Basic Illustrated Edible Wild Plants and Useful Herbs

BASIC
ILLUSTRATED A BASIC
ILLUSTRATED
FALCON
Edible Wild Plants GUIDE®
and Useful Herbs Edible Wild Plants
Richly illustrated and information-packed tools
for the novice or handy reference for the veteran,
BASIC ILLUSTRATED books distill years of knowl-
and Useful Herbs
BASIC ILLUSTRATED
edge into affordable and visual guides. Whether
you’re planning a trip or thumbing for facts in the
field, the BASIC ILLUSTRATED series shows you
what you need to know.
Discover how to:

• Forage for and identify more than 150 wild
Edible Wild Plants and Useful Herbs

plants, herbs, and berries
• Prepare delicious recipes using your wild harvest
• Determine the identity of poisonous plants and
poisonous look-alikes
• Treat a variety of ailments and illnesses, from
colds to heart disease and more
• Moderate your intake of certain plants and
herbs to avoid physical illness
Jim Meuninck is a biologist and counselor who, for more than

thirty years, has studied the use of wild plants as food and
medicine in North America, Europe, Central America, Japan,
and China. He is the author of Medicinal Plants of North
America (FalconGuides) and lives on the shores of Eagle
Lake in Edwardsburg, Michigan.
Cover image of beebalm by Jim Meuninck
Jim Meuninck
FalconGuides ®
is an imprint of
Globe Pequot Press
BI_Wild PlantsHerbsCat.indd 1 3/4/13 12:31 PM

Basic Illustrated
Edible Wild Plants
and Useful Herbs
Jim Meuninck
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GUIDES ®
FALCONGUIDES
Copyright © 2013 Morris Book Publishing, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except
as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for
permission should be addressed to Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and
Permissions Department, PO Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437.
FalconGuides is an imprint of Globe Pequot Press.

Falcon, FalconGuides, and Outfit Your Mind are registered trademarks of Morris
Book Publishing LLC.
Photos: Jim Meuninck, except beargrass, page 85, licensed by Shutterstock
Text design: Sheryl P. Kober

Layout: Mary Ballachino
Project editor: Julie Marsh
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN 978-0-7627-8469-1
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The identification, selection, and processing of any wild plant for use as food requires reasonable
care and attention to details since, as indicated in the text, certain parts are wholly unsuitable
for use and, in some instances, are even toxic. Because attempts to use any wild plants for food
depend on various factors controllable only by the reader, the author and Globe Pequot Press
assume no liability for personal accident, illness, or death related to these activities.

Contents
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Wild Plant Foraging Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
Forager’s Dozen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Forager’s Dozen Mushrooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Yards, Gardens, Prairies, and Meadows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Fruit and Berries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Wetlands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Edible Plants of Eastern Forested Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Trees and Nuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Edible Plants of the Mountain West. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Edible Plants of the Desert. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97
Marine Vegetables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Appendix A: Poisonous Plants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Appendix B: Recipes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Appendix C: References and Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
About the Author. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

Acknowledgments
Feeling fortunate to have found this planet, I acknowledge it as my home and
promise to keep it clean, tread lightly on its floor, and thank it daily for all blessings
bestowed. I beg it to forgive my mistakes, ill manners, and careless recklessness. And
when each of my given days is complete, I promise to sit quiet and listen to the earth
sing, feel the air move, and revere all the green glory that is only found here.
But plants don’t write, edit, lay out, and produce books. That job went to
Jessica Haberman, Imee Curiel, Julie Marsh, Sheryl Kober, and the entire staff at
GPP/FalconGuides. And yes, John Kit, who helped me find the elusive persimmon.
Without your help, the plants described herein would not get their due. Your kind,
patient, and trusting approach coaxed these words from me, and your insightful
and imaginative creation forged them into a desirable and helpful tool for aspiring
foragers. Thank you!
iv

Introduction
Plants came first: They are the magic wand of God—with them, with the firmament
that supports them, we are possible. We eat plants, or eat animals that eat plants;
therefore from plant chemistry came our skin and bones, blood and muscle. They are
our food and medicine. In addition, they provide all the natural beauty, ambience,
and culinary delights of a good life. They are the stuff of gardens and arboretums,
forests and prairies, and mountain trails, and personally they have given this
average, ordinary man a lifetime of entertainment—such simple pleasures, all free
and described in the pages that follow.
Read thoroughly the “Foraging Rules” listed below. Follow these instructions
and memorize the poisonous plants listed in the appendix. Although this
information does not guarantee immunity from allergic reactions, it does provide
basic protection against potentially toxic mistakes. The “Forager’s Dozen” chapter
presents twelve of my favorite wild plant foods, most of which can be found from
coast to coast. “Forager’s Dozen Mushrooms” is a novel chapter, an introduction to
twelve easy-to-identify mushrooms that will add hours of pleasure while hiking and
numerous culinary delights for your table. “Yards, Gardens, Prairies, and Meadows”
is a collection of edible weeds and edible wildflowers found coast to coast in these
environments—many of the best edibles come from this collection. “Fruit and
Berries,” the next chapter, is a one-stop collection of fruiting vines, shrubs, and trees.
If it’s a fruit or berry you are looking at, go here. The “Wetlands” chapter covers edible
plants found along streams and rivers, lakes, and ponds. “Edible Plants of Eastern
Forested Areas” provides a clutch of flowering plants found typically in hardwood
forests. “Trees and Nuts” is a coast-to-coast look at shrubs and trees that produce
nuts. “Edible Wild Plants of the Mountain West” specifies plants found in the national
parks and wilderness sanctuaries of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Oregon,
and Washington. “Edible Plants of the Desert” describes food from extremely dry
environments. And “Marine Vegetables” provides pictures and insights specific to
edible marine and tidal area wild plant foods. Information on poisonous plants can
be found in the appendix.
Read this book from cover to cover. Use it in the field and at home. Cross-check
different chapters, as there are close relatives of several plants found in different
environments. Start with the “Forager’s Dozen,” identify these plants, and then
progress to the “Yards, Gardens, Prairies, and Meadows” chapter, which covers
numerous familiar plants. As you forage through different environments, match the
environment to its corresponding chapter and build your repertoire of wild foods.
Carry this book next to your heart or on your hip when venturing forth seeking
delectable wild treasures to grace your table and serve to your friends. Many recipes
are described here to excite you, but your unique personal discoveries will soon
humble what I know. So think freely, my friend, invent and conceive—pass through
this door of infinite possibilities and let your creative energy run wild.

Wild Plant Foraging Rules
1. It’s a good idea to watch a plant through its growth cycle before eating it.
This is helpful because many wild plants taste best just as they break through
the ground, when they are small, furled, and difficult to identify. By watching
them grow for a year, you will know what you are looking for in every season
and where to find it.
2. Before eating any wild plants, study with an expert or take the plant to an
expert for positive identification. Always cross-reference with two or more
field guides. Make certain you have seen color photos of the plants; black-
and-white photos or illustrations are not sufficient for positive identification.
3. After positive identification of an edible plant, taste only a very small amount
of it. This precaution protects you from an allergic reaction or ill effects
caused by misidentification.
4. Beware of the carrot family: Hemlock, water hemlock, and other members of
this family are extremely poisonous. Learn to distinguish hemlock and water
hemlock from elder (elderberries).
5. Practice conservation. Never collect more plants than you intend to use. Do
not pick rare or endangered species. Work to restore wild plants from areas
where they have disappeared. Do not plant alien or invasive species in your
garden—check with your state’s cooperative extension services for details.
6. Avoid harvesting plants from polluted ground. Plants growing along roads
are tainted with benzene, lead, oil, and other auto pollutants. Plants dwell-
ing in streams and along fields near farms are polluted with herbicides and
pesticides. Forage carefully. Droppings from wild game may spread bacteria,
viruses, worms, giardia, amoebas, and other forms of contamination into
water that nurtures edible wild plants. Wash and cook all plants foraged from
wild lands.
7. Purchase wild plants from seed and live-plant purveyors like Richter’s and
Pacific Botanicals (see Appendix C: References and Resources). Grow them in
your garden, close to your kitchen. Make wild foods an integral part of your
diet.

Forager’s Dozen
Just outside the door, in the neighborhood, and in fields and forests nearby dwell
the Forager’s Dozen—twelve edible wild plants that are free and provide superior
nutrition. What’s more, they possess a variety of flavors that are delicious and
satisfying. Find these twelve plants almost everywhere, from coast to coast and
from mountains to marshes—a dozen plants that are easy to find, easy to prepare,
and versatile—aggressive, open pollinated perennial plants you can move to your
garden, putting at your fingertips the right stuff for a robust and healthy diet.
1. STINGING NETTLE is number one. Trans-

fer several of these aggressive plants to
your secret garden and reap immedi-
ate rewards. Simply pinch off the top
whorl of leaves from each plant, wash
them, then steam or sauté the leaves for
about 2 minutes to vaporize the stinging
chemistry. Use the blanched leaves as a
pizza topping, in stews and soups, and
on sandwiches. Add it to your favorite
sauces. Stuff it inside a sausage. Stinging nettle is versatile and provides a dis-
tinctive flavor you will come back for again and again. Here’s the bonus: When
you pinch off that whorl of leaves, the plant bifurcates and doubles your har-
vest the next time around. Add this tasty, mineral-rich plant to your diet today.
2. WILD LEEKS come in numerous varie

ties: wild chives, wild garlic, wild leeks,
and wild onions. My favorite is Allium
tricoccum, the wild leek, or what moun-
tain folks call ramps. Find leeks in shady
areas, typically forests east of the Mis-
souri River. Simplicity is best when pre-
paring this plant. All of it is edible. Sauté
in olive oil with a few drops of soy. Cook
until tender; eat leaves and bulb. By June
the aerial parts of the plant die off, and a flower spike with white florets leads
you to the colony. Dig the bulbs and stuff them in olives. Purchase party stuffer
olives, reheat the brine, stuff a leek in each olive, return to hot brine, and the jar
seals. When leeks are not available, stuff olives with other varieties of the wild
onion family. Use the olives anywhere and everywhere: salads, martinis, pasta,
sauces, sandwiches—you get the idea. More about this edible family later in
the book.

3. VIOLETS (Viola spp.), found coast to
coast in various hues, are great in any
dish where color and taste are prereq-
uisites. Leaves and flowers are edible.
Transfer them to your garden, and let
them compete with your pansies and
tulip petals for space on the salad.
4. WATERCRESS is a pungent spicy green

that adds zest and character to any dish.
Cream it into soup, stuff it in a frittata,
pump up an omelet, or put zip in a salad.
Find a spring or free-flowing stream near
you, prowl around, and reward your
effort with this spicy, high-kicking, and
versatile food.
5. CATTAILS, found near your watercress and leek

source, have everything you need to survive—
better yet, thrive. In June the flower heads are
edible. Gather the male (top head), strip away
the reproductive parts in quantity, and freeze.
Use periodically to boost nutrition in pancakes,
muffins, bread, pizzas, and all those other dishes
and treats that require dough or batter. Steam
the female heads like corn, add butter, and eat on
the stick. Cattail roots and shoots are starch-rich,
quick-energy food—best harvested in the fall or
spring.
6. DAYLILIES, found coast to coast, har-

vested for their flower petals, impart a
mild onion flavor to the palate. Use in
salads or stir-fry. Harvest just the pet-
als, however, and discard the reproduc-
tive parts, as they are bitter. The young
shoots in spring are just OK, but give
them a try—invent a surprising recipe.
2 Basic Illustrated Edible Wild Plants and Useful Herbs

7. SUNFLOWERS have edible seeds, and
the flower petals, although tough, may
be chopped into sauces, soups, eggs, and
more. Jerusalem artichokes, the premier
sunflower foodstuff, provide young edible
shoots in spring, and the tubers of fall
and spring are excellent. Cook tubers like
potatoes, in every imaginable way. Sliced
tubers make a starchy, flavorful base for a
tortilla español. Yes! Go native, and use all
these plants in your Mexican dishes.
8. YELLOW WOOD SORREL, often found in

the yard or garden, is a lemony-tasting
leprechaun. Eat both the small clover-
like leaves and flowers. Best in salads, to
balance the flavor of bitter greens, and
fun to nibble while sprinkling the garden
or hiking the fields.
9. PURSLANE, famous as a rich source of

omega-3 fatty acids, volunteers in most
gardens. Don’t have any? Then mix in a
bag of store-bought manure and stand
back: Invariably manure holds the seeds
that will pay off. Add purslane to salads;
cook in soups, sauces, stews; and defi-
nitely eat it raw to get all of its nutritional
benefits.
10. DANDELION, for many, is a noxious

weed. OK, perhaps. But for me it helps in
salads when an appetite-stimulating bit-
terness is required. Tear the leaves from
the petiole (midrib vein) and add pieces
judiciously to salads and cooked greens.
Add flower petals to any salad where you
want yellow to entice the imbibers.
Forager’s Dozen 3

11. CHICKWEED likes to compete with all
the weeds wrestling for room along the
edges of my lawn and neglected areas in
the garden. A “green”-tasting herb with
an edible flower bonus, it’s available,
ready, willing, and able—free nutrition,
three or four steps from the kitchen, and
a crunchy, tasty addition to the garden
greens.
12. BEEBALM provides 2 edible flowers with contrasting flavors. Monarda fistulosa
has a strong oregano flavor, enervating in tea, refreshing in Italian sauces, and
delicately biting in Champagne. Fistulosa’s red-flowered sister, Monarda didyma,
has florets that taste like pineapple nectar; use accordingly—on salads, in white
wines. Also try it on cold soups and ice cream.
Beebalm, red didyma Beebalm, blue fistulosa

Forager’s Dozen Mushrooms
Mushroom foraging, like foraging for edible wild plants, is most rewarding, but few
try it because of inadequate knowledge and a lack of experience fueled by fear. Here
are a dozen mushrooms that are relatively easy to identify and safe to eat. These
mushrooms offer variety and are available at different times throughout the year.
The list is organized by ease of identification, availability, and season.
Caution: Like wild plants, there are dangerous mushrooms. I recommend

you have at least three field guides (I have five) and key out any new or
unknown mushroom in all three before eating it—even better, forage with a
knowledgeable and experienced expert. Botanical gardens, state parks, and
universities offer mycology (study of fungi) field trips.
Morels
Morchella spp.
Gray (yellow when mature) and black morels are often found about halfway down
a slope in the woods, where spores have been washed and collected, usually in a
tangle of brush. Dead ash, elm, apple, and tulip poplars are good places to look.
West of the prairie region to the West Coast, find morels in burnouts, along the sides
of trails, and along the edges of campgrounds. Use your food dryer to preserve these
mushrooms if you are fortunate enough to get more than you can eat.
Food uses: Morels can be dried and stored, pickled, or simply rinsed and frozen
whole. They are delicious in all dishes where mushrooms improve the taste:
omelets, frittatas, pizza, pasta, burgers, veggie burgers (sauté with wild stinging
nettle, asparagus, and red bell pepper). Sauté the first bunch of the season in a
pinch of butter and olive oil. Dust with flour first, then sauté.
Black morels
These have a brain-like outer appearance,
ridged and pitted, with pits arranged
in columns, hollow in the middle, and a
conical cap that tapers—2"–6" in height.
Habitat: Moist woods, under and

around dead elms, hillsides under snags
of dead logs, edges of trenches and
runoff areas, fencerows of north-facing
woods, burnout areas in the West. April
and May in Michigan, later in the West.
Forager’s Dozen Mushrooms 5

Yellow morels
The yellow variety typically
starts out gray and matures
to yellow. Larger than black
morels and with a full body
of pits and ridges of different
shapes and sizes, yellows
appear a week or two
later than blacks. They can
exceed 10" in height but are
typically in the 3"–6" range.
Habitat: Similar to black

morels but will tolerate a
little sun. Found on south-
facing slopes in forests, campgrounds, streamsides of slow-moving streams, dank
and moist places, April and May into June in Mountain West.
False morels
False morels are included here as a
potentially toxic look-alike. I avoid this
mushroom, although I have eaten it
without ill effect. Others, however,
find the mushroom toxic. False morels
look similar to the edible morels but
are strangely folded, as if nuked with
radiation. They do not express the
open hollow body of edible morels.
Habitat: Found in the same places as
edible morels at the same time and
even earlier.
Dryad’s Saddle
Polyporaceae (Polyporus squamosus)
I turn to this mushroom when morels
are unavailable. Dryad’s saddle is
abundant, easy to identify, and
available all year long. The flavor is
not great, but it’s good enough when
thoroughly cooked and immersed in a
soup or stew.
Identification: Forming shelves,
this mushroom, often found in large
clusters, is fan shaped, up to 15" in
diameter, and pale tan to creamy yellow in color, with brown scales. This is a pored
mushroom, with a tough stipe. Flesh is white, more tender near margins.

Habitat: Prefers wet woods and is best picked after a substantial rain (most tender
then). Found in marshes; along streams; on dead timber, stumps, and dying trees of
all kinds.
Food uses: Pick fresh young specimens that are wet and soft to the touch. A fresh
squamosus releases a watermelon-like odor when torn. The mushroom gets tougher
as you move toward the stem; use the outer tender edges. Eat fresh and cooked.
Puffballs
Lycoperdales and Calvatia
(Gasteromycetes and Lycoperdon)
Identification: Puffballs range from
small to large (1"–12" in diameter),
whitish to brown (but not green,
red, orange, or pink), oval to round
or pear shaped; edible when fresh.
Larger ones are easier to identify.
They grow flat on top of the
ground, without a distinctive stem.
Be certain to slice the mushroom
in half to check for gills or what Eastern puffball
may be the development of a
gilled mushroom—a possible toxic
amanita. Amanita gilled embryos
emerge as adults from egg-shaped
capsules; these capsules resemble
a small puffball, but puffballs when
sliced open do not present gills.
Habitat: Found on open ground
under trees and shrubs and often in
lawns. In Michigan we start seeing
Calvatia gigantea in late August and
September. Our favorite little brown Western puffball
puffball, found on dead maple and
beech, appears at the same time.
The small western variety, typically available in July (Montana), is found on open
ground under pine trees and shrubs, often in lawns. Lycoperdon perlatum is found
along forest roadsides and in driveways under pines from summer through fall.
Notes: Find puffballs of various species from coast to coast. Larger ones are easier
to identify. Pick, cut open, and make certain the inside is white and not yellowing—
and that there are no gills.
Food uses: I slice large puffballs thinly and dry them in a food dryer. Powder the
end product, and add and stir in powder to cooking dishes (1 tablespoon to 1 quart
broth) where you want to impart a mushroom flavor. Fresh mushrooms are breaded
and sautéed or deep-fried. The flavor is good; the texture mushy.

Oyster mushrooms
Tricholomataceae (Pleurotus
ostreatus, Pleurotus pulmonarius)
Oysters were abundant and free
for the picking yesterday, Sunday,
May 2, the earliest date we have
ever found them. I found them
on dead beech, poplar, ash, and
maple. They will be available
through December.
Identification: Oysters typically
grow in large colonies and are
gilled. Gills (lamellae) are the thin
radiating blades beneath the cap
of the mushroom, and with the
oyster the gills are attached and
run down the stem. Stem (stipe)
is off to the side, supporting
a funnel-like cap. Pleurotus
cornucopiae is white to light gray
in color, darkening to brown with
age. Pleurotus ostreatus starts out
white and ages to slate gray, then
light brown. White- to pale-lilac-
colored spores variable to lilac
gray.
Habitat: Oyster mushrooms can
be found on beech, maple, elm,
oak, and birch. They grow in dense
clusters—I once took a bushel
off one downed beech. They will
continue producing on the same
tree or stump for several years,
decomposing it—once the bark is
gone, find a new tree.
Food uses: I prefer the taste of
oyster mushrooms over morels.
Pan-fry them battered in panko Pan-seared buffalo steak with wild chives, onions, and
oyster mushrooms
(Japanese bread crumbs). They’re
also great by themselves or with
your favorite red or white oyster dip. They also can be used as a pizza topping, as
well as in eggs, sauces, and Chinese and Mexican dishes.

