to go. You can eat the dry chips as is, or grind them up as a flour. If you air dried them they can be used as a thickener. If you dried them at over 150F they can be used as a flour but not as a thickener because the starch will have already been cooked.

Peltandra is from the Greek words pelte for “small shield” referring to the leaves, and andros meaning “man” referring to shape of stamen standing in the spathe. Virginica, literally means of Virginia but botanically it means of North America   It takes about 500 of its seeds to weigh a pound. Those seeds are a favorite food of rails, muskrats, wood ducks and black ducks. The Tuckahoe is also sometimes called “duck corn” after the seeds. Colonies provide cover for deer, beaver, muskrat, snakes, turtles, frogs, dragonflies, and fish.

Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile

IDENTIFICATION: Long, fleshy, arrowhead-shaped green leaves with pronounced veins on the undersides, the veins are parallel, radiating from the sides of the main veins. There also are a few spaced larger veins also parallel, two near the back of the leaf, see photo above, middle leaf.  Leaves can be wavy along the edge and up to 18 inches long and nearly six inches wide. The plant can be up to a yard high. The rhizome is thick and grows horizontally about a foot down or more.  A possible similar looking plant –when not in flower — is the Sagittaria but it has veins running from one point and the flower is three petaled white, whereas the Tuckahoe has a spike in a sheath that splits on one side. The spathe is four to seven inches long with many tiny yellow-green flowers on it, male part is on top, female part that produces the seeds on bottom. In northern areas don’t confuse the Tuckahoe with the water arum, Calla palustris which has heart-shaped leaves, a very white spathe and red berries (though it has roots that are edible after similar but more extensive rendering. (See article on Calla palustris elsewhere on site.)

TIME OF YEAR: Year round though best in early spring before seasonal growth or fall after seasonal growth.

ENVIRONMENT: Wet areas similar to cattails. Can grow in large colonies in shallow or slow-moving waterways, such as bogs, swamps and marshes. Will also grow in semi-dry well-flooded areas

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Method: Long term drying, long term roasting, microwaving and drying. Always tastes test twice before use.  Peel the roots before you dry them, and you might want to consider wearing gloves when you peel them.

Tulip field in Holland

Tulips: Famine Food, Appetizer Assistant

Many years ago a social acquaintance upon learning I ate weeds said she and her mother had eaten tulip bulbs. If I remember correctly they had dug them up and weren’t going to plant them again so they decided to eat them. She said they boiled them and ate them like onions. She reported the tulips bulbs were good… until they had to go to the hospital.

Tulip Semper Augustus.

That’s one of the problems with tulips. You read they are edible but then you meet someone who ate them and ended up in the hospital. Death from tulip bulb consumption (via a glycoside) is rare but it has happened, particularly in World War II.

A few years after my acquaintance’s comment I was interviewing a businessman who had an import store. At one point he mentioned he was from Holland. Without thinking I asked him quite innocently if he ever ate tulip bulbs. His countenance change and I knew I had crossed some line and the interview as essentially over. He said yes, as a boy, he was forced to eat tulips bulbs to survive War War II. As out of place as my question might have been, he did not mention getting ill.

Let’s see if we can clear up the issue of edibility. This is from the book “The Hunger Winter: Occupied Holland, 1944-1945” by Henrie A. van der Zee, pages 149-150.

“Another ‘delicacy’ the Dutch devoured was tulip bulbs. At the beginning of the war doctors had pronounced the bulbs fit for human consumption, but withdrew this in 1942. In the winter of 1944-45 they were rediscovered, and the Office for Food Supply again published some booklets to tell the Dutch how to handle the bulbs. ‘They  contain a lot of starch’

