Wild edible plants, page 1

So i wanted to share some basic wild edible plants that are abundant in most parts of north america and many other parts of the world. I will list the names of these plants and then try to provide links to sites that will provide photos and info on these plants.

I should mention that wild foods are vastly superior in nutrition to even the most nutritious cultivated foods. I have been a full-time organic gardener for the last 5 years and i know that whatever i may grow in my garden is nothing compared to the wild plants that grow among and around the cultivated plants and required no effort at all on my part to grow.

Nuts

Nuts will provide you with large amounts of fat and protein as well as many other essential vitamins and minerals. Here is a good link to a site that provides information on all these different types of nuts:www.motherearthnews.com...

Acorns

Acorns have always been a staple food for indigenous cultures around the world, they are extremely nutritious but may require a little preparation to remove the bitter tannins.

Pecans

I have many full grown pecans on my property yielding hundreds of pounds of nuts in the fall. These trees were intentionally planted but here in the south you will find them growing wild everywhere whether they were intentionally planted or spread there seed naturally.

Walnuts

I also have a few of these here on the property. They can be tough to crack and the taste of the black walnut is a little strange in my opinion but they are extremely nutritious.

Hickory Nuts

Very similar to walnuts these trees are about as common as the oaks that produce acorns. We have many of these on our property as well. It can be difficult to fish out the nut-meat inside of the shell but i have read that the natives used to smash up the entire nut, shell and all, and throw everything in some boiling water. After awhile the shells sink while the good nut-meat floats and can be skimmed off.

Beechnuts: American beech (Fagus grandifolia)

"Beechnuts have a thin shell that you can peel off with a fingernail. The flesh is sweet and nutritious: nearly 20% protein! Fresh nuts spoil quickly, though, so dry them in full sun for a day or two (you or the family dog will have to stand guard over them), or roast them in a slow oven."

Chestnuts and Chinquapins

"Your chances of coming across a nut-bearing American chestnut (Castanea dentata) are almost nil, but no article on edible wild nuts is complete without mention of this once-great tree. Less than 100 years ago, stands of majestic chestnuts, some specimens measuring in excess of 120 feet tall and six feet around, covered a range of more than 200 million acres east of the Mississippi, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Gathering bushels of sweet, fresh chestnuts—which were reportedly far superior in taste to the Italian and Chinese chestnuts we eat now—was a traditional autumn activity. Today, except for a few isolated specimens, all the great trees are gone, the victims of chestnut blight, a fungus carried to this country at the turn of the century on planting stock imported from the Orient."

Pine Nuts

"What the West lacks in deciduous nut-bearing trees it more than makes up for with nut-bearing pines. Among the different species native to the West that produce delicious edible nuts are ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), Coulter pine (P. coulteri), sugar pine (P. lambertiana) and Digger pine (P. sabiniana). Some of these produce enormous quantities of edible kernels; the sugar pine, for example, produces huge cones up to 18 inches long and four inches across, packed with seeds."

Hazelnuts


"You will find American hazelnuts along the eastern regions of the United States and Canada from March through September. Search and gather edible hazelnuts in shady wooded areas, along the borders of forests, alongside streams and in open fields and prairies."


Berries www.motherearthnews.com...

Blackberries
Raspberries
Blueberries
Mulberries
Strawberries
Elderberries
Huckleberries
Hackberry
Service Berries
Choke cherries
Autumn Berries(Eleagnus)
Hawthorn Berries
Cranberries
Wild Cherries
Bunchberries
Rose hips
Sumac Berries

Fruit

Wild plums
Apples
Pears
Peaches
Persimmons
Grapes
Maypops(passion vine fruit)
crabapple

Vegetables

Greens:

Lambsquarters: Greens and seed
Amaranth( Pigweed): Greens and seed
Dandelion: Every part- root,greens, flowers and seeds
Chicory:greens and roots
Wild Garlic/onions/chives: Greens and tubers
Plaintain: Greens
Sheep Sorrel:Greens
Wood Sorrel: Greens (Very good. tastes like sour candy)
Stinging Nettles: Greens
Wood Nettles: greens
Dock: Roots and greens
Burdock: Roots and greens
Salsify: Roots and greens
Wild lettuce
Wild carrot: Roots and greens
Parsnip: Roots
Greenbriar: shoots and roots
Cattail: Every part depending on time of year.
Wapato: Tubers, grows around water
Cactus: Flowers, pads, and fruit (after removing thorns and glochids)
Thistle: greens, stalks,root


These are just some of the basics. Of course you should always make a positive identification before eating any plant as some are very poisonous. I just wanted to provide a basic list of plants that each of you can look up and learn more about on your own.