King Bolete
Boletaceae (Boletus edulis)
Boletes are putrescent and
break down into a slimy, mushy,
odorous mass after sitting too
long unrefrigerated. They carry a
good deal of water, so don’t wash
before cooking—dry-brush but
do not bathe.
Identification: 3"–10" in diameter,
a bun-shaped mushroom
with a moist, smooth, and
viscous surface (like a browned
hamburger bun). Color variable
from biscuit brown, margins paler.
Flesh is thick, often infested with
worms, insects, and larvae. Tubes
instead of gills, with the tube ends
appearing to be stuffed with pith,
first white in color and turning
yellow, olive, to olive yellow as it
ages—solitary and scattered and
occasionally in groups of 2 or 3.
Warning: Avoid boletes with red or orange pores (tubes) and ones where cap
surfaces or pores turn blue when bruised, as these may contain muscarine
toxin. Avoid orange- and red-capped bolete look-alikes. Also avoid boletes
with yellow pore surfaces that turn blue when bruised. And avoid orange-
capped boletes altogether.
Habitat: I find king boletes in and around Yellowstone National Park in late July,
typically in recovering burn areas, with 3"–10" spruce and pine new growth, and
much dead timber on the ground. Farther west, in Montana, I stumble over them in
campgrounds and along the edges of streams around the first and second weeks of
August. I found several in one day during a warm year on Glacier Creek Trail in the
Swan Valley, near Condon, Montana.
Food uses: The mushroom is watery—slice it thin and sauté. I cook them crisp.
Cook into dishes and then freeze. It is too moist to dry. Eat and prepare as soon as
possible, as its shelf life is short.
Chicken mushroom
Polyporaceae (Laetiporus sulphureus)
Find one of these large mushrooms and you’ll have food for days, if not weeks.
Often found in vacant woodlots and near populated areas. No need to hike into
the wilderness for this mushroom—it’s easily seen from the road and often along
roadsides clinging to trees.

Identification: A lemon to orange-
yellow (darkening with age) bracket
fungus, grows on trees, and typically
grows in a semicircle, taking the shape
of a convoluted fan; has softly rounded
edges, tubes are yellow, and when
fresh a slight squeeze will exude yellow
juice. Smell is pungent.
Habitat: Grows on trees, typically oaks,
but also willow, cherry, and yew—
seasonally available from late spring
until early fall. In Michigan they are
available from June through September.
Food uses: This is a chewy, juicy mushroom that requires cleaning. Pull apart seg-
ments (layers), brush, and wash (I use a hose). Blanching removes any bitter taste.
Texture and flavor when cooked is like chicken. I sauté the mushroom to cook
and remove moisture, then freeze, then thaw later to use in stews, soups, pizza,
and omelets. Ideal for vegetarians. Goes well in risotto and with curry and various
homemade salsas.
Hen of the woods

Polyporaceae (Grifola frondosa, Polyporus
frondosus)
Notes: Jill, my wife, found a 35-pound hen-
of-the-woods mushroom in her secret place
two years in a row.
Identification: Grows at the base of
trees. Central section of branched stems
terminates in individual caps. Grayish caps
1"–3" across, with wrinkled edges. Stems
gray also; mushroom browns with age.
Tubes instead of gills.
Habitat: Grows on trunks of dead and living
trees and occasionally on stumps. Typically
on oaks but found on other deciduous
trees. Found in late August, September, and
October in the northern tier of eastern states.
Food uses: Requires diligent cleaning, with many cracks and crevices containing
dirt and an occasional creature. I use a hose. This tasty mushroom requires enough
cooking to soften its sometimes tough texture (depending on freshness). It goes
well in all mushroom dishes. It dries well for storage, but I like to cook it first in a
dish and freeze it for later use.

Wood ears
Tremellales (Auricularia auricula)
I found these the first time while
searching for morels—they were
growing on small lengths of rotting
wood. Found them throughout the
summer; best after a soaking rain.
Identification: Rubbery fruiting body
that resembles an ear; 1"–3" across.
Has a jellylike texture and snaps in
the mouth like rubber bands. It is tan
brown with grayish hairs on the velvety
inner surface. Stretch the mushroom to make certain it is elastic and rubbery. It
produces white spores, and the surface, as mentioned, is rubbery.
Habitat: Woods, fringes of woods; grows on wood (extremely rotted wood)—wood
that can be shredded with your fingers. Many sources mention elder trees as a
preferred habitat. Although available for several months, I find it rarely, and often in
unlikely mushroom habitats.
Food uses: Wash thoroughly, then add to Oriental stir-fries, or simply sautée in but-
ter. Interesting chewy texture and surprisingly good taste that holds up either dried
or frozen in cooked dishes. Great in sauces: Cook with wild leeks, thicken with sour
cream, and serve over toast.
Honey Mushroom
Tricholomataceae (Armillaria mellea)
In late summer and early fall, honey
mushrooms appear in large numbers
around the base of trees, stumps, and
occasionally in the lawn, living off a
submerged root. This is a destructive
parasitic fungus that destroys many
trees before their time.
Identification: Cap size ranges from
¾" to 8"; color varies from honey-like
to dark brown, clearly visible yellow
cottony ring; stem varies from 2" to 6" and is tough and fibrous (usually not eaten);
gills vary from off-white to dark brown. Flesh is white with strong, sweet odor. Stem
base is fused, and there is almost always a cluster of tiny scales at the cap’s center.
Found in large clumps, dispersing pale-cream, smooth elliptical spores—do a spore
print to be certain this is the right mushroom. Choose carefully, as there are nasty
look-alikes.
Habitat: Found in both deciduous and coniferous forests, on living or dead trees,
stumps, and buried roots. Found from early summer to early winter and may
reappear at same location in consecutive years, and occasionally in the same year.

Food uses: Boil caps for 2 minutes in slightly salted water, discard water, then use
mushroom cap. Sauté, cook in sauces, thicken in cream seasoned with garlic and
fresh basil. Cook into recipes and store in freezer. Drying toughens the mushroom,
and it does not reconstitute easily.
Lion’s Mane
Echinodontium (Hericium erinaceus)
This mushroom, always a surprise, is
found inside a hollow log or hanging
from a tree or stump. Various species
are found in the western, eastern, and
southern states.
Identification: 2"–20" across; a white,
spiny mushroom that yellows with
age. Dangling white spines give this
fungus its common name. Spines may
up to 1½" long and give the fungus the
appearance of a lion’s mane. Spore print is white. Fungoid attached to tree with a
thick and solid white base—available in late summer and throughout the fall.
Habitat: Found singly and occasionally in pairs on the same wound from a
deciduous tree (hardwood). You may have to climb to harvest. Mature and old-
growth woods are productive.
Food uses: A delicious mushroom sautéed and eaten by itself or served hot in a
vegetarian sandwich. Store prepared dishes in your freezer. Soften mushroom by
cooking, which also eliminates some of the water from these hydrated specimens.
Goes well with lemony marinades.

Yards, Gardens, Prairies, and Meadows
Amaranth
Amaranth (Amaranthus spp.)
Identification: Amaranth, sometimes referred
to as red root, is a hairy, stout weed with ovate
to lance-shaped leaves on long stalks, and
flowers in dense clusters on an elongated stem,
bristly. Seeds typically black. Plant flowers in
July and August, and seeds are available soon
after.
Habitat: Roadsides, fields, waste ground east
and west of the Mississippi River at lower
elevations.
Food uses: Young shoots and leaves eaten raw
or cooked. May be dried and reconstituted in
hot water for winter food. Seeds used whole
as cooked cereal. Seeds ground into flour and
used to supplement flour for bread, muffins,
etc. Seeds also added whole to bread, pancakes,
and waffles. Pinole (atole) is a hot corn drink
made with toasted amaranth seeds and roasted
blue or white cornmeal. Spread cornmeal and
amaranth seeds on a cookie sheet or aluminum
foil. Toast in 425°F oven for 8–10 minutes. Add
sugar and cinnamon, stir into hot milk, and
simmer for 15 minutes. Native Americans ate
leaves and seeds mixed with grease and cooked. Try a mixed-greens dish of young
and tender amaranth leaves combined with mustard, plantain, dock, and nettle and
cooked with bacon.
Medicinal uses: Native Americans used this plant mixed with green corn in sacred
rituals. Leaves are astringent and used to stem profuse menstruation.
Asiatic Dayflower
Commelinaceae (Commelina
communis)
Identification: Common weed in
many gardens. Erect stems collapse
on themselves as they grow (up to
3'). Deep-blue flowers, ½"–¾" wide,
2 rounded petals (like Mickey Mouse
ears) with a small white petal behind
the pair. Flower’s ovary sheathed in 3
Yards, Gardens, Prairies, and Meadows 13

green sepals; 6 yellow-tipped stamens. Fleshy, oblong leaves, 3"–5" long, pointed
tips. Leaves sheath stem.
Habitat: Found nationwide in gardens and on roadsides. Alien weed: originated in
China.
Food uses: This free food comes up late every year. Young leaves and shoots can be
added to salads. I get so many of these plants in my garden that I pull whole shoots,
wash them, and add them to stir-fries. Entire flower is edible. As fruit matures,
the seed capsule (tucked in the sepal sheath) is a crunchy treat. In late summer
flowers keep coming. You can eat seedpods for a healthful dose of essential oils and
phytosterols.
Medicinal uses: In China, leaf tea is used as a sore-throat gargle and for urinary
tract infections, acute intestinal enteritis, and dysentery. Tea is also used to reduce
fevers, as a detoxicant, and as a diuretic (to treat edema from joint swelling and
pain from arthritis). Flowers contain isoflavones and phytosterols. Seeds contain
fatty acids and essential and nonessential amino acids.
Burdock, Gobo burdock

Compositae (Arctium lappa)
Identification: Biennial, first year’s
growth sprouts broad elephant ear–
like leaves (heart shaped) that grow
directly from a deep taproot. Second-
year leaves are slightly smaller; mature
plant is many branched and spreading
to 7' or 8', although often much smaller.
Flowers are crimson with inward-
curving bracts that eventually form the
mature seed capsule, which is a burr. This is the plant that deposits burrs on your
dog and your trousers. Break open the seed capsule, and plant the seeds.
Habitat: Found in the Northern Hemisphere, temperate zone. Found in gardens,
along roadsides, and just about every place you walk your dog, providing an
entertaining burr-pulling party. My favorite site is a lowland marsh with rich muck
that produces outstanding specimens.
Food uses: Harvest roots in autumn or spring of the first year’s growth. Root may
be 20" or longer. Peel the root, wash, slice diagonally (julienne), and stir-fry, steam,
or sauté. First year’s leaves may be peeled, cooked, and eaten. Slivered roots taste
great on pizza for texture and flavor. Second-year flower spikes cut and peeled—
sauté or steam.
Medicinal uses: Historically used to treat immune system deficiency and skin
conditions. Leaf infusion (tea) used for chronic skin problems. Root oil used the
same way: Soak the chopped root in olive oil in the refrigerator for 1 month. Root
as food considered antidiabetic, regulating blood sugar when lightly cooked. Root
tea and eating the root reported to treat acne. Root polysaccharides said to lower

blood sugar; polysaccharides require more steps in digestion, thus the release
of glucose is slow and gradual. According to a Japanese study, the root is anti-
mutagenic (anticancer) in animal studies.
Warning: Avoid if pregnant or lactating.
Notes: The root, called gobo in Asian markets, sells for as much as $8 a pound. It’s
free if in your backyard, so put it there. Pull burrs off a dog or your trousers, crush
burrs to release seeds, spread seeds on scuffed soil in November. Plant thickly, and
then thin seedlings in May.
Chicory
Compositae (Cichorium intybus)
An attractive garden flower with edible
leaves, edible flowers, and a digestion-
stimulating root.
Identification: Biennial or perennial
to 4'; stem is erect, with few branches.
Lanceolate (lance-shaped) leaves in
a basal whorl, as well as additional
smaller upper leaves on stem. Blue
flowers (rarely white or pink) with
square-tipped rays, and a dandelion-
like root. Plant blooms July through
September.
Habitat: Conspicuous flowers along
roadsides, disturbed areas, fields,
meadows, waste ground nationwide.
Food uses: The root can be dried,
roasted, mixed with coffee beans,
then ground to yield Cajun coffee.
The flower petals are slightly bitter
and add a nice contrast when stirred
into cottage cheese (let the blossoms infuse into the cheese overnight in the
refrigerator). The slightly bitter flowers are a healthful addition to salads, jump-
starting the digestion process. Tasty flower, bitter root.
Medicinal uses: Root dried or fresh is decocted in water as a diuretic, dietetic, and
laxative. Root tea stimulates digestion, improving peristalsis and absorption. Root
decoction used externally to treat fever blisters. Cherokee used root infusion as a
nervine—a tonic for the nerves. Homeopathic preparation used for gallbladder and
liver complaints. Root decoction may reduce blood sugar. Root constituents are
antibacterial in vitro. Animal studies show chicory extract slows heart rate.
Warning: A few sources suggest long-term excessive use of chicory may
impair vision. This has not been scientifically proven.

Clover, Red
Fabaceae (Trifolium pratense)
Identification: Often 3 leaflets
showing pale chevron; round flower
head; rose-purple flower petals.
Habitat: Common roadside
companion throughout the United
States.
Food uses: Petals can be batter-fried or
eaten raw in salads. Whole aerial parts
of plant can be infused to make a bland
but healthful tea.
Medicinal uses: Tea from flowers is
flavonoid rich, providing antioxidant,
anticancer protection. Skilled herbalists
used this plant to treat cuts, burns, and
liver ailments. Integral part of the Essiac
anticancer formula consisting of bur-
dock root, slippery elm bark, rhubarb
root, watercress, sheep sorrel, blessed
thistle, red clover, and kelp.
Dandelion
Compositae (Taraxacum officinale)
Identification: Basal whorl of toothed
leaves. Yellow flower with numerous
rays. Torn leaf and/or flower stem will
exude white-colored latex.
Habitat: Common yard bounty. Found
in temperate regions worldwide.
Food uses: No waste—eat flower,
root, leaves, and crown. A vitamin-
and mineral-rich salad green. Tear it
into small pieces for salad, mix with
thyme and fennel, nasturtiums, along
with other salad ingredients. Thyme
and fennel balance the bitterness of
dandelions. Make a mineral-rich tea
from the roots and leaves. Gently
simmer chopped fresh roots for a
stomach bitters. Cook fresh leaves
early in season with olive oil, bacon,
and lemon juice. As season progresses
leaves become bitter: Pour copious

amount of water on the late-summer plants—the morning harvest will be sweeter.
Even when bitter, leaves are a healthy addition to stir-fry. Try with tofu. Cook in
oyster oil, with cayenne, garlic, and beef strips. Simmer or sauté with leeks, kale,
and turnip greens.
Medicinal uses: Dried leaves and autumn roots are infused or decocted as a liver-
cleansing tonic, aiding digestion and cleansing the blood. It is a diuretic, tradition-
ally used to treat PMS, having a mild laxative effect, and may relieve inflammation
and congestion of gallbladder and liver. Native Americans applied steamed leaves
externally (poultice) to stomachaches. Eating green leaves considered a tonic and
blood purifier, root taken to increase lactation and as a mild laxative and for dys-
pepsia. The bitter taste of dandelion is an appetite stimulant and may be helpful in
treating anorexia. Because the bitter dandelion root decoction raises HCL in stom-
ach, it improves calcium breakdown and absorption, increasing bile production
and therefore lowering capacity (1 bile molecule requires 2 cholesterol molecules
from the liver).
Daylily
Liliaceae (Hemerocallis fulva)
Identification: Yellow, tuberous roots;
long, narrow, lance-like leaves; orange
lily flower. Found along roadsides;
transplant to clean soil away from auto
pollution.
Habitat: Throughout the United States.
Shade and sun tolerant; excellent
garden transplant.
Food uses: Onion-tasting flowers are
flavonoid rich. Daylily petals teased
apart from the whole flower and tossed
in with salad greens. Flowers (without
pistils and stamens) and unopened
buds can be stir-fried or batter-dipped
and cooked tempura-style. Try the
sautéed flowers wrapped in wontons,
steamed. Wrap buds and flowers in
a wonton, dip in soy and mustard—
delicious. Buds can also be steamed,
boiled, or deep-fried, and then served
with butter or cheese sauce. Firm root tubers harvested all year. Add raw to salads
or cook like a potato.
Note: I eat just the flower petals, not the reproductive organs, as the stamen, pistils,
anthers, and filaments are bitter.
Medicinal uses: Daylily buds contain more protein and vitamin C than green beans
and asparagus. Traditional people used the extract of the herb to treat cancer.

There is evidence that extracts of daylily roots and crowns are pain relievers, a
diuretic, and an antidote to arsenic poisoning. Daylily flowers are known to possess
antioxidant properties and cyclooxygenase (COX) inhibitory; inhibition of COX can
provide relief from the symptoms of inflammation and pain.
Warning: Use plant only when in bloom. Early growth resembles poisonous
iris shoots (see Appendix A: Poisonous Plants); daylily’s yellowish tubers are
distinctive.
Evening Primrose
Onagraceae (Oenothera biennis)
Identification: Biennial that grows
to 3' or more with fleshy turnip-like
root. First-year plant is a basal rosette
of leaves, second year is erect plant,
conspicuous in the fall with its large
seed-filled fruit capsules. Oblong lance-
shaped leaves, pointed and finely
dentate. Fragrant bugle-shaped yellow
flowers are 1" long and grow from the
leaf axils. Flowers open in evening and have 4 petals, 4 sepals, and 8 stamens. Fruit
is linear-oblong, 4 sided, downy, about ½"–1" in length, producing seeds that are
dark gray to black with sharp edges. Western varieties have white-, yellow-, or pink-
colored flowers.
Habitat: Found in gardens, along roadsides, on waste ground, fields, and prairies
up and down and across North America. More than 20 species inhabit the western
states.
Food uses: The root is edible (biennial plant: first-year root best, in the fall or early
spring of second year). New leaves of first or second year are edible in salads and
stir-fry. The leaves are tough and need to be cooked. Seeds poured from seed
capsule (seed capsule looks like small, dried okra pod). Immature seed capsules
may be cooked like okra but don’t taste like okra—nothing like okra, not worth the
trouble. But primrose seeds are available on cross-country ski trips throughout the
winter. I pour them from the capsule and eat out of hand.
Medicinal uses: Seed oil is used to treat essential fatty acid deficiency and to
lower cholesterol. Cholesterol-lowering effect proved successful in a double-blind
crossover study conducted in 1996. Native Americans used warm root poultice to
treat piles. Roots chewed to increase strength and endurance. Whole plant bruised,
soaked, and used as a poultice on bruises and sores. Seed extract said to dilate
coronary arteries and clear arterial obstruction.

Goatsbeard Oyster Plant,
Yellow
Asteraceae (Tragopogon dubius)
Identification: Looks like a large
dandelion; grows 2'–4' tall, with a
smooth stem with yellow flower head.
Stem hollow just below flower head,
yellow rayed flower, 2½" in diameter,
bladelike leaves; entire plant grows to
3', typically less.
Habitat: Dry areas, fields, open fringes
of woods, fence lines, meadows, and
burnouts. Found nationwide from east
to west, north into Ontario and south
to Texas.
Food uses: Young leaves boiled or
sautéed. I have eaten flower petals, but
do so judiciously, as I appear to be the
only author who does.
Medicinal uses: Native Americans
made a cold infusion of whole plant to treat animal bites and used latex sap as a
milk substitute. Latex will dry and may be chewed; cathartic.
Heal All, Selfheal

Lamiaceae (Prunella vulgaris)
Identification: Blue to violet bract of
flowers clustered in a whorl at the end
of the square stem. Stem, when young,
is erect and may fall and creep. Plants
are typically 6"–10" in height. Leaves
ovate to lance shaped, margins are
dentate to entire, and opposite.
Habitat: Found on waste ground,
lawns, fields, and margins of woods
nationwide.
Food uses: Sauté small leaves with stinging nettle and add to soups. Aerial parts
made into an infusion with mint leaves and a twist of lime.
Medicinal uses: Documented use by the Chinese for more than 2,200 years, self-
heal used for liver complaints and improving the function of the liver. The whole
plant used in infusion to stimulate the liver and gallbladder and promote healing—
considered alterative, and capable of changing the course of a chronic disease.