Remove the yellow core before cooking

they told us, ‘and when cooked their consistency will be slightly mealy.’ It was impossible to say how many bulbs were needed for the recipes that followed, but we were advised to peel them, cut them in half and remove the bitter little yellow core. Almost everybody tried it out and nobody liked them, but the Dutch saying ‘Hunger sweetens even raw beans’ was now more true than ever, and Dr. Mees discovered that the bulbs were ‘not too bad’ when boiled like potatoes… Rather better was tulip soup, the authorities had advised. ‘Take one litre of water, 1 onion, 4-6 tulip bulbs, some seasoning and salt… one teaspoon of oil and some curry-substitute. Cut up the onion and brown together with the oil and the curry. Add water and seasoning and bring to the boil, while grating the cleaned bulbs into the boiling liquid. Add salt to taste.’ It had virtually no nutritional value, but it filled the stomach. One had to be careful not to eat too many tulip bulbs as they could cause indigestion… Dahlia bulbs were also tried, but they never became as ‘popular’ as the tulip bulbs. One tulip grower later told an English journalist that he alone had sold 2500 tons of bulbs — ‘crocuses for coffee, daffodils and hyacinths for fodder, and tulips for the humans.'”

Here’s another personal account, this time from Father Leo Zonneveld, who was a boy during the occupation and whose father grew tulips.

Father Leo

Father Leo Zonneveld as a boy

“Trading was very important because there was nothing in the stores to buy, only empty shelves. Money had no value. Of course, there was the black market, but you didn’t dare do anything in public. Father would trade a lot in the beginning, especially with the dairy farmers; however, the last year of the war, there was nothing left to trade. That last part of the war was called the “Hunger Winter.” Even though much of Western Europe had been liberated from Nazis control, Holland remained under their firm grip. I remember the hunger. We were forced to eat tulip bulbs and sugar beets because there was no other food. Bread made from tulips is not very good; I can tell you that! The skin of the bulb is removed, pretty much like an onion, and so is the center, because that is poisonous. Then it is dried and baked in the oven. My mother or older sisters would grind the bulbs to a meal-like consistency. Then they would mix the meal with water and salt, shape it like a meatloaf, and bake it. I can still remember the taste of it: like wet sawdust. Sugar beets were usually thrown to the hogs, but that winter we ate them, too. We still shared tulip bulbs and sugar beets with those with hand-drawn carts who continued to go from door to door. I think seeing my mother still give to the hungry at this time, even though we had very little, made me want to be a missionary: To help people, especially in China or the Philippines who were a lot worse off than we were.” 

Tulips fields from the air

From these two personal accounts you know two things. Tulip bulbs are a famine food, and they must be prepared correctly, that is the centers must be removed. Fortunately tulip petals are more edible. The petals can be eaten raw or cooked but loose much of their color when cooked. They can have many flavors: Bland, beans, peas, and cucumbers. Pink, peach and white blossoms are the sweetest, red and yellow the most flavorful. While you can use them to garnish salads their more common use is to hold appetizers or dip. If you use the entire blossom cut off the pistil and stamens from the center of the blossom. The ends of the petals can also be bitter so cut them off as well when used individually.

There is one other word of caution. Some people are quite allergic to tulips and they also cause a common dermatitis problem among florists called “tulip fingers.”

Botanically most tulips are varieties of Tulipa gesneriana, named for Conrad von Gessner, 16th century naturalist and father of bibliography. Tulipa is pronounced TOO-lee-pah and means turban. Gesneriana is said jes-ner-ee-AY-nuh. Incidentally not all species of Tulipa need to be cooked. The Bedouins ate T. amblyophylla raw. And tulips also show  up in heraldry now and then, most noticeably in the coat of arms of Raphael. There a bay horse holds tulips in its mouth.

Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile

IDENTIFICATION: A perennial that grown from a bulb. Can be from four to 28 inches high, usually one flower per stem. The flower has three petals and three sepals which are often darker at the base. They are produced in several colors except blue. They have six distinct stamens. Seed capsules have disc-shaped seeds in two rose per chamber. The stem has few leaves. What leaves there are are strap shaped, waxy, and alternate around the stem

TIME OF YEAR: Usually spring.

ENVIRONMENT: Well-drained soil, temperate climates with long, cool springs and early summers.

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Blossoms raw or cooked. Bulbs cooked AFTER removal of outer skin and inner flower bud.  Eating too many tulip bulbs can cause indigestion.