Here are some books that i highly recommend:

'The Foragers Harvest' and 'Natures Garden' by Samuel Thayer
All of Euell Gibbons' books
Steve Brill has a few good books
Peterson field guides are good books to help identify plants
'The Encyclopedia of Edible Plants of North America: Nature's Green Feast'

Some good websites:

www.eattheweeds.com
foragersharvest.com...
foragingpictures.com...

I tried to keep this thread short and basic but i welcome any other info you would all like to contribute to this thread and hopefully we can all work together to learn more about the gifts of nature all around us.

reply to post by emeris

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It might not be on topic but I can tell you what not to eat. Nightshade berries, oleander roots, poinse..ttia (I think any part of it.), mistletoe, the red berries from the Yew plant. Come to think of it I think you can eat juniper berries. This is just off the top of my head. I hope it helps.

Here's the best website on wild edible foods. hands down. Green Deane - www.eattheweeds.com...

Here's some threads and posts about wild edibles that I've done some may find useful.

Wild Edible Plants - A guide to safe gathering and usage -www.abovetopsecret.com...

Plantain - www.abovetopsecret.com...

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) -
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Acorns as food -
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Yucca -
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Oh man i just noticed this... i started making this thread earlier then accidentally hit the backspace button and i thought i lost the post so i started it again. If you look youll find the full thread here

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by jimmiec

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Ive actually been looking at getting that book (i live in Georgia). but i may only need one called 'Native American Ethnobotany' its $40.00 but apparently contains all recorded knowledge of native americans regarding plants and their uses.

reply to post by emeris

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I think I might have that book and it's terrific but I wouldn't use it as a reference for medical purposes. The names given are often confused and not standard scientific names. It's pretty exhaustive though and covers many plants and illnesses and treatments given by different tribes.
Is the author a guy named Vogel?

reply to post by Razimus

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Yeah id like to learn more about mushrooms. The only one i'm sure enough about to eat are puffballs. They grow all over around here. Although in my younger days i learned to recognize several of the more taboo kinds of mushrooms i need to learn more about those used strictly as food

mushrooms are very nutritional, but like you said they are not to be played around with. Death-caps for instance can slowly kill you over a 10-day period. Others can simply destroy your health for the rest of your life. But find a local expert on mushrooms and learn to positively i.d. at least a couple common mushrooms in your area.

reply to post by Asktheanimals

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No the author is Daniel E. Moerman.

You may be thinking of- 'The nature doctor: a manual of traditional and complementary medicine' By A. Vogel

reply to post by emeris

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I will look into that. the only thing i don't like about the book i have is that there are no pics of the plants and i don't feel comfortable not having a pic of something i might ingest. Does the book you recommend have pics?

reply to post by jimmiec

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All the books i recommended have pics but i would also go online and find as many pics as you can. Its always good if you can find someone locally who knows these things but thats not always possible and these people arent all-knowing and infallible. So your going to have to learn to go online and check books to learn to identify new plants.

A lot of these plants have very easily recognizable unique characteristics and once you see a picture theres really no mistaking them. Others are not so easy but with a little research you should be able to positively id them in the wild.

reply to post by Zarniwoop

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Oh yeah, Here on the property and really everywhere in Georgia one of the most common wild plants are blackberries. Look along the tree lines around forests theyre the thorny bushes and will start growing berries in the spring( after being covered in white flowers) and they will ripen within a month or 2 after that.

I actually meant to mention Pine needles and even the inner bark of pines as an extremely nutritious food. Both are packed with Vit C and the bark contains lots of fat and protein. With the needles you can either chew on a few needles and suck out the juice or you can use them to make tea. When you make tea chop the needles up real fine and then pour boiling water over them. Dont keep them boiling on the stove just steep them for 20 or so min. For the inner bark you can just cut a small branch from a tree discard of the rough outer bark and peel off sections of the soft inner bark.(this is just a thin layer covering the wood at the center. Dont eat the wood) And then you just chew the bark strips until they are softer than the consistency of gum and they'll start to dissolve in your mouth and at that point you can swallow.

The tea is actually really good, I like the tea. The bark is o.k. its nothing special but its not bad. But again they are very high in Vit C and the bark in fat and protein (and im sure many other important nutrients)

reply to post by emeris

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I wish my grandmother was still alive. She was part Cherokee and knew so much about nature. She carried a cricket in a matchbox to tell the temperature. She ran a 120 acre farm most of her life. Grandpa was a moonshiner and not much help farming. I wrote a story about her on ATS. It is really a true story. Search "Wheres Alice,we may need her" if you care to read about her and how they lived way back when. I still use a lot of her old time cures.

reply to post by jimmiec

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Whats this about the cricket in a matchbox???

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