Hops
Cannabaceae (Humulus lupulus)
Identification: A perennial climbing
vine with pencil-thick stems that do
not turn woody. The plant climbs
through shrubs. Leaves are opposite,
3–5 lobed, and serrated. Male flowers
are small, inconspicuous, and yellowish
green. Female flowers have numerous
florets, and a fruit cone grows from
the flowers. Cone may be yellowish to
gray depending on whether it is fresh
or dried. The scales of the cone contain
the bitter drug used in beer and
digestive teas.
Habitat: It has escaped from
cultivation and is found in marshes,
meadows, and the edges of woods.
Cultivated stands can be seen in
Washington State, east of Seattle in the
Yakima Valley, and in Idaho along the
Canadian border.
Food uses: The fruit cone (gray to yellow) used in the production of beer; gives
it a bitter flavor. The more hops, the greater the bitterness, as in Pilsner Urquell
and popular IPA brews. Also used as a sedative tea. Cone-like flowers are placed in
pillows to improve sleep.
Warning: Contact with pollen has caused allergic reactions.
Medicinal uses: Infusion of the flower or seed cone is emollient, sedative, and a
bitter digestive stimulant. Native Americans used it in sweat lodges by soaking
leaves and throwing the flowers on hot rocks. Basque shepherds use the cones in
infusion as a calming sedative and digestive. They drink the tea to settle jittered
nerves and stimulate digestive juices to hasten peristalsis and catharsis. Pioneers
and Native Americans also used the tea to treat fevers from acute infections.
Research suggests that the flower tea may impart estrogenic effect. Although
subsequent research has not shown this effect, it is a phytoestrogen.
Notes: According to a few sources, smoking hops like marijuana may provide a mild
sedative effect; the 2 species are related. To make a sleep aid, add about 1 teaspoon
of dried flowers to a 6-ounce cup of hot water, just off the boil. Cover and let cool to
lukewarm, then drink.

Jerusalem Artichoke,
Sun choke
Asteraceae (Helianthus tuberosus)
Identification: Yellow sunflower;
broad ovate, rough leaves, lower leaves
opposite, upper leaves alternate; hairy
stem; tuberous root.
Habitat: Throughout the United States,
along roadsides, gardens, fields.
Food uses: Tuber peeled, sliced, and
eaten raw, and has taste similar to
water chestnut. Also microwave, bake,
or boil like a potato. This plant is worth
looking for. I like it as a base for a
tortilla española (frittata). Spread them
on the bottom of an iron skillet, pour over 6 whipped eggs, add other wild plants
(chopped), sharp cheese (grated); cook at 375°F for 15 minutes, serve.
Note: Add tubers to your garden and they’ll provide a substantial food source that
continues to reproduce year after year. Harvest tubers in fall and spring.
Medicinal uses: Tea made from flowers and leaves is a traditional treatment for
arthritis. Inulin-rich tuber is slow to release sugars, making it a good food for
diabetics.
Lamb’s quarter, pigweed,

goosefoot
Chenopodiaceae (Chenopodium
album)
Identification: To 5' in height, with
light-green (grayish green) leaves
with powderlike substance beneath,
coarsely toothed, with a goosefoot or
diamond shape. Small green flowers
are in clusters, growing from top third
of plant and many of the branches.
Seeds are gray colored.
Habitat: Across the nation in meadows, along roadsides, gardens, waste ground,
edges of cultivated fields.
Food uses: Add lamb’s quarter leaves to salads, stir-fry, and steamed wontons with
quinoa, carrots, burdock root. Roll wontons in quinoa seeds before steaming. Seeds
may be ground and used in baking recipes. The herb flavors corn and fish dishes
and Mexican foods. Add seeds to pancakes and waffles, bread, pizza dough. Also
great as a cooked cereal and best when part of a multigrain cereal. Cook it like rice.

Medicinal uses: Lamb’s quarter tea used for stomachache, scurvy, diarrhea. Also
poultice over wounds and bites. In Mexico, cooked leaves and seed heads are
believed to keep the digestive system clean and healthy. Cree used leaves for arthri-
tis, rheumatism—washing joints and limbs with the decoction. Inuit people believe
the leaves, when cooked with beans, dispel gas. Iroquois used a cold infusion of the
plant to treat diarrhea. Leaves are high in vitamin C content (used to treat scurvy),
and when eaten with seeds, the essential amino acid content is complete.
Milkweed,
Common Milkweed
Asclepiadaceae (Asclepias syriaca)
Identification: Perennial to 4' with
a single stem, leaves opposite,
large, elliptical to 8" in length. Pink
flowers in drooping clusters grow
from leaf axils. Seedpod is striking,
Arabian slipper–like.
Habitat: Edges of cornfields, waste
ground, roadsides, railroad rights-
of-way, meadows, dune lands,
desert, gardens. Various species
found nationwide.
Food uses: Native Americans
prepared Asclepias syriaca like asparagus before milky sap appears (cooked in 2
changes of water). Flower buds are prepared like cooked broccoli when harvested
before they open. Flowers buds and seedpods are prepared as follows: Boil water,
pour over seedpods, let water and pods steep for 5 minutes, then pour off water.
Repeat, pour a second boil of water over once-steeped pods, pour off water, and
then stir-fry in olive oil or butter. Many people use 3 water baths over pods—
recommended for first encounters. Flowers may be dried and stored for winter
use in soups, stew. Keep in mind I have only eaten A. syriaca. Other species may be
toxic. Do not experiment unless guided by an expert.
Warning: Plant parts contain a cardiac glycoside that must be denatured by
repetitive cooking. First-time users, eat a very small bite of the plant to see if
you have a reaction. Many people eat the plant, so it is contained here, but
not without warning.
Medicinal uses: Native Americans pounded or split the roots to expose their flesh
for drying. Dried roots in decoction have a mild cardiac-stimulating effect—without
the toxic effects of digitalis. Be warned: This should be practiced with medical
supervision because A. syriaca contains toxic cardiac glycosides and requires careful
preparation before use. Native Americans believed the plant was a lactagogue
because of the milky white sap, per the Doctrine of Signatures, or “like treats like.”
Latex from leaves rubbed on warts and applied over insect stings, bites, and spider
envenomations. According to Duke and Foster in Peterson’s Field Guide to Medicinal

Plants (p. 154), the plant is considered “dangerous and contraceptive”—respect this,
and use the plant judiciously.
Warning: Root decoction emetic; may stimulate the heart; some people may
experience allergic reactions to the milky sap.
Plantain
Plantaginaceae (Plantago lanceolata;
P. major; P. maritima)
Identification: Several varieties are
found across the United States. The
difference is in the leaves: P. major’s
leaves are broad and ovate, and P.
lanceolata’s leaves are narrow and
lance shaped. Plantago maritima’s
leaves are narrower, almost linear, and
it is found along the West Coast, often
submerged during high tide. The green
flowers of all 3 are born on terminal
spikes.
Habitat: Discover these common
plants on open ground, wasteland,
edges of fields and roads, and lawns
nationwide. Plantago maritima, as
mentioned, is found in the upper tidal
zone.
Food uses: In the spring I pluck whole
leaves from my garden and yard, chop them into salads, or sauté them with wild
leeks, nettles, dandelions, and watercress. Cut summer and autumn leaves from the
tough midleaf vein (rib) before adding to salads. Seeds added to baked goods to
improve fiber load.
Medicinal uses: Strip off flowering heads between thumb and forefinger into hot
water to form mucilaginous drink for treating constipation. Crushed plant applied
to dermatitis to treat poison ivy. Native Americans chewed the leaves, mixing in
saliva and defensin (antibiotic in our mouths) to provide an antiseptic and immune-
stimulating poultice to be applied to wounds, scrapes, cuts, and bruises. It is styptic,
stopping blood flow. Tea is diuretic, decongestant, expectorant, and may be helpful
in diarrhea, dysentery, irritable bowel syndrome, laryngitis, and urinary tract bleed-
ing. Acubin in plantain increases uric acid excretion by kidneys and may be helpful
in treating gout. P. lanceolata extract from the fresh plant may fight colds (4 grams
of herb to 1 cup boiling water), may alleviate symptoms of bronchitis and cough,
and may reduce fever. It is German Commission E–approved for treating inflam-
mation of pharynx and mouth, and for skin inflammations. Typically, a dose is 3–6
grams of the fresh whole herb (aerial parts when in bloom) added to a cup of water
just off the boil. Let cool, then drink; taken 3 or 4 times a day.

Pokeweed, Poke Salad
Phytolaccaceae (Phytolacca
americana)
Identification: A smooth-skinned
plant with purple stems when mature,
to 10' tall but more typically 5'. Stems
are hollow and usually marked with
grooves. The root is long and thick.
Leaves are ovate-lanceolate, alternate,
5"–10" in length, with entire margins.
When rubbed, leaves provide a musty
indicative scent. Flowers are on
racemes, with a calyx but no corolla.
Berries are purplish to black when ripe.
Habitat: From the Missouri River
east to the coast and south to the
Gulf. Found on waste ground, fields,
roadsides, gardens.
Food uses: The young shoots of this
plant are edible in the spring. Leaves
are boiled in 2 changes of water. Avoid
poke once the stem and leaf petioles
have turned purple. The lectin content
rises as the plant matures. Cooking destroys some of the lectins, and digestive
juices get others. Your window of opportunity is short. This is an excellent tasting
green. If you are not certain, you can find these greens canned and commercially
available.
Medicinal uses: Native Americans traditionally used the root poultice over rheu-
matoid joints. Berries made into tea for rheumatic conditions. Berry tea is also used
to treat dysentery. Infusion of root used for eczema, ulcerated wounds, and to
reduce swelling. Dried and powdered roots spread over cuts and sores. Plant used
as a proven laxative and emetic. A leaf decoction mixed with other plants taken as
a blood purifier and stimulant. Infusion of root and branches used in sweat lodges
to produce steam, considered antirheumatic. Root pounded and mixed with grease
and applied to bunions.
Purslane
Portulacaceae (Portulaca oleracea)
Identification: Spreading succulent
that sprawls through garden with
thick, fleshy, shiny ovate leaves. Stems
are many branched, supporting small
inconspicuous flowers.

Habitat: Gardens and waste ground, even cracks in the sidewalk, from coast to
coast. Volunteers sprout from composted manure.
Food uses: Purslane is a common garden plant, an alien creeper with ovate leaves,
thick and succulent—eaten right off the ground, put in salads, and chopped into
soup. The payoff is omega-3 essential fatty acids. Native Americans ate the leaves
as a raw or cooked vegetable. It was also boiled in soups and with meats. Try it
chopped in salads or in salad dressing, even turkey stuffing. Native Americans ate
purslane raw with meat and green chiles. Can be dried and reconstituted as a winter
food. Cow manure (store bought) put on the garden invariably produces purslane.
Medicinal uses: Crush plant and apply as a poultice or skin lotion. Whole plant in
decoction is used to treat worms. Juice used to treat earaches. Juice of whole plant
considered a tonic. Used in the past as an antidote to unspecified herbal toxins.
Infusion of leaf stems used to stem diarrhea. Mashed plant used as a poultice over
burns and bruises. Decoction of whole plant considered an antiseptic wash and
was eaten as a traditional remedy to treat stomachache. Essential fatty acids may
help prevent inflammatory conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis.
Spiderwort, Widow’s
Tears, Spider plant
Commelinaceae (Tradescantia
virginiana, T. occidentalis, T.
pinetorum)
Identification: Leaves are long, tough,
swordlike, smooth, with entire margins.
Numerous leaves grow from the base
(no stem). Flowers are orchidlike, in
drooping terminal clusters, deep blue;
open in the morning and closed by afternoon. The plant blooms continuously
throughout summer. There are at least 4 species in North America.
Habitat: In my garden and along railroad rights-of-way, roadsides, fields, and
prairies from coast to coast.
Food uses: Tender shoots of spring eaten raw or cooked. Flowers are edible
throughout year; pick in morning before they wilt. Try them in salads, stir-fry, or
right off the plant. Flowers dipped in egg white and coated with powdered sugar.
Flowers are mucilaginous.
Medicinal uses: Root tea was used as a laxative and for female kidney disorders
and stomach problems. Crushed and smashed aerial parts of plant used as a poul-
tice over insect bites, stings, and to bind wounds. Aerial infusion is also used to
treat stomachache. Native Americans and pioneers used the crushed plant as a
poultice to treat cancer. T. occidentalis tea used as a diuretic, and infused plant said
to be an aphrodisiac.
Mixteca tribe of Mexico bound Hernan Cortez’s thigh wound with this plant
and is credited for saving his life. As a garden perennial, this plant gives and gives
and gives.

Thistle, Bull
Onagraceae (Cirsium vulgare)
Identification: Thorny biennial; ¾"
purple flower with numerous rays rises
from spiny bract. Barbed, deeply cut
leaves of the first year’s growth eaten
after the spines are stripped away with
a knife—wear gloves when harvesting
roots and leaves.
Habitat: Coast to coast in northern-tier
states, mountainsides, streamsides,
waste ground, roadsides, dry, well-drained areas.
Food uses: Use a knife to strip thorny armor away from leaves. Eat raw or cooked;
flavor similar to celery. Harvest leaves in the spring and fall. In summer flower petals
sprinkled over salads. Roots can be boiled, sliced, and stir-fried. Some folks steam
outer green bract around flower heads and eat it like an artichoke.
Medicinal uses: The Chinese use thistle teas and decoctions to treat appendicitis,
internal bleeding, and inflammations.
Wild Garlic
Liliaceae (Allium sativum)
Identification: Long, narrow, pencil-
like leaf stalk; flower head bears small
green plantlets that drop off and
propagate.
Habitat: Throughout the United States
in fields, vacant lots, railroad sides, and
other disturbed land.
Food uses: Always cook wild garlic
and wild onions to cleave inulin molecules to a digestible sugar. Inulin is a
polysaccharide, a stored-energy source typically found in roots and tubers and not
easily digested. Taste a few bulbs in the spring, then eat the florets all summer.
Medicinal uses: Wild garlic, chives, and onions may reduce blood pressure, lower
cholesterol, lower blood sugar, and protect you from acute infections such as a cold
or the flu.
Wild onions, chives

Liliaceae (Allium spp.)
Identification: Like wild garlic, onions and chives come early. Chives are some of
the first flowers of spring, and they shoot up as tender rounded stems to 18" tall.
Garlic leaves are flattened; chives and onions are round.
Habitat: Disturbed ground, roadsides, fringes of lawns, fields, and meadows
nationwide.

Food uses: Wild onion, field onions,
wild chives, wild garlic, and wild leeks
have edible flowers and edible bulbs.
It is a good idea to cook the wild onion
bulbs, as the inulin content is difficult
for some people to digest. Cooking will
break down this polysaccharide to a
more manageable chain. After flowers
bloom on these Allium species, a little
bulblet, which is very edible, forms on
the flower head. Pickle or stir-fry with
vegetables and pork.
Medicinal uses: Like the cultivars onions, garlic, and leeks, wild alliums are infec-
tion fighters and may lower blood pressure. Sulfur compounds in alliums protect
from acute infections like colds and flu. Like wild garlic, chives and onions reduce
blood pressure, lower cholesterol, and stabilize or lower blood sugar.
Winter cress and Black

Mustard
Brassicaceae (Barbarea vulgaris,
Brassica nigra)
Identification: Both herbs are peppery
tasting and have yellow flowers, with
black mustard being preferred. Both
have 4-petaled flowers, with black
mustard flowers to ½" and winter cress
to 1⁄3". Lower leaves of both plants
divided into 5 segments (lobes), on
winter cress with 4 lateral lobes and 1
terminal lobe; upper leaves on winter
cress clasp stem, whereas upper leaves
on black mustard are lance shaped and
toothed and not lobed.
Habitat: Fields, pastures, roadsides,
and wetland edges nationwide.
Food uses: Eat the flowers and leaves.
Allow a few flowers to go to seed for
next year’s crop. Greens come early, in
March and April. Flowers are best early: Black mustard
April for winter cress, June for black
mustard. Black mustard is a pleasant
addition to salad and cooked greens.
Medicinal uses: Plants have isothiocyanates hydrolyzed to sulforaphane in the
mouth to provide protection from cancer.

Fruit and Berries
Apple
Malvaceae (Malus domestica)
Identification: Tree, cultivated and
escaped to the wild, blossoms white
to pink; 35' tall, with alternate ovate
leaves, finely serrated.
Habitat: Originally from central Asia
temperate region, widely cultivated in
America and has escaped to the wild.
Found along roadsides and fringes of
forests nationwide.
Food uses: Fresh, cooked, or dried fruit eaten. Also squeezed into cider and
commercially produced as juice. Eating whole apples may lower cholesterol due to
their high soluble-fiber content.
Medicinal uses: Parts used are the fruit, dried peels, flowers, and leaves. Dried
peels used in teas. Apple leaf tea has a mild binding effect. Finely ground fruit and
commercially prepared apple pectin used to treat diarrhea, stomach and bowel gas,
and digestive complaints. Slice whole apples, peel and all, and dry in a food dryer.
Eat several slices after an oily dinner to improve digestion and sequester choles-
terol. This treat is very soothing to stomach distress and has a slight binding effect.
Autumn Olive
Elaeagnaceae (Elaeagnus umbellata)
Identification: Bush or shrub to 18' tall. Long,
ovate leaves, toothless and leathery, width less
than half the length, length usually between ¾"
and 1½"; leaves silvery underneath. Leaves, twigs,
and berries are speckled; yellow-white flowers
cluster in leaf axils. Scarlet speckled berries about
the size of a currant ripen in September.
Habitat: Edges of woods and fencerows, in
meadows, throughout the eastern United States
and southern Canada, and roadsides to the Missouri River.
Food uses: Eat out of hand. Simmer berries to juice, strain away seeds with a food
mill or sieve. Reduce sauce; use over pancakes, waffles, wontons, and egg rolls. Jam
recipe: 8 cups berries mixed with ½ cup agar flakes. Bring to a boil in a pan, stirring
continuously. Lower heat, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Strain seeds and use as a freezer jam.
Medicinal use: Antiscorbutic (Vitamin C content prevents scurvy.)

Bearberry, Uva ursi,
Kinnikinnick
Ericaceae (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi)
Identification: The plant is a trailing
shrub, prostrate and mat forming.
Leaves are dark, evergreen, leathery,
smooth edged, obovate or spatula
shaped, less than ¾" wide. Alpine
variety of bearberry has larger leaves.
Habitat: I’ve found this plant
in Michigan, Ontario, Oregon,
Washington, and British Columbia and
throughout the western and eastern
mountain states.
Food uses: Leaves dried and mixed
with tobacco for ritual Native American
smoke. Berry is dry, mealy; was cooked
with goose fat and other animal fats
and eaten. Because of the berry’s lack of
flavor, mix with fish eggs and stronger-
tasting foods to extend the nutrition.
Dry berries in a food dryer and smash into flour-like substance. First People in the
Northwest would use this flower like a spice on meat, liver. Leaves traditionally used
in tea as a diuretic treatment for dropsy. Bella Coola tribe mixed berries in fat and
ate them. Berries and leaves as a tea: tonic, diuretic, analgesic. Lower Chinook tribe
dried berries then mixed them with fat for food. Native Americans boiled the berries
with roots and vegetables to make a soup. First People ate the berries with fish
eggs, preferably salmon eggs. Berries are sautéed in grease until crisp, then placed
in cheesecloth (pantyhose will work) and pounded to break up berries. Add raw or
cooked fish eggs and stir; pound to mix some more. Sweeten to taste.
Medicinal uses: Whole plant infused in water, then mixed with grease from a
goose, duck, bear, or mountain goat and eaten. Infusion of aerial parts was gargled
as mouthwash to treat canker sores and sore gums. Dried leaves and stems were
ground and used as a poultice over wounds. Infusion of leaves, berries, and stems
taken orally for cleaning kidneys and bladder complaints as a diuretic. Raw berries
may be a laxative according to the Upper Tanana tribe. Raw leaves were chewed as
a sialagogue to quench thirst when traveling. The infusion of the whole plant also
taken to strengthen bones and bone breaks. Leaves and tobacco mixed and placed
in all religious bundles for spiritual healing. Ritual smoking: leaves dried, toasted
or roasted, crushed and smoked alone or mixed with tobacco. Pioneers considered
the leaf infusion best known as diuretic, astringent, and tonic.
Warning: Do not use during pregnancy and while nursing. Avoid acidic foods
when using the tea to treat urogenital and biliary tract diseases. Prolonged
use may damage liver and inflame and irritate bladder and kidneys. Not
recommended for children.
Fruit and Berries 29

Blackberry
Rosaceae (Rubus allegheniensis,
R. laciniatus)
Identification: Similar to raspberry.
Shrub with spiny branches; compound
leaves, 5+/– leaflets, toothed (whereas
raspberry typically has 3 leaves), and
the white flower bloom appears after
raspberries. R. laciniatus has sharply cut
leaves. Blackberries found near your
raspberry source. There are several
species that ripen in mid- and late summer.
Habitat: Throughout the United States, fields, gardens, roadsides (more like side
roads) fencerows, edges of woods.
Food uses: A low-calorie, high-nutrition breakfast made with blackberries. Mix 2
cups berries with 2 cups low-fat sweetened vanilla yogurt. Add a dash of milk and
blend—a wonderful ice-cream substitute with half the sugar and fat. Also use in
pies, muffins, pancakes, jellies, and jams. Make tea from the leaves.
Medicinal uses: Native Americans used roots with other herbs for eye sores,
backaches, and stomachaches. Pioneers made blackberry vinegar to treat gout
and arthritis. The Chinese use Rubus species in a tea to stimulate circulation—they
claim it helps alleviate pain in muscles and bones. Blackberries also contain several
cancer-fighting antioxidants.
Blueberry
Ericaceae (Vaccinium myrtillus,
Vaccinium spp.)
Identification: Deciduous small shrub
with sharp-edged green branches.
Leaves alternate, simple smooth
margin; flowers white to pink, tightly
clustered. Flowers are about ¼" long,
greenish, tinged with pale pink,
containing 8–10 stamens, shorter than
the styles. Globular fruit is blue-black,
often frosted, with numerous tiny
seeds dispersed through the purple pulp.
Habitat: Northern tier of states from coast to coast. Find them in Acadia National
Park on the East Coast and as far west as Vancouver Island. Found in wetlands,
lowlands, highlands including eastern and western mountains. Wild or cultivated
found in every state of the union.
Food uses: Fruit eaten fresh or dried. Leaves made into tea. Freeze or dry for
storage; keep dried berries in freezer. Stir frozen berries into desserts for an ice
cream–like chill and texture. Use to make pies, muffins, pancakes, and waffles.

Fold sour cream and blueberries into an omelet. Fruit antioxidant and a capillary
protectant that may improve blood flow to distal areas (feet, brain, hands, etc.).
Medicinal uses: Native Americans used a decoction of fresh or dried berries to
treat diarrhea. Iroquois used whole aerial part decoction as a topical application
to dermatitis. Source of vitamin C. Dried pulverized leaves infused and taken for
nausea. Folk use to prevent scurvy. Pioneers used leaves in decoction for treating
diabetes. Berry tea used to treat mouth sores and inflammations.
Carrion flower, smooth

carrion flower
Smilacaceae (Smilax herbacea)
Identification: This is a climbing vine
(to 8') or tangled bush without thorns.
Flowers (May–June) are born in round
clusters and have a distinctive rotten
odor.
Habitat: Grows in low, moist areas,
margins of woods, roadsides, edges of
wetlands, and meadows from Mason-
Dixon Line north to Ontario, from the
East Coast to the plains. Prefers rich,
sandy loam. Pictured plant found 10
meters from lakeshore in northeast
Indiana.
Note: Plant will come up in same
location year after year.
Food uses: Berries are edible and
remain on the plant throughout winter
(although the longer you wait, the
pulpier they get). Young shoots and
leaves, like many others of the Smilax
genus, are edible raw and unremarkable. Tuber is roasted, dried, and ground into
flour—add to flour for pancakes, muffins, bread, waffles, and the like. While cross-
country skiing through Michigan forests, S. herbacea is obvious against the white
background, providing a pleasant trailside snack.
Medicinal uses: The Smilax genus has a long history of medicinal uses. Root decoc-
tion taken as an analgesic for backache. Crushed leaves rubbed over abrasions as
an analgesic. Native Americans used parched and powdered leaves on inflamma-
tions and burns. Infusion of plant used to treat stomachache. Wilted leaves placed
over boils. For further reference, see Daniel Moerman, Native American Ethnobotany.

Wild Cherries: Black
Cherry, ChokeCherry
Rosaceae (Prunus serotina,
P. virginiana)
Identification: Bark of black cherry
is rough, scaling. Peel the bark and
the wood looks reddish underneath.
Leaves ovate to lance shaped,
toothed, smooth on top; midrib vein
underneath has hairs. Leaf is also paler
underneath. Berries are black, whereas
chokecherries are reddish. Both berries
hang from long, drooping racemes.
Chokecherry is a smaller tree or shrub
(black cherry may reach over 80').
Leaves are more oval, sharp toothed,
sharper teeth than black cherry leaf,
with no hairs on midrib. White flowers
on thicker raceme. Bark of black cherry
when freshly torn is aromatic, whereas
chokecherry is not. Chokecherry
Habitat: Cherry trees are typically a

first-growth tree in the East replaced by
maple and beech. They are widespread
in woods, even open places. Choke
cherry found along streamsides in
western dry areas—abundant along
the Columbia River in Washington and
the Clearwater River in Idaho.
Food uses: Bark, root, leaves inedible
because of toxic glycoside prunasin,
Chokecherry leaf
a hydrocyanic acid. Fruits of both
plants are edible. Both make excellent
jams, preserves. Put pitted cherries on
cereal.
Warning: Do not eat seeds.
Fruit may be dried and frozen
for later use as a trail food.
Use only pharmaceutical
grade, professionally prepared
formulations of this tree.
Medicinal uses: Native Americans and
pioneers used bark infusion as external
wash. Black cherry: Inner bark used as a Black cherry

flavoring and therapeutic for colds, sore throats, diarrhea, respiratory infections and
congestion, as well as inflammations internally and externally.
Cranberry
Ericaceae (Vaccinium oxycoccus)
Identification: Vaccinium oxycoccus,
an evergreen, dwarf shrub, creeps
through bogs on slender stems,
occasionally rising 5"–15". Bark is hairy
to smooth and brown to black in color.
Pink flowers are nodding, with petals
sharply bent backward like shooting
stars. Flowers are either solitary or in
couplets, rarely 3. Fruit color ranges
from pink to red, depending on
ripeness. Small berries are juicy and
very tart.
Habitat: Hidden along the floor of sphagnum bogs, hummocks at low elevations
(up to 6,000' or 7,000'), including wet alpine meadows. They are widespread in acid
bog habitats in the upper tier of states from coast to coast.
Food uses: Try it in your favorite apple crisp recipe, add black walnuts, and invite
me over. Cranberries also spark up persimmon pudding. Dried cranberries good on
pizzas, egg dishes, omelets, pancakes, oatmeal, waffles.
Medicinal uses: Berries and berry juice used as therapy for urinary tract infec-
tions—reported to acidify urine. Unverified claims suggest it helps remove kidney
stones. Juice used to treat bladder infections and to prevent recurrence of urinary
stones. It is antiscorbutic (has vitamin C to prevent or counteract scurvy). A study
showed drinking the juice may prevent adhesion of Escherichia coli to gut lining
and bladder lining. For detailed medicinal uses, see Medicinal Plants of North Amer-
ica, FalconGuides, by the author.
Currant
Grossulariaceae (Ribes spp.)
Identification: A member of the large
gooseberry family, with more than
30 species. Leaves are alternate and
lobed 3–7 times with palmate veins.
Flowers are small, solitary, in clusters
and variable in color and have 5 petals
smaller than sepals. Fruits are round,
waxy, seeded, smooth or spined,
either red, yellow, black, or purple.
Gooseberries have spined berries, and
currants are smooth. All are shrubs from spreading to 10' tall.

Habitat: From valley floor to 6,000', various species are found; typically the best
locations are near streams and rivers, rockslides, burnouts, stream banks, forests
nationwide.
Food uses: Many currants are poor tasting—if the plant and fruit smells bad, it
probably tastes the same. Eat out of hand, on breakfast cereals, in pancakes and
waffles; the better-tasting fruits dried or frozen for later use.
Medicinal uses: A nontoxic fruit used as a panacea by Native Americans. The fruit
contains ample amounts of gamma linolenic acid (GLA), useful in treating a variety
of illnesses including diabetes, arthritis, alcoholism, eczema, and PMS.
Elder, black
Caprifoliaceae (Sambucus canadensis)
Identification: Sambucus nigra
(introduced European variety and most
studied) and S. canadensis are similar.
Shrub or small tree to 25' in height;
bark light brown to gray, fissured,
and flaky. Branches break easily and
die every autumn; when young they
are green with gray lenticels. Leaves
are matte green above and light blue
green underneath. Leaves are oblong,
ovate, and serrated. White flowers and
fruit are in large rounded clusters. Fruit
is oval, black to deep violet.
Habitat: S. canadensis typically found
in wet thickets, along edges of streams,
rivers, and lakes. Numerous other
species found coast to coast, typically
in wet areas, along creeks, rivers, in
lowlands, and mountains of the West.
Food uses: Use elder flowers and
berries sparingly as food because
safety is not universally established—
eat at your own risk. I eat the white
cluster of blossoms dipped in
tempura batter (thin coating) then
frittered. Sprinkle and serve as a
health-protecting, heart-stimulating
dessert. Cook berries then strain juice
through a sieve; thicken with pectin to
combine with jams and marmalades.
Cooked juice also added to maple

syrup. Juice, brown sugar, ginger, mustard, and soy combination provides a good
wonton dip.
Warning: Leaves and stems toxic—cyanide poisoning. Cook berries before
consumption. The western variety with red berries may be more toxic than
blue and black berries—avoid eating red elderberries.
Medicinal uses: Flowers reported to lower fever and reduce inflammation and are
alterative and diuretic when infused into tea. Tea for influenza, colds, excess mucus,
arthritis, asthma, bronchitis, improved heart function, fevers, hay fever, allergies,
and sinusitis. Flowers infused in water and rubbed on skin soothe and soften irrita-
tions. Native Americans scraped bark and used root in infusion as emetic and laxa-
tive. Berry infusion used to treat rheumatism. Flower infusion induced sweats and
used on colicky babies. Root pounded, decocted, and applied to swollen breasts,
and leaves in infusion as a wash for sores.
Gooseberry, Prickly
Grossulariaceae (Ribes cynosbati)
Identification: Shrub; spiny branches;
spiny fruit, round to the size of a
nickel in diameter, while its close
relative, currant, has smooth or spined
fruit; deeply lobed leaves, sharply
toothed; flowers yellow, purplish, or
white (depending on species). You
can find gooseberries and currants in
woodlands and along the margins of
woods. There are numerous species.
The spiny, dangerous-looking berries
are harmless and ready for harvest in
early summer.
Habitat: Various species found
throughout the United States in
woodlands, along stream edges, and
bordering wetlands.
Food uses: Make gooseberry-currant
pie. Be certain to add lemon juice to
punch up the taste. When fully ripe eat
out of hand, made into jams and jelly,
and as a marinade ingredient for wild game and cuts of meat.
Medicinal uses: Gooseberries and currants are made into a jelly spiced with pep-
permint, lemon juice, and ginger, then taken as a sore throat remedy. Others claim
that gamma linolenic acid (GLA), an active ingredient of currants, may prevent
acne, obesity, and schizophrenia.

Grape, Wild
Vitaceae (Vitis spp.)
Identification: Climbing vine; clinging
tendrils; green flowers in a large
cluster; leaves alternate, simple, round,
toothed, with heart-shaped base. The
young leaves and ripe fruits are edible.
Vines found clinging to and climbing
trees, walls, and fences.
Warning: The Canadian moonseed
plant looks like wild grape but is
poisonous. Learn to distinguish
these 2 plants before eating what
you think are wild grapes. Squash the moonseed fruit and look at the seed—
see the crescent moon—beware. Get expert identification.
Habitat: Hardwood forest fringes and interior in eastern United States, roughly to
Missouri.
Food uses: To make raisins, cover wild grapes with cheesecloth and dry them in
the sun for 3 days, or dry them in a food dryer. Grape leaves wrapped around rice,
vegetables, and meat and steamed until tender. Add grape leaves to pickling spices
when preparing dill pickles.
Medicinal uses: Fruit, leaves, and tendrils used by Native Americans and pioneers
to treat hepatitis, diarrhea, and snakebites. Native Americans used tonic made with
grape and several other herbs to increase fertility. Tannins and other phenolic com-
pounds found in grape skins may provide protection from heart disease. Resvera-
trol from grapes may prevent strokes and heart attacks.
Ground cherry,
Chinese lantern plant
Solanaceae (Physalis spp.)
Identification: A member of the
tomato family and close relative of the
tomatillo, the ground cherry is similar
to a tomato plant but stiffer and more
erect. It is either an annual or perennial
and has fuzzy leaves and bears a small
tomato-like fruit enclosed in a papery
husk that develops from the calyx.
Habitat: Prefers full sun; found along
edges of gardens and vacant lots;
species is tolerant of both cold and heat. Plant grows in poor and depleted soils,
waste ground.

Food uses: Fruit is edible; mild flavor, with a hint of strawberry. Amish friends make
them into pies with copious amounts of sugar (extra lemon juice necessary). Also
eaten raw and in salads. Slice onto pizzas, add to sauces, chop into stews, and mix
raw into mixed-fruit dishes. Use as a substitute for tomatillos in green salsa.
Medicinal uses: As a poultice over abscesses, a tea for coughs, and a drink for
fevers and sore throats. Native Americans (Omaha) used P. lanceolata root decoc-
tion to treat headaches and stomachaches.
Hawthorn
Rosaceae (Crataegus laevigata; more
than 1,000 species)
Identification: Shrubs to small trees,
6'–20'; many branched, branches
thorned; 3–5-lobed leaves with
forward pointing lobes, serrated leaf
edges; leaves are yellow-green and
glossy. White flowers are numerous, in
terminal clusters, with 10–20 stamens,
and give rise to small apple-like fruit.
Fruit is ovoid to round, red or black,
and mealy. There is 1 seed in each chamber of the ovary.
Habitat: Crataegus macrosperma typically found east of the Mississippi in damp
woods and fringes of forests across the western states. Other varieties found
nationwide.
Food uses: Eaten out of hand, mealy and seedy, but heart-protecting value makes
it worth the culinary failure. Fruit sliced and dried and decocted or infused in water
to make a health-protecting drink, use with green tea; berry has a sour to sweet
flavor, and several varieties are bland. Herb in Europe and China, hawthorn has long
been used to treat heart disease. The active phytochemicals are bioflavonoids.
Warning: Extract may be a uterine stimulant, may induce menstruation,
contraindicated for pregnant women.
High bush cranberry

Caprifoliaceae (Viburnum trilobum)
Identification: Shrub with obvious
3-lobed, coarse, and toothed leaves
(2"–4" long). Leaf lobes pointed. White
flowers in flat clusters. Fruit turns red
and is best after a frost or 2.
Habitat: Lakesides, roadsides, edges
of marshes and thickets, lakeshores.
Stands of these shrubs grow in
profusion and large, with huge tart

berries along the coast of Lake Superior in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore
(find them near the lighthouse).
Food uses: This is a Thanksgiving fruit, and I feel certain it was part of that first
historic meal. The tart berries, best after a frost, go great in stuffing and marinades.
They’re made into jellies and infused into cold drinks. Remove seeds and simmer
berries for best results—add sugar and lime juice, and reduce to a surprisingly
fresh, tart, and delicious sauce.
Medicinal uses: Fruit is high in vitamin C. The plant is an escaped European gone
wild. Fruit used in decoction to lower fevers. Bark decoction is a laxative and used
to treat stomach cramps.
Huckleberry, Evergreen
Huckleberry
Ericaceae (Vaccinium ovatum)
Identification: Bushy evergreen shrub
to 7'. Twigs hairy, reddish in color;
leaves evergreen, finely toothed,
½"–1" long, oval, thick, waxy; bell-
shaped pink flowers. Blooms May–July
depending on altitude and weather.
Small, sweet, shiny black berries.
Favorite bear food.
Habitat: Typically West Coast and mountain states from Alaska to California.
Food uses: Eat out of hand or in hot and cold cereals, or use to make jam. Marinade
recipe: Simmer 1 cup berries; stir in 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard, 1 tablespoon soy
sauce, 1 tablespoon crushed ginger, and the juice of half a lemon. Use marinade on
salmon and chicken or as dip for wontons.
Medicinal uses: High in antioxidants, including anthocyanin. For diabetics these
berries may help manage blood-sugar levels.
Juneberry, Serviceberry
Rosaceae (Amelanchier spp.)
Identification: Produces prodigious
crops of fruit across North America.
Various species are trees or shrubs.
They have showy flowers, white
to cream colored, drooping with 5
lance-shaped petals. Leaves are oval,
alternate, toothed—prominently at
end of leaf—and entire or smooth
toward the base. Fruit black to dark
purple, 2 seeded, and juicy. Early April
flowers in the Midwest and later in the Mountain West. Fruits available all summer
depending on longitude and latitude.

Habitat: The plant prefers moist soil or rocky areas, fringes of wooded areas and
near water sources, from sea level to alpine elevations. Amelanchier alnifolia grows
in profusion along the Columbia River in Washington and along the Clearwater and
Selway Rivers in Idaho. At Hyalite Reservoir, the South Shore Trail shares the fruit
with you.
Food uses: Berry is edible and a welcome addition to pancakes, waffles, muffins,
and game dishes (venison or buffalo). Try them with breakfast cereal. Cook berries
down with honey or maple syrup to make preserves; add lemon or lime juice. Mix
with huckleberries and other fruit for field berry pie. Cambium of shrub considered
nutritious and given to Native American babies. For further reference, see Daniel
Moerman’s Native American Ethnobotany, p. 67.
Medicinal uses: Native Americans boiled berries and used decoction as an antisep-
tic, typically for earaches and colds. Teething babies sipped on a decoction of the
roots. Sharpened twigs used to puncture pustules on people and animals. Boiled
bark taken for stomachaches.
Juniper
Cupressaceae (Juniper communis)
Identification: An evergreen tree or
low-lying, spreading shrub, often in
colonies. It has flat needles in whorls of
3, spreading from the branches. Leaves
are evergreen, pointy, stiff, somewhat
flattened and light green; some say sea
green. Buds are covered with scalelike
needles. Berries are blue, hard, and
when scraped with a fingernail they
emit a tangy smell and impart a tangy
flavor—a somewhat creosote-like
taste. Male flowers are catkin-like with
numerous stamens in 3 segmented
whorls. Female flowers are green and
oval.
Habitat: Found across the United
States. Often found in dune blowouts
along the shore of Lake Michigan
and throughout eastern and western
mountains. It easily relocates to
gardens and yards.
Food uses: Dried berries cooked with game and fowl. Try putting them in a pepper
mill and grating them into bean soup, stews, on wild game and domestic fowl. To
make berries into tea, simply crush 2 berries and add to hot water or to green tea
just off the boil. Juniper berries infused into vodka to flavor it. Gin, schnapps, and
Aquavit also flavored with juniper berries. Berries also used in grilling marinades.

When grated it is added to cold cuts. Try it as a spice on vegetated protein cold cuts,
like Wham and mock chicken, garden burgers. Large amounts of the berry may be
toxic—use in small amounts like a spice.
Medicinal uses: Native Americans used juniper branches around tepees and
shelters to fend off rattlesnakes. The diluted essential oil applied to skin to draw and
cleanse deeper skin tissue. It used to promote menstruation to relieve premenstrual
syndrome and dysmenorrhea. Traditional practitioners use 1 teaspoon of berries
to 1 cup of water, boil for 3 minutes, let steep until cool. Some practitioners add
bark and needles to berry tea. The berry is antiseptic, diuretic, a tonic and digestive
aid—strongly antiseptic to urinary tract problems and gallbladder complaints, but
contraindicated for kidney disease.
Warning: Avoid during pregnancy. The herb may induce contractions and
may increase menstrual bleeding. Do not use if kidney infection or kidney
disease is suspected. Do not use the concentrated and caustic essential oil
internally.
Mayapple
Berberidaceae (Podophyllum
peltatum)
Identification: Large pair of dissected,
parasol-like leaves; white flower on
petiole between leaves; yellow-green
fruit. Mayapple parts are, for the most
part, poisonous. The 2 large, parasol-
like leaves shelter a white flower that
bears an edible fruit when ripe in
midsummer. Pick the fruit when soft
and ripe.
Habitat: Forest-dwelling plant, found
in most states, except extreme desert,
southern California, and lower Florida.
Food uses: Expert foragers carefully
gather ripe fruit for use in pie fillings
and jellies. Fruit ripe in late June or July,
but hurry, as every raccoon and their
friends are competing with you.
Warning: Except for the pulp of the
ripe fruit, this plant is poisonous.
Medicinal uses: An analog of etoposide, the active agent of mayapple, is used to
treat testicular and small lung cancer.

Mountain Ash
Rosaceae (Sorbus sitchensis, S.
americana, S. decora)
Identification: Shrub or small tree to
40'. Compound leaves, 11–17 toothed
leaflets; leaves long and narrow, 3
times longer than broad; flowers and
fruit in rounded clusters. Berries are red
when ripe, best after a frost.
Habitat: S. sitchensis is found in the
western United States, at higher
elevations and moist areas. S.
americana found in northern tier of the eastern states, typically around moist areas;
abundant along the coast of Lake Superior.
Food uses: Berries are best after a frost (or you can freeze in the freezer and thaw
them). Their high pectin content makes them a good addition to preserves and
jellies. Mix about ¼ cup mountain ash berries to 1 cup blueberries or cherries.
Boiled berries used as relish for meat, sweeten to taste; very good over goose and
duck. Green or ripe fruit may be mashed and used to marinate meat.
Medicinal uses: Native Americans used the inner bark and gummy terminal buds
of S. americana as a tonic. The tonic is reported to enhance mood and treat depres-
sion. Bark and bud infusion is considered antimicrobial and an appetite stimulant.
Inner bark and/or gummy red terminal buds infused for colds. Inner bark infusion
used to reduce pain after childbirth; root infusion used to treat colic. Root and
bark decoction used for treating rheumatism and arthritis. Wood ash is styptic and
considered useful for treating burns and boils. Root of sweet flag and S. americana
were combined and infused as spring tonic. Berries used as a digestive aid. Twigs of
western species used as chewing stick (toothbrush).
Oregon grape
Berberidaceae (Mahonia aquifolium,
M. nervosa var. nervosa)
Identification: To 6' tall (Mahonia
aquifolium) evergreen shrub, with
holly-like, shiny leaves; leaves leathery,
pinnate, compound, pointed edges.
Flower is small, bright yellow. Berries
deep blue, waxy. Gray stem. Roots and
root hairs, when peeled, are bright
yellow inside due to alkaloid berberine.
M. nervosa is a smaller forest dweller
with a rosette of compound leaves in a
whorl up to 3' tall; berries on central spikes.

Habitat: M. nervosa found in open
forests and graveyards, with numerous
sites found along Mount Baker
Highway in Washington en route to
Mount Baker. M. aquifolium is found
along roadsides, forest edges from
Washington State into Idaho and
Montana.
Food uses: Tart berries of M. aquifolium
eaten in late summer. Native Americans
smashed the berries and dried them
for later use. They may be boiled with ample amounts of sugar into jam (or honey);
the juice is tart. Carrier Indians of the Northwest simmered young leaves and ate
them. The smaller creeping M. nervosa prepared and eaten in the same way and is
preferred but not as abundant. Try berries mixed with other fruit to improve taste.
Berries are pounded to paste, formed into cakes, and dried for winter food.
Medicinal uses: When eaten raw in small amounts, the fruit is slightly emetic. Tart
berries of both species considered a morning-after pick-me-up. Native Americans
believed berries slightly emetic. A decoction of stem used as an antiemetic. These
2 bitter and astringent herbs are used in decoction to treat liver and gallbladder
complaints. The bark infusion was used by Native Americans as an eyewash.
According to traditional use, the decocted drug from the inner bark (berberine)
stimulates the liver and gallbladder, cleansing them, releasing toxins, and
increasing the flow of bile. M. aquifolium extractions are available in commercial
ointments to treat dry skin, unspecified rashes, and psoriasis. Do not use during
pregnancy. The bitter drug may prove an appetite stimulant, but little research has
been done. Other unproven uses in homeopathic doses include the treatment of
liver and gallbladder problems.
Notes: The shredded bark and roots of both species can also be simmered in water
to make a bright-yellow dye.
Pawpaw
Annonaceae (Asimina triloba)
Identification: Small tree (10'–25')
growing on riverbanks, along streams;
as a secondary growth under taller
trees, loves shade, does not tolerate
sunlight. Leaves are alternate, simple,
large (up to 12"), narrow at base and
broad near tip. Flowers are elegant,
large, and come early; worth the trip
into the woods.
Habitat: Eastern and southern United
States; understory in hardwood

forest, with numerous stands along the
southeastern shore of Lake Michigan, just
beyond the fringing dunes.
Food uses: Large fruit eaten raw, or
remove seeds and cook like pudding, and
then blend with yogurt. Pawpaw shakes
blended with other berries are delicious
and nutritious. Fruits frozen for future use.
Let unripe fruits ripen in vegetable drawer
of a refrigerator; once ripe, however, they
spoil quickly.
Medicinal use: An anticancer substance has been isolated from pawpaw that is
more than 1,000 times as potent as the synthetic drug Adriamycin.
Persimmon
Ebenaceae (Diospyros virginiana)
Identification: A small to medium (to
60') irregularly shaped tree with gray or
black bark arranged in a blocky (mosaic)
pattern with orange in the valleys
between the blocks. Lateral branches
are typically much smaller in diameter
than the trunk. Flowers are 4 lobed and
yellow. Leaves are stiff, oval, alternate
and un-serrated. Fruit is orange, pulpy,
and retains the flower’s calyx, soft and
darkens when ripe—astringent when
unripe, sweet when ripe.
Habitat: Edges of woods, cultivated
arboretums; tolerates dryness, prefers
well-drained soil. Persimmon trees
found as far north as the protected
temperate areas of the Great Lakes.
Lower Michigan is the upper limit of
this tree’s range.
Food uses: Leaves make a refreshing
tea. Native Americans fermented this
fruit in water to make an alcoholic
drink—roll fruit in cornmeal and soak in
water to ferment. Fruit is edible late in the season when the cold takes the “pucker”
off its taste. Pudding made from the fruit is delicious. Collect fruit after a frost when
it is soft and sweet. Best picked off the ground, then you know it is ready.
Medicinal uses: Syrup made from unripe fruit said to be therapeutic treatment of
diarrhea. Astringency of the fruit may explain this use. Infusion of the bark used to

treat liver problems (folk and Native American tradition). Astringency of fruit made
for a sore throat gargle after infusing mashed fruit in water. Bark chewed for gastro-
intestinal stress, acid reflux of the stomach.
Raspberry
Rosaceae (Rubus idaeus, R.
occidentalis)
Identification: Shrub with spiny
branches; compound leaves, 3–5
leaflets, sharply toothed; white flowers,
3 or more petals. Berry pulls free from
stem and has a hollow center.
Habitat: Red and black raspberries
found along the fringes of woods,
fencerows, and the margins of fields.
Berries are ready for harvest in late
spring and early summer throughout
the United States.
Food uses: Use as pie filling, or stir into pancake batter and muffin mixes. Makes
excellent jam or jelly.
Medicinal uses: Leaves are steeped in tea and used as a tonic for pregnant women.
Native Americans used root for diarrhea and dysentery. Also used to flavor medi-
cines. Like other berries, it’s a great dietary choice for weight watchers—it’s high in
cancer-fighting ellagic acid. One cup of raspberries per day shows promise as an
anticancer agent. Nananone, the frosty appearance of wild raspberries, is an anti-
fungal agent that protects the berries from fungal infections. That’s why wild rasp-
berries do not spoil as quickly as cultivars that have lost their capacity to produce
nananone.
Rose, wild rose,

wrinkled rose, dog rose
Rosaceae (Rosa spp., Rosa rugosa)
Identification: A sprawling or
climbing shrub with thorns,
conspicuous flowers, and famous for
the rose hip, its fruiting body. Leaves
are ovate, finely serrated.
Habitat: Widespread and numerous
species from coast to coast.
Food uses: Flower petals are edible,
as is the fruiting body. Flower petals
candied: Mix high-proof grain alcohol
with sugar until hypertonic solution
(sugar no longer dissolves in solution).

Paint rose with sugar-alcohol solution
and let dry. Extract rose water from
rose petals with an inexpensive over-
the-counter still. See our DVD Cooking
with Edible Flowers for details (it's
listed in Appendix C: References and
Resources). Rosewater flavors desserts,
piecrusts, chicken dishes.
Medicinal uses: Rosewater used as a
wash to protect the skin; fruits eaten
as a source of vitamin C and to stem
diarrhea; bark tea drunk for dysentery.
A decoction of bark imbibed to treat
worms; root tea as eyewash. Floral tea
used by this author as stimulant and tonic: It may promote improved circulation,
reduce rheumatic pain, stem dysentery, and relieve stomachache. Petal infusion
may relieve inflammation of the mouth and pharynx.
Salal
Ericaceae (Gaultheria shallon)
Identification: Sprawling shrub forms
dense thickets in northwestern pine
forests. Oval, shiny, leathery, thick
leaves are alternate, clinging to sturdy
stems on petioles of varying lengths.
Bell-shaped pink to white flowers
strung out like pearls near ends of
stem. Dark-blue to blue-black fruit is
ripe from July through September.
Habitat: Seashore west of the Cascades and coastal ranges; under Douglas fir and
cedar from California to the Alaskan peninsula.
Food uses: The berries eaten as you hike along. Take some home and blend them
into jelly or maple syrup, or dry them in a food dryer and use them in muffins,
waffles, or pancakes. Another tasty addition to marinades; berries also used to
make wine.
Medicinal uses: Native Americans chewed the leaves to stem off hunger. Dried
salal berries are considered a good laxative, while the plant’s dried leaves infused in
water can be imbibed to treat diarrhea (the tea is astringent, thus its effectiveness).
Dried leaves powdered and used externally as a styptic on scrapes and abrasions.
Also, dried leaf powder mixed with water to make a pasty poultice for wounds.

Salmonberry
Rosaceae (Rubus spectabilis)
Identification: Shrub 6'–7' in height,
found along moist slopes, sunny banks,
and streams. Brown stems with yellow
bark, laced with weak-to-soft thorns;
leaflets fuzzy with serrated edges,
usually in threes, approximately 3"
in length. Fuchsia flowers arrive with
leaves in spring. Soft, dry fruit ranges
from bright red to yellowish. Note: I
find this berry on Vancouver Island
along the path to Botanical Beach. To find the berries, look for bear dung.
Habitat: Moist edges of woods, seeps, edges of meadows, streamsides from
Michigan west to the Sierras and Rockies north to Alaska.
Food uses: The soft (when ripe) fruit melts in your mouth and will melt in your
backpack too—best eaten as you hike along. Spring sprouts peeled, cooked, and
eaten. Harvest the stems before they become hard and woody, and eat them raw,
steamed, or roasted.
Medicinal uses: Root bark decoction taken for stomach ailments. Poultice of bark
applied to toothache. For further reference, see Daniel Moerman’s Native American
Ethnobotany.
Spicebush
Lauraceae (Lindera benzoin)
Identification: Shrub found in rich
woodlands and along streams. Grows
to 15', with numerous spreading
branches. Smooth branches give off
spicy odor when soft bark is scratched
with thumbnail. Leaves smooth, bright
green, pointed (widest near or above
middle section), simple, alternate,
deciduous, 2½"–5 ½" long and 1½"–
2½" wide. Flowers small, yellow, in dense clusters along previous year’s twigs. Fruits
in clusters, widest in middle (somewhat football shaped but with more rounded
ends); start out green and become bright red in autumn. Flowers appear in early
spring, before leaves.
Habitat: Eastern United States, roughly to the Mississippi River. In rich, moist forest
as understory in birch, beech, and hardwood forest.
Food uses: In the spring gather end twigs, tie them together with string, and throw
them in a pot with leeks, nettles, mushrooms, and dandelions. Bundles of stems can
be steeped in boiling water to make tea (sweeten with honey). Young leaves can be
used in the same way. In the fall try drying the fruits in a food dryer. Dry fruits are

hard and can be ground in a coffee mill and used as a substitute for allspice. Fruits
also used in meat marinades. Try it with your ribs recipe—like juniper berries, 3–5
berries is sufficient. Chew green end twigs as a chew stick while you walk to freshen
your mouth and cleanse your teeth.
Medicinal uses: Native Americans used the bark in infusion for treating colds,
coughs, and dysentery. Tea made from the bark was used as a spring tonic. Bathing
in this tea reportedly helps rheumatism. Tea made from the twigs was used to treat
dysmenorrhea.
Staghorn Sumac
Anacardiaceae (Rhus typhina)
Identification: Shrub or small tree;
leaves lance shaped, alternate,
compound, numerous leaflets, toothed;
cone-shaped flower and berry clusters.
The large berry spikes of staghorn
sumac are ready to harvest in late
summer.
Habitat: Entire United States, except
extreme desert, southern California,
and lower Florida.
Food uses: Strip red staghorn sumac berries from heads. Discard stems and heads.
Soak cotton-covered berries in hot water to extract a lemonade-like drink. Steep
sassafras root in the tea. Add sugar and serve.
Medicinal uses: Staghorn sumac flower can be steeped into tea and taken for
stomach pain. Gargles made from berries are purported to help sore throats.
Strawberry
Rosaceae (Fragaria virginiana, F. vesca,
F. californica)
Identification: White flower; sharply
toothed leaflets in threes, growing in
colonies; looks like the store-bought
variety but smaller.
Habitat: F. virginiana found in the
eastern United States, roughly to the
Mississippi; F. vesca found west of
the Mississippi River; and F. californica
found in California and Baja. Look for strawberries in meadows and open woods.
Harvest in late May and early June.
Food uses: Strawberries are high in vitamin C and are fiber rich—a good choice
for dieters. A wet spring will bring a robust harvest. Use on cereals, with yogurt, on
pancakes and waffles, in summer drinks, and with ice cream.

Medicinal uses: Native Americans used strawberries to treat gout, scurvy, and
kidney infections. Root tannins were used to treat malaria. The fruits contain ellagic
acid.
Thimbleberry
Rosaceae (Rubus parviflorus)
Identification: Found in moist places
(streamside, lakeside, and coastal)—a
deciduous shrub up to 7' high, barbless
stems, erect with shredded-to-smooth
bark. Leaves are large, maple-like,
smooth or slightly hairy on top, fuzzy
underneath. Picked berry fits on your
finger like a thimble.
Habitat: Mountain West, primarily the
Sierras and Rockies to Alaska.
Food uses: Eat the soft, ripe berries
in the bush. Like salmonberry (see
above), thimbleberry will turn to
mush in your backpack. To eat: Apply
forefinger and thumb to fruit, pull
and twist, and pop in your mouth. No
cooking required. Try this tart berry on
cereal. Northwestern Native Americans
dried the berries in cakes or stored them in goose grease. Young shoots harvested,
peeled, and cooked as a spring green.
Medicinal uses: Kwakiutl nation of the Northwest made a decoction, a boiled
drink for treating bloody vomiting, that included blackberry roots, vines, and
thimbleberry.
Wintergreen and
Spotted Wintergreen
Ericaceae (Gaultheria procumbens,
Chimaphila maculata)
Identification: Evergreen; long
oval leaves, finely serrated margins;
drooping white flowers. The flower
forms an edible berry that turns from
white to red by late summer. Available
all winter—if not gobbled up by late-
season foragers.
Wintergreen
Habitat: Entire United States, except
extreme desert, southern California,
and lower Florida. There are several species of this plant in North America. Creeping

wintergreen, or checkerberry, found in
the eastern half of the United States.
Food uses: Add summer fruits to
pancake and muffin mixes. Use the
leaves to make a delicate tea, or munch
them (don’t swallow) as a breath
freshener.
Medicinal uses: Astringent, counter-
irritant. Never take oil internally. Tea
from leaves used for flu and colds and
as a stomach alkalizer. Analgesic and
rubefacient oil for muscular pain and Spotted wintergreen
arthritic pain; also a flavoring agent for
cough drops.

Wetlands
American White Water Lily

Nymphaeaceae (Nymphaea odorata)
Identification: Large white flower to
5" in diameter with numerous petals
and yellow reproductive parts; roots
submerged in freshwater; leaves flat,
platter shaped, 6"–10" across.
Habitat: Found floating on still or
gently moving shallow water to 3' in
depth. Found across the northern tier
of states, farther south in the East, and rarely in the Southwest.
Food uses: Eat the unfurled leaves of spring and unopened flower buds. Wash
petals and cook to remove potential larvae and other aquatic pests.
Medicinal uses: Dried and powdered root sucked in mouth to relieve mouth sores.
Juice of root used to treat colds. Numerous tribes used the root juice, decoction,
and powdered roots in many ways, primarily to treat colds and coughs.
Arrowhead, Wapato,
Duck potatoes
Alismataceae (Sagittaria latifolia)
Identification: Arrow-shaped leaves,
widely and deeply cleft, veins palmate;
white, platter-shaped flowers with 3
petals; deep-set tube growing up from
a soft bottom.
Habitat: Edges of slow-moving
streams, ponds, and along shorelines
of lakes with soft bottom edges; ranges
across northern tier of states, from
Maine to Washington.
Food uses: Harvest tuber in fall or early
spring. Boil until tender, pluck away
skin, and sauté or smash and cook like
hash browns. Native Americans roasted
the tubers, peeled them, and ate out of
hand.
Medicinal uses: Root said to settle the
stomach, alleviate indigestion. Poultice
of root applied to cuts and abrasions.

Cattails
Typhaceae (Typha angustifolia, T.
latifolia)
Identification: Wetland grass with
long sword-shaped leaves, 2-headed
flower, male spike on top and female
just below. Grows to 7'; flower heads
develop in May and June, later in the
mountain states.
Habitat: Numerous species worldwide.
Broadleaf (Typha angustifolia) and
narrow leaf (T. latifolia) are common
across the central and northern-
tier states. Found along streams,
in marshes, fens, bogs, and other
wetlands with still or slow-moving
water.
Food uses: Collect the male flowering
parts in late May and June in Michigan,
about 2 or 3 pounds, and then freeze.
Add the male parts to pizza dough,
bread dough, cookies, and biscuits—
anything you bake—to enrich the final
product with essential amino acids
and bioflavonoids. Strip young shoots
(through June) of their tough outer
leaves down to the delicate core. Eat on
the spot or sauté or stir-fry. Roots are
starch rich and provide needed energy
for beavers, muskrats, and humans.
The young (June) female flower spike
is boiled and eaten like corn on the Male and female heads; Typha latifolia (left) and
cob; alas it does not taste like corn on Typha angustifolia (right)
the cob, but once again, it may be the
difference between starving and survival.
Medicinal uses: The mucilaginous chopped root applied to wounds, minor
abrasions, inflammations, and burns. Burned cattail ash is styptic and used to stop
bleeding and disinfect wounds.
Note: Dried cattail fluff is an excellent fire accelerator; use in the fire nest.
Wetlands 51

Chufa sedge,
Yellow nut sedge
Cyperaceae (Cyperus esculentus)
Identification: Green flower with
numerous spikes. Grows to 3', with flat
seeds surrounded by 4 bracts at 90 degrees
to one another; leaves are slender, tough,
grasslike (but not a grass), and grow from
an underground tuber.
Habitat: In or near wetlands, escaped
to gardens—prefers damp soil. Found coast to coast, in all states except perhaps
Montana and Wyoming.
Food uses: Roots dried, ground, and cooked with other food; or simply dig roots,
wash, and eat raw. They are also baked or boiled.
Medicinal uses: Pima and other tribes chewed roots to treat colds.
Cinquefoil
Rosaceae (Potentilla canadensis,
P. anserina)
Identification: Leaves on long, jointed
stolons (delicate stem-like appendages).
Two types of leaves: oval or elliptical
(which are much smaller and have
sharply toothed leaflets up to 1¼" long),
with small buttercup-like flower. Both
species can be found on waste ground or
in gravelly or sandy habitats.
Habitat: Potentilla canadensis found
in the eastern United States to the
Mississippi in fields, waste ground,
roadsides, and meadows.
Food uses: P. canadensis is used to make
a gold-colored tea that is high in calcium.
For a quick roast, cook the leaves in a hot
(covered) Dutch oven for 2–3 minutes
or pour boiling water over the leaves.
P. anserina roots are edible. Gather the
roots, wash them thoroughly, and steam in a wok. Native Americans steamed
the roots in cedar boxes and served them with duck fat. To this day the Ditidaht
peoples of British Columbia gather and prepare the roots in this traditional way.
Medicinal uses: Roots are rich in tannins and are used by some naturopathic physi-
cians to treat diarrhea, Crohn’s disease, colitis, gastritis, and peptic ulcers. Use only
under the supervision of a trained holistic health-care practitioner.

Duckweed
Lemnaceae (Lemna trisulca)
Identification: One of the smallest
flowering plants, it covers still water
and turns pond surfaces green by early
summer—from a distance it looks like
green pond scum. Up close it is a single
or double leaf floating on the surface of
the water, with 2 root hairs siphoning
nutrients from the water. It is the habitat
of many larval forms of life, so cooking is
imperative. Size: smaller than the nail on
your pinky, to 1 centimeter.
Habitat: Surface of still freshwater.
Found coast to coast.
Food uses: Thoroughly wash, then cook
in soups and stews. What I consider a
survival food, and there is plenty of it. It’s
texture is crunchy, especially when larval
snails are not removed from the food.
Medicinal uses: In poultice and applied to swellings and inflammations.
Horsetail, Scouring rush,

Equisetum
Equisetaceae (Equisetum hyemale, E.
arvense)
Identification: The plant my brother
and I called snakeweed when kids, the
segmented stem can be pulled apart and
put back together at the joints to make
necklaces and bracelets. It appears in the
spring as a naked segmented stem with
a dry-tipped sporangium with spores.
Later the sterile stage stems arise with
many long needlelike branches arranged
in whorls up the stem.
Habitat: Found around marshes, fens,
bogs, streams, lakes, streams, rivers, and
in my garden.
Food uses: Native Americans of the
Northwest eat the tender young shoots
of the plant as a blood purifier (tonic).
The tips (the strobili) are boiled and
eaten in Japan-mix vinegar and soy; boil
Wetlands 53

5 minutes and enjoy. Native Americans
of the Southwest eat the roots.
Medicinal uses: Mexican Americans
use dried whole aerial plant parts of
horsetail in infusion or decoction to
treat painful urination. Therapy not
supported by scientific evidence. But
equisetonin and bioflavonoids in the
plant may account for its diuretic effect.
Native Americans used a poultice of
the stem to treat rashes of the armpit
and groin, and an infusion of the stem was used by Blackfoot as a diuretic. Cherokee
used aerial part infusion to treat coughs in their horses. Infusion of the plant used to
treat dropsy, backaches, cuts, and sores. Baths of the herb reported to treat syphilis
and gonorrhea. This is one of the First People’s most widely used herbs.
Jewelweed, Spotted-
Touch-Me-Nots
Balsaminaceae (Impatiens capensis)
Identification: Fleshy annual of
wetlands to 7' in height. Simple green,
almost translucent stems with swollen
nodes. Deep-green leaves are thin,
ovate, with 5–14 teeth. Plants grow
in dense colonies, often with stinging
nettle. Flowers are orange-yellow with
Young jewelweed shoots
reddish-brown spots. They are spur
shaped and irregular, with the spur
curving back and lying parallel to the
sac. Flower is about ½" wide and ¾"
in length. Fruit is oblong capsule that
when ripe bursts open and disperses
the seeds.
Habitat: Lowlands, wetlands, edges
of lakes and streams, wet fens, edges
of bogs, and relocates to the garden,
providing food and medicine. Young Jewelweed flower
shoots of spring bolt form a complete
ground cover in wet lowlands, along
streams, wetlands, lakes.
Food uses: Eat the small flowers of summer in salads and stir-fry. Pick the young
shoots of spring and add to your mushroom soup, egg dishes, stir-fry, or sauté with
spring vegetables.
Medicinal uses: Traditional treatment for poison ivy. Crush and rub the aerial parts
of plants over inflamed area of dermatitis for an immediate anti-inflammatory

effect, reducing itching and inflammation. The Creek tribe used an infusion of
smashed spicebush berries and jewelweed as a bath for congestive heart failure.
Crushed flowers used on bruises, cuts, and burns. Repeated applications of the
juice may remove warts. Whole herb infused as an appetite stimulant and diuretic.
Used by naturopaths to treat dyspepsia.
Labrador tea
Ericaceae (Ledum groenlandicum, L.
glandulosum)
Identification: Evergreen shrub 15"–
30" or more; flowers with 5 petals (³ ⁄₈"
wide) that form flat terminal clusters;
fruits in round nodding capsules—
leaves evergreen, oval to lance shaped
down rolled edges, wooly underneath.
Habitat: Found in boggy areas of the
western mountains and northern tier of
eastern states and southern Canadian
provinces.
Food uses: Leaves and flowers are used to make tea. Labrador tea is preferred over
glandular Labrador tea, as it is slightly toxic and mildly narcotic, causing stomach
distress and even death from an overdose. Be careful, as these species can be
confused with bog laurels.
Medicinal uses: Native Americans used the leaf and floral tea to treat acute infec-
tions such as colds and sore throats. Smoking the dried leaves claimed to induce
euphoria. Crushed and powdered leaves were used as snuff to treat inflammation
of the nasal passages. Tea said to help alleviate allergies. The tea is diuretic, laxative,
and a smooth muscle relaxant. According to Kershaw in Edible and Medicinal Plants
of the Rockies, crushed leaves used by Scandinavians to flavor schnapps—the alco-
holic nightcap is used as a sleep aid. Alcohol extracts used to treat numerous skin
conditions including inflammation, scabies, fungus, chiggers, and lice bites. Pow-
dered roots were applied to ulcers. And fresh leaves are chewed as a general tonic.
Marsh marigold
Ranunculaceae (Caltha palustris)
Identification: One of first plants to
flower in the spring, it has broadly heart-
shaped leaves ¾"–1½ " wide. Bright-
yellow flowers to 1½" wide, sepals are
petal-like; blooms in early spring. Many
seeded fruits, in a recurved capsule
forming in early summer.
Habitat: In marshes, swamps, along
edges of all sorts of wetlands: stream
Wetlands 55

banks, lakeshores. Found north to Alaska, from Washington State to the East Coast
and as far south as the Carolinas.
Food uses: Early flowering buds are pickled. I use dill brine (reuse the juice in an
empty pickle jar), boil the brine, add dried buds (dry in a food dryer) for 3 minutes
at boil, pour juice and rehydrated buds back into pickle jar, and refrigerate. Native
Americans cooked leaves and also ate seeds. Leaves cooked in animal fats. On the
other hand, a few tribes considered the plant too toxic to eat (see warning).
Warning: All parts of this plant are toxic (with protoanemonin and
helleborine). When the bud is dried, the volatile toxic principles denature
or gas off, making buds edible. The 3 minutes in brine is an extra measure
I take. After all that work, mix a martini, drop in a bud, and take a break.
Don’t drink. Stuff bud in an olive and nibble away. Decoction of root used to
induce emesis.
Medicinal uses: Caustic plant juice applied to warts and a poultice of leaves
applied to arthritic joints as a counterirritant.
Mint Peppermint
Lamiaceae (Mentha piperita,
M. aquatica)
Identification: There are many
American members of the mint family.
The genus has several characteristics in
common: a square stem, almost always
aromatic when crushed, typically
aggressive and spreading. Flowers
are in dense whorls culminating in a
Mentha aquatic
terminal spike of blossoms that crown
the stem, or in the leaf axils. Color varies by species—white, violet, blue. . . . The
root is a spreading rhizome with erect stems. Leaves are ovate to roundish and
elongated in a few species, typically serrated.
Habitat: Mentha aquatic and M. piperita can usually be found around water,
shorelines, stream banks, dunes of the Great Lakes, and mountain passes, blow-
downs, avalanche slides, and wet meadows.
Food uses: Leaves in teas, salads, cold drinks, sautéed vegetables; wonderful
in Mexican bean soups, and as an integral part of the subcontinent and Middle
Eastern flavor principles.
Medicinal uses: Leaf and flower infusion (or the extracted oil) are antiseptic,
carminative, warming, and relieve muscle spasms and increase perspiration. Tea
stimulates bile secretion. Leaf and flower extraction are Commission E–approved in
Germany for treating dyspepsia and gallbladder and liver problems.

Pickerelweed
Pontederiaceae (Pontederia cordata)
Identification: Arrow-shaped leaf, veins
spread from base, merge at tip like venation
in grass leaves; blue flowers, densely clustered
spikes.
Habitat: Ponds and lakes in entire United
States, except extreme desert, southern
California, and lower Florida.
Food uses: Young leaves (before they emerge
from the water), mature seeds and leaves
eaten. Leaves are most tender in spring,
while unfurling beneath water. Cook leaves
with dandelions and mustard greens. Season
cooked greens with Italian dressing or herbes
de Provence; serve hot. Add flower petals to
salads. In late summer seeds mature in tough,
leathery capsules. Open capsule to get fruit.
Munch as a trail food, or dry and grind into
flour.
Medicinal uses: Infusion of whole plant
historically used by 2 North American native tribes as a contraceptive. See Daniel
Moerman, Native American Ethnobotany.
Reed Grass
Poaceae (Phragmites communis)
Identification: Tall wetland grass; lance-
shaped leaves up to 1' in length; flowers in tall,
dense plume. Plants grow in dense cluster.
Found around the margins of streams and in
wet lowlands. The root of reed grass, like cattail
roots, harvested and leached of its starch.
Habitat: Wetlands throughout the United
States.
Food uses: The first shoots of spring eaten
raw but are best steamed until tender. I prefer
to cut open the reed shoot to chew and suck
the young shoots, then spit out the pulp.
Prepare the plant immediately after picking, as
delays in preparation make for a tough, stringy
meal. Simply chop the new shoots into a
manageable size and place them in a steamer.
They are ready to eat in 5 minutes. In the fall, seeds ground into flour or stripped,
crushed, and cooked with berries. Also, try reed seeds cooked in stews and soups.
Wetlands 57

Medicinal uses: The Chinese use plant to clear fevers, quench thirst, promote
diuresis, and promote salivation.
Note: The dried, hollow stalks of reed cut to 4" lengths and used as spigots for tap-
ping maple trees for syrup.
Rice, Wild
Poaceae (Zizania aquatica, Z. palustris)
Identification: Tall grass with a
somewhat reedlike flower head; long,
narrow leaf blades; flowers in tall
plume; upper flowers female, lower
flowers male.
Habitat: Wild rice found growing in
shallow, clean, slow-moving water, east
of the Missouri River.
Food uses: Seeds harvested in August
and September. Timing is critical, so
check your stand of wild rice often.
Mature seeds drop off easily. Return
every other day to maximize the
harvest. Use a rolling pin to thresh the
husks from the seed. Simply roll back
and forth over the grain. Use a fan or
the wind to dispel the chaff. Cooking
tips: The simplest way to cook wild rice
is to boil 2 cups of lightly salted water,
add 1 cup of wild rice, and cover and
simmer for 35 minutes. Zizania is an excellent stuffing for wild turkey. Wild rice,
cooked until tender, is an excellent addition to pancake and waffle mixes. It also
goes well in 12- and 20-grain hot cereals and is a great substitute for white rice.
Extend your supply by cooking it with equal parts of long-grain brown rice.
Medicinal uses: Staple cereal crop for Native Americans, providing winter nutrition
in a harsh climate.
Swamp dock
Polygonaceae (Rumex orbiculatus,
R. crispus, R. patientia)
I include all docks here, although
Rumex crispus and Rumex orbiculatus
are typically found along the edges of
roadsides, in gardens, and meadows.
Identification: The many varieties
of dock are common weeds growing
on disturbed ground, edges of fields, Swamp dock

roadsides, and vacant lots. Leaves
typically widest at base, narrow to tip,
rounded at base; paper-like flower
spikes; fruits 3 parted, brownish to
red with 3 nutlets. Docks emerge in
the spring, first as unfurling leaves,
later the flower spike shoots up with
smaller leaves attached. Flowers and
eventually seeds cluster along the top
several inches of the spikes. Swamp
or water dock (R. orbiculatus) is found Curly leaf dock
growing in water or along stream
margins. It is stout and tall (to 6') with a
long root and flat, narrow, dark-green leaves. Both curly dock (R. crispus) and yellow
dock (R. patientia) have curly or wavy leaf margins.
Habitat: Entire United States except arid areas, along streams, in marshes and
wetlands.
Warning: Contains oxalic acid; like spinach, do not eat more than twice a
week.
Food uses: My favorite species is R. crispus. It grows in profusion in the garden and
is available as food in March. Leaves and seeds edible; tender young leaves, as they
emerge, are most edible. Older leaves are tough and bitter and must be cooked in
2 changes of water. Steam, sauté, or stir-fry young leaves, season with ginger, soy,
lemon juice, and sesame seed oil. Leaves are great with walnuts and raisins. Dock
seeds are edible in late summer and autumn. Hulled seeds can be ground into flour
and used as a soup thickener or as a flour extender in baked goods.
Medicinal uses: Curly dock and yellow dock used by naturopaths and midwives as
a tea to treat anemia and raise iron levels in pregnant women. Iron in this form does
not cause constipation. Curly dock root also used with vinegar to treat ringworm.
All dock roots are laxative, bitter digestive stimulants.
Watercress
Brassicaceae (Nasturtium officinale)
Identification: Grows along the
margins of shallow, clean water.
Alternate leaves to ¾" wide, ovate,
simple, broad near base; small
white flower with 4 petals. Avoid
contamination from pesticides and
herbicides—collect watercress (and,
for that matter, all edible water plants)
from a clean water source such as a highland stream or free-flowing spring.
Habitat: Throughout the United States, springs, free-flowing streams, with rich
bottoms.
Wetlands 59

Warning: It’s a good idea to cook all
watercress gathered from the bush
to avoid possible contamination
with giardia and other waterborne
parasites and contaminants.
Food uses: Watercress is a pungent,
spicy green. It’s an important
ingredient in V8 vegetable juice and
one of the most useful greens known
to humankind. In the northern United
States and Canada, watercress is
available 10 months a year. South of the Mason-Dixon Line, it’s a year-round food.
Watercress is high in vitamins A and C. Scramble chopped watercress with eggs,
stuff a pita sandwich, add it to salads, or make watercress soup. I like to stir-fry
watercress with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, 1 tablespoon
of lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of diced ginger root, and the juice of 1 pressed garlic
clove. Cook briefly at medium heat for about 2 minutes. Use watercress as a stuffing
when preparing smoked or baked bass. After washing the body cavity, stuff the fish
with watercress, season to taste, and bake or smoke it. I like watercress as a wild
ingredient on pizza.
Medicinal uses: Mild diuretic. A few Native American groups used watercress to
dissolve gallstones.
Yellow Pond Lily,

Spatterdock
Scrophulariaceae (Nuphar variegatum,
N. luteum)
Identification: These 2 closely related
species found in ponds, shallow lakes,
and streams. Their disk-shaped leaves
unfurl above water. The yellow flower
blooms through the summer and bears
a primitive-looking fruit. The fruit pod
contains numerous seeds—perhaps the only palatable part of this plant.
Habitat: Throughout the United States, except extreme mountain and desert regions.
The Yellowstone National Park variety (long isolated) is about a third larger in size.
Food uses: The root stock of spatterdock is cut free and boiled. It smells sweet like
an apple, but it is extremely bitter—even after cooking in 2 or 3 changes of water.
Strictly a survival food; eat when nothing else is available. The seeds can be dried
and ground into flour or prepared like popcorn. Place the dried seeds in a popcorn
popper. Cover the machine so the small seeds don’t become airborne. The results are
usually disappointing. Seeds simply pop open, but they’re edible with salt and butter.
Medicinal uses: Root poultice over wounds, swellings, boils, and inflammations.
Root tea.

Edible Plants of Eastern Forested Areas
Cleavers, Bedstraw
Rubiaceae (Galium aparine)
Identification: Weak, slender stem;
8 leaves in whorl; tiny white flowers.
Found in woodlands, along streams,
and in vacant lots, often around the
roots of hardwoods and other trees.
Mature plant clings to clothing.
Habitat: Hardwood forests in
eastern United States, roughly to the
Mississippi, Ontario, and south to
Florida.
Food uses: Also called bedstraw; add
young cleaver leaves to salads in early
spring. Mature leaves are tough and
must be boiled and sautéed. Seeds of
summer can be roasted and ground
into coffee substitute. It’s better than
chicory but far short of coffee.
Medicinal uses: Diuretic. Tea used for
skin diseases such as psoriasis, seborrhea, and eczema. Whole plant juice taken
internally for kidney stones and cancer.
False Solomon’s Seal

Liliaceae (Smilacina sp.)
Identification: Solomon’s seal has
flower umbels in the notch of each
leaf whereas false Solomon’s seal has
a flower spike at the top of the plant.
This is a perennial with adventitious
root stocks that produce the solitary
stem, with alternating, lance-shaped
leaves, partially clasping the stem; white
flowers in a cluster at the top of the
plant.
Habitat: Western United States in
coniferous forest areas to 8,000', and
in the eastern hardwood forests and
shaded dune areas along the Great Lakes, north to Ontario, south to Kentucky and
Tennessee.
Edible Plants of Eastern Forested Areas 61

Food uses: The young shoots of Solomon’s seal are edible, but berries may be
emetic. That is, they may cause you to vomit. Root stocks of false Solomon’s seal are
inedible unless precooked in lye to remove bitterness. Sample this plant judiciously.
This is a beautiful herbal that needs little care and has a different look each season.
Medicinal uses: Buds infused to treat chronic conditions; little documentation
available.
fern, Maidenhair
Polypodiaceae (Adiantum pedatum)
Identification: Shiny black (or dark-
brown) wiry stems, supporting
delicate leaflets; 15–40 leaflets per leaf,
providing the appearance of a fan.
Habitat: Several species found from
coast to coast, lowlands, coastal areas,
and mountain areas, prefers shade and
moisture.
Food uses: Fiddleheads are edible. Pick
when tightly coiled; after unfurling, the
fiddleheads and plant are inedible—a
marginal food, for survival use only. Steam fiddlehead, then sauté in oil or butter
before eating.
Medicinal uses: Leaves of plant are styptic and applied to skin to stop bleeding.
Leaf tea used to rinse hair.
Ginger, Wild
Aristolochiaceae (Asarum canadense)
Identification: Aromatic root, smells
like ginger; 2 dark-green heart-shaped
leaves; note the hairy stem and leaves;
primitive flower emerging under the
leaves in May in Michigan. Growing
from a spreading, adventitious
rhizome. Found on rich soil in moist
woods as a spreading ground cover in
shady areas.
Habitat: Various species grow across
the entire United States, except
extreme desert, southern California, and lower Florida.
Food uses: Crushed root added to salad dressings. When dried and grated it is an
adequate substitute for Oriental ginger. For the daring gourmet, try boiling the root
until tender and then simmer in maple syrup. The result is an unusual candy treat.
Taste the leaves.

Medicinal uses: Root traditionally used to treat colds and cough; antiseptic
and tonic. Herbalists use the root in tincture to dilate peripheral blood vessels;
unproven.
Ginseng
Araliaceae (Panax quinquefolius)
Identification: Rare perennial. Straight,
erect stem, with 2 or 3 leaf stems;
typically 5 but up to 11 leaves per
stem. The best place to find ginseng is
in cultivation or at a botanical garden.
Plant protected in most states, but you
can order roots from Pacific Botanicals
(pacificbotanicals.com) and other
purveyors.
Habitat: Eastern United States, roughly
to the Mississippi River in rich moist Dwarf ginseng
woods, well drained, in dark and
dank places. The easier-to-find dwarf
ginseng is more prevalent. Plant is cultivated in the East and West and readily
available in various forms.
Food uses: American ginseng root, a prized medicinal in China, sells for about $300
per pound in markets there. Cook the root in chicken soup. Eat the berries. Dried
root can be ground with an old-fashioned sausage grinder, then simmered in water
as a pick-me-up. Add root slices to gin, vodka, bourbon to extract the virtues—it
relieves the pressures of life!
Medicinal uses: Ginseng root’s active ingredients, called saponins (glycosides)
raise blood pressure, others lower it; some raise blood sugar, some lower it. Today
saponins from ginseng show an anticancer chemotherapy in preliminary studies.
Groundnut
Fabaceae (Apios americana)
Identification: Climbing, pealike plant
vine; numerous tubers along length
of root; leaves alternate, compound,
feather-like; seeds in long pods, pealike.
Habitat: Groundnut grows on wet
ground, along the fringes of streams,
bogs, and thickets, climbing shrubs,
twining its way toward the sun, in
shoe-wetting and deeply shaded
marshes. Easily transferred to your
garden, where the root can be

harvested in the autumn or spring.
Found across the entire United States,
except extreme desert, southern
Food uses: Seeds are edible. Cook
them like lentils. Tubers of Apios
are 15 percent protein—a great
potato substitute. Native Americans
established settlements near this
staple—a high-protein foraging food.
Medicinal uses: This is a case of your-
food-is-your-medicine: Native Ameri-
cans used the pealike, lentil-like seeds
as survival food. Most eastern tribes ate
the seeds and roots, without which in
the winter they may have starved.
Indian Cucumber
Liliaceae (Medeola virginiana)
Identification: Ovate to lanceolate
pointed leaves, typically 7 in a whorl
around stem. Blue berries. Plant grows
5"–7" tall.
Habitat: Moist deciduous forest, found
around the bases of oaks. Favorite
place is the back entrance to Grand
Mere State Park, Stevensville, Michigan.
Food uses: Indian cucumber root
has an edible root tuber—root tastes
cucumber-like—wash and eat raw.
Gouge out of the ground with your fingers and eat fresh.
Medicinal uses: Whole plant infused and used externally on many skin ailments—
considered a panacea by Native Americans. Berries used as an anticonvulsive. Dried
leaves and berries given to youngsters and babies in infusion. Root tea also used as
a diuretic to treat congestive heart failure.

Jack-in-the-pulpit, Indian Turnip
Araceae (Arisaema triphyllum)
Identification: Leaves compound, 3 leaflets, oval,
smooth, lighter underside; distinctive primitive
flower, spadix in pulpit-like spathe.
Habitat: Found in rich soils, generally woods
or shady lowland, with skunk cabbage and
mayapple nearby. Found across the entire
United States, except extreme desert, southern
Food uses: Native Americans sliced roots and
dried them, deactivating calcium oxalate. Dried
root was cooked twice (boiled and then sautéed)
and eaten like potato chips. I consider this a
survival foot—eat to survive, not to thrive.
Warning: Do not eat fresh plant. Like skunk cabbage and mayapple, Jack-
in-the-pulpit contains caustic oxalates when fresh; thoroughly dry before
use. Not recommended. Handle with care: Calcium oxalate will cause painful
burns in cracked skin or open sores. See also Appendix A: Poisonous Plants.
Medicinal uses: Plant parts used to treat cough, sore throat, ringworm, and as a
poultice for boils and abscesses.
Marsh Marigold, Cowslip

Ranunculaceae (Caltha palustris and
other Caltha species)
Identification: Leaves ovate on yellow-green
stems; distinctive fluorescent-yellow flowers.
Habitat: Thrives in sunlight to partial shade. Plants
grow in low wetlands often in large colonies, in
marshes, along stream edges and wet fields, often
with roots submerged in water. Found across
the entire United States, except extreme desert,
Food uses: Leaves eaten as a potherb in the
spring before the flowers open (cook twice, boil
them, sauté, then do it all again). Cooking in
several changes of water denatures the caustic
alkaloid. Actually, leaves are extremely bitter and
not worth the time and trouble. So why do I put it
here? This lovely plant is worth your attention.
Warning: In view of the caustic nature of this plant, use it as a survival food only.
Medicinal uses: Leaves used as laxative and cough syrup. Root used in decoction
for colds.

Ramps, Wild Leeks
Liliaceae (Allium tricoccum)
Identification: Strong onion aroma;
long, wide leaves grow directly from
bulb on short stem. Leaves are transient,
gone from the plant in 3 or 4 weeks,
giving rise to a flowering stem and
white flowers. By July all that is evident
of the plant is a stem with shiny black
seeds. Bulb is still there, so dig.
Habitat: Eastern United States, roughly
to the Mississippi River. Found on
banks in wet woods, above seeps, on
rich and moist hillsides, deciduous forest, especially beech-maple climax woods.
Food uses: Leaves, stems, and bulbs are edible—marvelous in stews and soup, or
sautéed with soy sauce, extra-virgin olive oil, and a little water to keep plants from
sticking to pan. For a martini treat, stuff fresh bulbs in large olives, drop olives in
martini. Did I mention pizza? Delicious—and an absolute must in tomato sauce.
Medicinal uses: Used as a tonic to combat colds. Disputed evidence suggests eat-
ing raw bulbs may reduce risk of heart disease. Chop leaves into chicken soup to
potentiate this cold and flu fighter.
rue anemone,
Wood anemone
Ranunculaceae (Thalictrum
thalictroides)
Identification: The windflower is a
member of the buttercup family with
small and delicate lobed leaves (that
shake in the lightest breeze, thus the
common name). Perennial grows to
8", has a white flower with 6 petals,
and is an early bloomer, April, typically
in Michigan; sooner in Kentucky and
Tennessee. Root consists of 2, 3, or 4
attached tubers.
Habitat: Found on the floor of hardwood forests of the East, in well-drained soil,
scattered here and there over the ground.
Warning: Potentially toxic; avoid this plant as a foodstuff. I include this plant
here because of its extensive availability. You will find it and become curious,
but try it at your own risk.

Food uses: I have eaten these peppery roots in small quantities. Starchy root said
to be edible after cooking, but most members of the buttercup family are toxic;
regardless of what other field guides may say, I recommend you do not eat this root.
Medicinal uses: Cherokee used a tea of the root to stem diarrhea. Root tea also
used to stem vomiting.
Solomon's Seal
Liliaceae (Polygonatum biflorum)
Identification: Rising from an
adventitious root (where the previous
year’s growth leaves a seal-like scar), a
single stalk with lance-shaped leaves
with buds and flowers in the notches
(leaf axils) of the leaves. Flowers
greenish white, bell shaped, producing
a blue-black berry.
Habitat: Hardwood forests from
the East Coast to Nebraska, north to
Ontario and south to Louisiana, Florida,
and Texas.
Food uses: Starchy rhizomes used as food; must be cooked. Young shoot of
Solomon's seal are fair as a trail food steamed or cooked with mixed vegetables.
Warning: Sample judiciously. Large quantities may be harmful. Berries
considered poisonous. I have nibbled on a few and am still here (though
some would say my mind is gone).
Medicinal uses: Purchase sliced and dried roots of Chinese Solomon's seal in Chi-
nese supermarkets. The root is rich in polysaccharides and considered antidiabetic.
Cook the store-purchased Chinese variety in stir-fry or in noodle soups. Polygona-
tum root used by holistic practitioners and Native Americans, sliced and infused in
water to treat indigestion, excessive menstruation, and exhaustion. Cold wine root
infusion used in Spanish medicine, used as a with arnica tincture to clear or prevent
bruises.
Spring Beauty
Portulacaceae (Claytonia caroliniana)
Indian Potato (C. lanceolata)
Mountain Potato (C. tuberosa)
Identification: Approximately 7"
tall; narrow lance-shaped leaves die
off after bloom; flowers 1 centimeter
across, light pink to white or white with
pink veins, in loose terminal clusters,
numbering 3–18. Plant grows from
ground where it is attached to an

acorn-size, fleshy corm (oval or globular stem base swollen with food and water
surrounded by papery scale). Emerges and blooms in early spring.
Habitat: Found in rich, moist woods throughout the East and across the northern
tier of United States and the mountainous West, on wooded stream banks. Entire
United States, except extreme desert, southern California, lower Florida, and the
prairie states.
Food uses: The brown-skinned corm is edible. Peel the skin, wash, and eat raw or
cooked. Try it on the grill with roasted vegetables. Roll the corm in olive oil, and
then roast for about 8 minutes until browned. Flowers are edible but bland. Young
leaves boiled for 10 minutes and eaten, but poor tasting. The real beauty of this
plant is in the eyes of the beholder—as a foodstuff it’s best left alone.
Medicinal uses: Tea from root used to reduce fever. Crushed leaves used as poul-
tice over ulcers.
Sweet Cicely, Wild Anise

Apiaceae (Osmorhiza odorata and
other Osmorhiza species)
Identification: Perennial with slightly
thickened roots, often in a cluster.
Broken root smells like anise. Plant to 3'
tall with bright green to greenish, shiny
leaves; small greenish-white flowers in
umbels (hemlock-like).
Habitat: Typically, hardwood forest
(shaded or partially shaded), often
found around the bases of trees,
located in the entire United States,
except extreme desert, southern
Warning: Looks like poison
hemlock. First-time foragers, collect
only with an expert. Find an expert
at your county or state park. They
give wild plants talks and walks.
Food uses: Wild anise, commonly called sweet cicely, has a sweet anise odor and
taste. Use as an anise substitute to spice cooked greens. Leaves added to salads.
Medicinal uses: Leaves occasionally eaten by diabetics as sugar substitute.

Toothwort, Cut-leaf
Brassicaceae (Dentaria laciniata)
Identification: Perennial to 6", with
deeply cut leaflets, typically 5 lobed
leaflets per leaf, 3 compound leaves
in a whorl around plant. Flower blue-
white to pinkish. Early spring bloomer,
often in dense colonies.
Habitat: Hardwood forests of the East,
from Ontario to Georgia, Maine to
Iowa. Shade dwelling, typically found
under oaks, beech, and maple. Blooms April through May.
Food uses: A favorite cooked green of the Cherokee, cut-leaf toothwort has an edible
flower and edible root. I have not used this plant much. I like to munch on the flowers
in the spring while fly casting on Volinia Creek near Dowagiac, Michigan.
Medicinal uses: Root used to treat toothache. Chew the root. Root also chewed for
colds, flu. A decoction or tea of the root is used to clear the throat of phlegm or for
treating sore throats as a gargle. Root chew also reported to treat hoarseness. The
chewed root placed as a poultice over the head and temples to treat headache.
Trillium, White
Liliaceae (Trillium grandiflorum)
Identification: Leaves, sepals, and
flower petals in threes. Blanket eastern
woods in spring.
Habitat: Deciduous forest in East, shade
to partial shade, typically in a mature
woods, such as a beech-maple climax
forest. Various species found in entire
United States, except extreme desert, Trillium
Food uses: There are several varieties
of trillium. The leaves and white, red,
and purple flowers are edible, but
for my taste, members of this genus
are too pretty to eat. Trillium and
toadshade (a red-flowered species)
are easy to grow in the home garden.
Locate in shade and rich soil.
Medicinal uses: Native Americans Toadshade
used Trillium grandiflorum root bark
decoction for ear sores, and splinters of wood soaked in root extraction and then
pricked through the skin over arthritic joints to relieve pain.

Trout Lily
Liliaceae (Erythronium americanum)
Identification: Yellow-flowered trout
lily has mottled, shiny leaves and a
small, yellow, lily-like flower. 6"–8" tall,
often sub-arboreal (around bases of
hardwoods in East) in colonies that
may blanket the forest floor. Avalanche
lilies (of the mountainous West) are
close relatives with edible bulbs.
Habitat: Moist forest floor, around the
bases of hardwoods, often in dense colonies. Various species both east and west of
the Mississippi River, from the East Coast to the coastal mountains of the West.
Warning: Plant protected in many states.
Food uses: Young leaves boiled and sautéed, with unremarkable results. Tuber
after boiling may be sliced and eaten.
Medicinal uses: Root infusion used to reduce fevers. Crushed leaves used as a
moist poultice over wounds and irritations.
violets, Woodland
Violaceae (Viola spp.)
Violets are cultivated in France for
perfume. This incredible edible is high
in vitamins A, C, and E.
Identification: Flower irregular;
leaves vary, usually ovate; common
blue violet has heart-shaped, serrated
leaves—a volunteer found in shady
areas along fringes of lawn.
Habitat: Yellow- and white-flowered
violets as well as bird's-foot violets
are found in eastern woods and
montane areas of the West, coast to
coast in forested areas, lowlands, and
mountains. They prefer moist forests,
conifers, or hardwoods.
Warning: Late-season plants
without flowers can be confused
with inedible greens. Forage this Violets east and west
plant only when in bloom.
Food uses: Use both the leaves and flowers in salads. Flowers may be candied—
dissolve sugar into alcohol, brush on hypertonic solution, and let crystalize.
Experiment! Put them over finished meat dishes as a garnish and color contrast

that invites eating. I like plucking the
flowers and munching them as I hike
through the forest.
Medicinal uses: Violet roots consumed
in large amounts are emetic and purga-
tive. Plant used as poultice over skin
abrasions. In China indigenous health-
care givers use one species, V. diffusa,
to treat aplastic anemia, leukemia,
mastitis, mumps, and venomous snake- Bird’s foot violet
bites. The violet’s color suggests the
presence of anthocyanin, secondary metabolites that give off a blue hue. Anthocy-
anin also provides protection from E. coli infection.

Trees and Nuts
Alder
Betulaceae (Alnus spp.)
Identification: These members of the
birch family grow to 80', often much
smaller. Bark smooth and gray when
young, gets coarse and whitish gray
when mature. The bark on Alnus rubra
turns red to orange when exposed to
moisture. Leaves are bright green, oval,
coarsely toothed, and pointed. Male
flowers are clustered in long hanging
catkins; female seed capsule is ovoid
cone; seed nuts small, slightly winged,
and flat.
Habitat: Alder prefers moist areas.
Species range from California to Alaska
east to Idaho. Numerous species
found across North America, often
in impenetrable mazes surrounding
streambeds—great bear habitat; be
careful.
Food uses: Members of this genus provide a generous resource of firewood in the
Northwest for savory barbecue cooking. Smoking helps preserve meat. Soak meat
in a salt brine, then smoke. The bark and wood chips are preferred over mesquite
for smoking fish, especially salmon. Scrape sweet inner bark (in the early spring)
and eat raw, or combine with flour to make cakes.
Medicinal uses: Sweat-lodge floors were often covered with alder leaves, and
switches of alder were used for applying water to the body and the hot rocks. Alder
ashes used as a paste and applied with an alder chewing stick to clean teeth. Cones
of subspecies A. sinuata used as medicine, as are other alder species. Spring catkins
smashed to pulp and eaten as a cathartic (help move bowels). The bark mixed with
other plants in decoction and used as a tonic. The decoction of the female catkins
used to treat gonorrhea. A poultice of leaves applied to skin wounds and skin
infections. In the Okanagan area of central Washington and British Columbia, First
People used an infusion of new end shoots, new plant tops as an appetite stimulant
for children. Leaf tea infusion said to be itch- and inflammation-relieving wash
for insect bites and stings, poison ivy, and poison oak. Upper Tanana informants
reported a decoction of the inner bark reduces fever. Infusion of bark used to wash
sores, cuts, and wounds. This is still an important “warrior plant” in sweat-lodge
ceremonies, a cleansing spiritual rite. For more on sweat lodges, see the DVD Native
American Medicine at herbvideos.com.

Notes: Smoking meat with alder: Wood chips are soaked overnight in water, then
placed on coals or charcoal to smoke meat. In 1961 I saw more than 100 Native
Americans smoking fish, moose, and caribou for winter storage along a 10-mile
stretch of the Denali Highway in Alaska. Local hunting rules then required any person
who shot a caribou was obliged to give some of the meat to the First People, who
preserved it for winter food. Fish flayed, stabbed through with a stick, and hung from
wood weirs above a smoldering alder fire until smoked and dry. In hardwood-poor
areas of the West, red alder burns slower than pine and is a suitable home-heating fuel.
Bark may be stripped and soaked in water to make an orange to rust-colored dye.
Beech tree,
American beech
Fagaceae (Fagus grandifolia)
Identification: Tall (to 160') tree; leaves
alternate, toothed, straight, and parallel
veined, short stalked; bark light gray
and smooth; twigs slender with long
narrow scaly buds. Beechnut fruit
(to ¾" long) is in a spiny husk, meat
protected by a tough shell—fruits fall
in late summer.
Habitat: Climax species in eastern forests. Beech and hard maple end the process
of succession in hardwood forests. Prefers rich soil, open forest. Chemical in plant
kills most understory competitors.
Food uses: Years ago hogs roamed the eastern forests eating the nuts. Quite a feat,
as the nuts, encased in a durable husk, then a shell, leave little room for meat. Tasty
though. Squirrels will get to the nuts before you can. Watch a squirrel in a beech
forest—it may lead you to a cache of hundreds of nuts. Good luck.
Medicinal uses: Bark decoction taken to induce abortions, also used for pulmonary
problems. Leaves decocted and compressed as a poultice over wounds and sores.
Leaf decoction also used over burns. Nuts eaten to treat worms, much the same as
pumpkin seeds.
Butternuts
Juglandaceae (Juglans cinerea)
Identification: Grows to 120'; round
top, smooth bark; light-gray young
branches, becoming light brown and
deeply fissured. Buds dark brown,
ovoid, and flattened; leaves to 25"
long and shorter, with stout petioles,
compound with 11–17 oblong lance-
shaped leaflets, 2"–4" long; thick-
husked fruit in clusters, nut elongated
as compared to a walnut.
Trees and Nuts 73

Habitat: Southwestern Michigan stretches the northern limit of this eastern tree,
from New Brunswick to Alabama, Virginia to South Dakota; more abundant in the
North. Tolerates drier climates, but prefers rich, moist banks near streams and rivers.
Food uses: Biggest of the walnut family; spoils easily, however. Collect butternuts
from ground, throw them in water; those that sink are worth opening. Floating nuts
have had an adventurous creature in them eating the nut meat. Native Americans
crushed and ground nut meats to paste as a baby food.
Medicinal uses: Juglone, in the bark, root, and seed hulls, is anticancer, antimicro-
bial, cathartic, and antiparasitic. Native Americans used bark decoction to treat diar-
rhea and as a purgative, and an infusion of buds to treat mouth sores, mouth ulcers,
and cleanse breath.
Chestnut
Fagaceae (Castanea dentata)
Identification: American chestnut,
to 180', round topped with horizontal
limbs; mature branches dark brown,
yellow green when young. Leaves
oblong to lance shaped, with short
petioles, leaves shiny green turning
yellow in the fall. Nut shell covered
with numerous spines, opens
with first frost to bear shelled nut.
Chestnuts found in botanical gardens and secret hideaways. More common is the
Chinese chestnut. Do not confuse these trees with the buckeye or horse chestnut.
Chestnuts may be removed from their spiny husk, then crack the protecting shell
and eat fresh whole, sliced, as a meal (ground), or roasted. Try them roasted in
stuffing for goose, turkey, duck, or chicken.
Habitat: Throughout eastern United States, from Maine to Florida, east to Ontario
and the Mississippi River. Prefers moist forest and thrives on a variety of soils.
Food uses: Native Americans dried then ground chestnuts and used the meal to
make bread. I like it in gravies, stuffing, cooked in a soup. Try roasting the nuts, then
grinding them and making coffee. Tamale masa made with ground chestnut and
cornmeal—delicious. I like them mashed to meal, then mixed with dried currants
and dried cranberries and cooked in my 7-grain hot cereal. Nut meats are delicious
in potato soups, corn soups, and various chowders. Try them added to hominy
or mixed in corn bread. Smash a few nuts and mix them in sweet potato soup or
mashed potatoes.
Coconut palm, cocos

Arecaceae (Cocos nucifera)
Identification: The coconut palm is a long-lived plant (100 years), has a single
trunk, 70'–90' tall, bark is smooth and gray, marked by ringed scars left by fallen
palm leaf. Leaves, 12'–20' long, pinnate; consisting of linear-lanceolate, more or

less recurved, rigid, bright-green
leaflets. Flower arising at leaf axils and
enveloped by a spathe. Flowers bear
lance-shaped petals, 6 stamens, and an
ovary consisting of 3 connate carpels.
Fruit 2½–5 pounds in weight and as big
as a human head.
Habitat: The coconut palm thrives on
sandy, saline soils; it requires abundant
sunlight and regular rainfall; often
located just above the tidal zone along
tropical and subtropical beaches—transplant to yards and gardens in same climate.
Food uses: Soft fresh endosperm (milk and soft meat) used to feed infants when
mother’s milk not available—often mixed with bananas. Hispanics mix corn water
and soy milk with the coconut milk as a nutritious food for infants and children.
Coconut milk said to prevent curdling of milk in infants. Coconut meat is nutritious
and eaten raw, cooked, shredded, or sweetened.
Medicinal uses: Coconut oil used cosmetically on the skin. Hawaiian people use
this as a complete body lotion, excellent for massage. Inhaling smoke from burning
the fruit shells said to induce abortion. Meat rubbed on the head as a brain tonic
and dried ash of meat eaten as a tonic. Endosperm considered a good food for dia-
betics if unsweetened. In Mexican medicine meat and milk thought useful for treat-
ing diarrhea, dysentery, colitis, gastritis, indigestion, ulcers, and hepatitis. Meat and
endosperm milk considered a tonic, used to rehabilitate the physically weak. Soft
flesh rubbed on acne, wrinkles; oil is a good moisturizing cosmetic lotion. Coconut
milk taken with lime juice is a refrigerant (cooling), rehydrates children and adults,
and lowers acidity of urine.
Hazelnut
Betulaceae (Corylus cornuta)
Identification: Tall shrubs or small
trees with leaves to 5", coarse, toothed
(double toothed). Nuts in a bristly husk.
Often found as understory, rich soil
preferred, along edges of woods, fens,
and marshes.
Habitat: Beaked hazelnut is abundant
in southern Michigan and Washington
State—where they are cultivated. Wild
strains found here and there and in
between.
Food uses: You have to beat the squirrels to these, favorite nut of the fox squirrel.
Remove husk, roast, and eat. Not bad raw. Nuts can be ground into nut flour; great
nutritional boost to bread, pancakes, and waffles. Try cooking nuts in soups and
Trees and Nuts 75

stews and with game. Hazelnut bread is popular in Washington. Nuts dipped in
honey and roasted—messy and delicious.
Medicinal uses: Native Americans infused branches and leaves to treat intestinal
disorders and heart trouble. Boiled bark used to induce emesis.
Hickory, shagbark
Juglandaceae (Carya ovata)
Identification: Tall tree, 60'–90', with 5–7
hairless leaflets; compound leaves 8"–14"
in length. Light-colored shedding bark
indicative, often peeling (shagging) away
from tree in long, narrow sheets. Buds
covered with overlapping scales. Nuts egg
shaped in thick yellow husk splitting to
base.
Habitat: In deciduous forests of East, north
to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, south
to the Gulf Coast states excluding Florida,
west to the plains, and east to the coast.
Food uses: Tree tapped for sap makes a
unique and savory syrup, with the flavor
of hickory nuts. Nuts are edible and
splendid—sweet and succulent, only
surpassed by butternut. Use in salads,
syrups, on pancakes and waffles, and
everywhere a superior nut flavor is desired.
Note: Husking and shelling nuts is difficult
work but worth the effort. I purchase mine (shelled) from an Amish family for about
$6 a pint. I cannot do it that cheap.
Medicinal uses: Small shoots of spring steamed as a respiratory inhalant for con-
gestion and headaches. Spring shoots placed on hot stones in sweat lodges for
soothing inhalant. Bark boiled and decoction sipped to treat arthritis—this hot bark
infusion considered a panacea, treatment for general malaise as a tonic.
Larch, Tamarack
Pinaceae (Larix laricina)
Identification: Medium to large wetlands tree of the North; at first appearance it
looks like a typical pine or fir, needles slender to 1" in length emanating from short
spurs on branch, in clusters, single or several, with nondrooping branch (whereas
European larch has drooping branches); cones less than ¾" in length, almost round;
bark flakes off in scales. Unlike pine and fir, larch is deciduous and loses its needles
through the winter.

Habitat: Wetlands of the North, West, and Northwest, and along stream banks—
prevalent along the South Shore Trail of Hyalite Reservoir in Montana. Bald cypress,
a similar species, found in wet areas of the southern United States.
Food uses: Tender new shoots infused into tea or pan-fried as food. The inner bark
can be scraped, dried, and pounded into flour; reconstitute with water and make
flat bread.
Medicinal uses: Native Americans used the bark extraction and balsam (resin) of
the plant in combination with other plants in decoction to treat acute infections
such as colds, flu, fever, coughs. Various tribes utilized the bark infusion of young
shoots as a laxative. Bark and wood poultice used to treat wounds and draw out
infection. Inner bark infusion considered warming. The resinous balsam used as
a stimulating inhalant. Leaves and bark were pounded, crushed, and used as a
poultice to reduce headache. This ritual sweat-lodge plant is useful for relieving
tension, backache, and headache. Needles, twig, bark wetted and applied to hot
stones to produce steam. Western larch, Larix occidentalis, found west of the plains
states and used in similar ways to include the decoction of the new growth as a
wash for cancer. The resinous pitch of the western species mixed with animal fat
and used on wounds, cuts, and burns. Larix decidua, tamarack’s European cousin,
is Commission E–approved for treating coughs, colds, bronchitis, and fever, and to
promote resistance to acute infections.
Notes: This rot-resistant relative of cypress is used to make long-lived railroad ties.
The tree’s tough, fibrous, and rot-resistant roots make good sewing and basket-
weaving material and were often used to sew birch bark together to make canoes.
Shredded inner bark fed to horses.
Madrone
Ericaceae (Arbutus menziesii)
Identification: Evergreen, broadleaf
tree growing along the seacoast of the
Northwest. Young bark is chartreuse
and smooth, whole. Older bark is dark
brown to red and peeling. Evergreen
leaves are alternate, oval, 7" long, shiny,
dark green above, lighter, whitish
green beneath, hairless, and leathery.
White flowers that are urn shaped to 3"
long in large drooping clusters. Fruit an
orange-red berry about ½" across, with a granular skin.
Habitat: Typically found in coastal areas of northern California, Oregon, offshore
islands of Washington and British Columbia, in typically dry, sunny areas with a sea
exposure.
Food uses: Vancouver Salish used reddish bark in decoction when cooking to dye
edible camas bulbs pink. Berries cooked before eating. Also, they were stored after
steaming, dried, and reconstituted in hot water before eating. Berries smashed and
Trees and Nuts 77

made into a cider-like drink. Cider claimed by Miwok as an appetite stimulant and
said to resolve upset stomach. Berries are also dried and stored for later use.
Medicinal uses: Saanich and other nations used bark and leaves for treating
colds, tuberculosis, to treat stomach problems, and as a postpartum contraceptive.
Decoctions of plant were also used as an emetic (Concow nation), which belays
one from imbibing nonchalantly. Leaves used by Cowichan of Northwest as a burn
treatment, dressing. Leaf infusion used to treat stomach ulcers. Also, fresh leaves
eaten off tree for relieving cramps. Chewed leaves said to relieve sore throat (chew,
swallow juice, but don’t swallow leaves). Leaf infusion used by Skokomish to treat
colds and treat ulcers. Bark infusion used to treat diarrhea. Bark decoction used for
washing sores, wounds, impetigo; said to be astringent. Bark decoction also used
as a gargle for sore throat, according to Pomo and Kashaya. Karok used leaves in
puberty ceremony.
Notes: The wood was used to make canoes, and the berries are used as steel-
head trout bait. Berries also dried and used as beads when making bracelets and
necklaces.
maple, Sugar
Aceraceae (Acer saccharum)
Identification: Leaves have the basic
form of Canada’s national emblem.
Crowns of trees are broad and rounded
in the open. Bark is smooth when
young and furrows with age. Leaves
are typically 3 lobed. Seeds have
the characteristic helicopter-blade
appearance and fly accordingly.
Habitat: Climax species in eastern
forests with beech. Trees found from Ontario south to Tennessee and west to
eastern parts of South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
Food uses: The seeds are eaten but are poor tasting. Pluck the seeds from the
helicopter-blade husk and cook like peas, or stir-fry. You will soon have your fill of
them. Maple sugar and maple syrup from the winter and spring sap are what these
trees are all about. A maple sugar mill near you has taps or information as to where
to purchase them (they’ll probably sell or give you a few). Use a brace and 3⁄8" bit
to drill through the bark until you hit hardwood. Clean the hole thoroughly, and
then use a hammer to drive in the tap. Sap flows best on warm, sunny days after
a freezing night. Tapping begins in late January and continues until the sap runs
dark, thick, and stingy in early April. With trees under 10" wide, use only 1 tap. For
larger trees, drive 2 or 3 taps in a circle around the tree. Use a covered pail to collect
the sap. If you are going to boil the sap down on an open fire, make certain your
wood is dry and presents very little smoke. Smoke will give an undesirable flavor to
the syrup. I use 3 pans over a long and narrow fire pit. I pour the sugar water from
pan to pan as it cooks. Pan number 1 receives the fresh water from the trees, pan 2
will receive the reduced water from pan 1, and pan 3 receives the further-reduced

water from pan 2. Pan 3 of course will have the thickest, richest water. Boil the syrup
in pan 3 until it coats a spoon.
Medicinal uses: Maple syrup is a glucose-rich sugar substitute with the added
benefit of numerous minerals. I prefer it as a sweetener rather than refined sugar,
which has no minerals. Traditionally, maple syrup was used to flavor and sweeten
cough syrups. The unfinished fresh sap is considered a mineral-rich tonic. I store
a couple gallons in the freezer and keep one in the refrigerator as a flavorful and
nutritious water source.
Note: Other trees tapped for sap: black walnut, white, black, and yellow birch.
Grape-vine canopy can be cut (to save the tree) in the spring, and they will provide
copious amounts of mineral-laden water.
Oaks and Acorns

Fagaceae (Quercus spp.)
Identification: This is a large genera
with species worldwide. I prefer the
acorns from oaks that have rounded
instead of pointed leaf lobes. White oak
(Quercus alba) and bur oak are good
examples from the eastern United
States. Chinkapin oak also has sweet
acorns. Quercus alba has white-gray White oak
bark; evenly lobed hairless leaves 3"–9"
(7–11 lobes, not pointed) and twigs
that are also hairless. Acorn cup (cap)
is bowl shaped covering one-third or
less of acorn. Bur oak (Q. macrocarpa) is
a tall tree (to 180') with leaves marked
by deep indentations (1 or 2), dividing
the leaves into 2 or more proportions.
Leaves leathery and shiny above, hairy
and whitish underneath. Acorn cups
bowl shaped, with mossy (bur) fringe Bur oak
of elongated scales. Bark light gray,
shallow grooved. Leaves 4"–10".
Habitat: Varieties of oaks are found throughout the United States: eastern forests,
montane areas, California, Texas, New Mexico, Washington State. Bur oak, white
oak, black oak, chinkapin, and red oaks are distributed throughout forests of the
eastern United States.
Food uses: Oaks with leaves that are pointed have more tannins, and the acorns
are too bitter to consume even after soaking in water. The best way to get
acquainted with oaks and learn how to identify them is to visit an arboretum where
oaks are labeled and identification is facilitated. Armed with this visual proof, you
will be successful gathering nuts for the winter. White oak and bur oaks have sweet
Trees and Nuts 79

nut meat. Tannins in acorn meat embitter the taste. Tannins are water-soluble
phenolic compounds that leach away in water, thus a water bath sweetens the
nut. A quick fix in the kitchen is to puree the acorn meat in water. Use a blender
and combine 1 cup of water with every cup of nut meat. Blend thoroughly. Press
the water out of the nut meat through a clean pair of pantyhose, cheesecloth, or
white sock. Keep in mind that a dirty white sock imparts an objectionable flavor to
the nut meats. I like the acorn puree on baked potatoes, over tomato sauce, in all
baking recipes, or out of hand as a snack.
Medicinal uses: White oak has tannin-rich bark. Tannins are antiseptic and astrin-
gent. Native Americans and pioneers made a tea from the bark for mouth sores,
burns, cuts, and scrapes. The bark considered by many a panacea. We now know
that tannins in oak and tea may provide cancer protection and are under inves-
tigation. Native Americans used bark tea for treating fevers and hives. Bark tea is
astringent.
Pecan
Juglandaceae (Carya illinoinensis)
Identification: Leaflets 9–17 per leaf.
End buds to 1" long with 2–3 pairs
of non-overlapping yellow hairy bud
scales, twigs hairless, bark closely
ridged and nonpeeling. Hybrids have
much bigger nut meats than wild types
and grow to 160' in height. Nuts longer
than wide, edible.
Habitat: This fertile-soil, bottomland
dweller where temperatures are
moderate and there is ample humidity, may not bear fruit for 20 years. Typically
found wild along the Mississippi River, more on the west side.
Food uses: Lammes pecan chewies are my wife’s favorites and may be purchased
online or in Austin, Texas. I use pecans in salads, Paleo waffles, pancakes, cookies,
candy, and with ham and vegetable dishes. The nut was stored for winter use.
Medicinal uses: Kiowa used a decoction of the bark to treat tuberculosis. Leaves
crushed and rubbed over ringworm.
White Pine and

Pinyon Pine
Pinaceae (Pinus strobus, Pinus edulis)
Identification: White pine grows to
over 100' and displays 5 needles in
clusters, typically each with a white
stripe on the side; they are 3 sided,
2½"–5" long. Branches form a whorl
around trunk, and the age of the tree is

determined by the number of whorls. Pinecones are elongated with flexible scales.
Pinyon pine grows to 20', with brown cones, typically in pairs, that are 2"–4" long.
Seeds are up to ½" in length, inside a shell.
Habitat: White pine, because of its utility, found throughout the East and as an
ornamental in many western states. Pinyon pine prefers a drier climate and grows
at higher altitudes in the Mountain West—especially prevalent in the Four Corners
area.
Food uses: White pine needles are made into tea. Take a handful of needles,
crush them, and add them to a gallon jar of water containing mountain mint,
lemon thyme, and lemon balm, then squeeze in juice of ½ lemon and let infuse in
refrigerator for 6 hours. Uplifting! Seeds from both white and pinyon pine eaten.
Pinyon pine is the premier edible seed (pine nuts) and is mashed to a paste and
mixed with berries and spices for an unusual candy treat. Seeds on all pines are
edible, but many are too small to effectively gather.
Medicinal uses: Pine pitch used to seal wounds, and it is antiseptic and
disinfectant.
Redbud tree, Eastern

Redbud
Leguminoceae (Cercis canadensis)
Identification: Small tree to 30', broad,
open, and flat or rounded crown. Bark
thin and gray on young stems; on older
trees bark darkens to reddish brown to
black, forming lone narrow scaly ridges;
inner bark red. Leaves alternate, simple,
heart shaped, dark green above and
paler beneath. Flowers April to May,
irregular, light-rose colored, pealike
flowers, blooming before leaves open.
Habitat: Southwestern Michigan and
south, through the southern states.
Understory tree of forests and stream
borders in moist ground. Associated with
elm, basswood, silver maple, red ash,
Redbud and pod
mulberry, and hackberry. Shade tolerant.
Food uses: I eat the flowers in spring and a little later, the young fruiting bodies.
The flowers are tart and go well in salads, pancakes, fruit dishes. The pods (a fruiting
legume) best dipped in a batter and cooked tempura-style.
Medicinal uses: Native Americans used the inner bark and root for respiratory con-
gestion, pulmonary congestion, whooping cough. According to Duke in his Hand-
book of Northeastern Indian Medicinal Plants, the Delaware nation used the inner
bark infusion to prevent vomiting and to reduce fevers.
Trees and Nuts 81

Sassafras
Lauraceae (Sassafras albidum)
Identification: Small to medium
tree with mitten-shaped leaves (and
other diverse shapes), aromatic leaves
and twigs. The root is fragrant and
smells a bit like root beer. Flowers are
yellow-green.
Habitat: Found in eastern forests,
often along the edges of woods and
roadsides. It is a first growth in oak-
hickory forests.
Food uses: Dried leaves of spring used
as filé in gumbo. Crush the dried leaves
of spring to powder and use as a spice.
Also, spread the leaf powder on pasta,
soup, cheese, and other savory dishes.
For root tea, peel the root before you
boil it.
Medicinal uses: Bark decoction used
as a stimulant, pain reliever, astringent,
and folk treatment for rheumatism. Safrole (found in leaves, roots, and bark) is
touted to have a wide variety of medicinal uses including treatment of scurvy, skin
sores, kidney problems, toothaches, rheumatism, swelling, menstrual disorders, and
sexually transmitted diseases, bronchitis, hypertension, and dysentery.
Warning: The root oil used as an antiseptic until 1960 when USDA declared it
unsafe because of the content of safrole, a carcinogenic toxin. There are no
proven effects as a medicine, and because of the toxic effects of safrole, the
plant extracts should not be eaten. That said, I chew the end twigs for flavor.
Notes: When camping, use twigs as a toothbrush (chew stick). Chew the end of the
twig until it is bristly, and then use the bristles to clean between your teeth. Extracts
are used to make perfume and root beer.

Walnut, Black
Juglandaceae (Juglans nigra)
Identification: 50'–90' in height and
2'–3' in diameter with a straight, clear
trunk and narrow crown. Twigs and
branches are thick. Leaves alternate,
pinnately compound, 12"–24" long,
with 10–24 sharply oval, finely toothed,
long-pointed leaflets 3"–3½" long;
bright, clear yellow in autumn. Flowers
are yellow-green; males in catkins
2½"–5½" long; females on short spikes
near twig ends. Fruit round, 2"–2½"
across, with a thick, green, nonsplitting
husk; nut inside is furrowed and hard;
matures in late summer to fall.
Habitat: Deep, well-drained soils;
grows best in rich bottomlands, moist
coves, and streamsides; grows best on
the lower north- or east-facing slopes.
Food uses: In baked goods, cereals,
waffles, pancakes, salads. Or eat it on
the hoof out of hand. This is a daily requirement in morning oatmeal. Try crushed
black walnuts mixed in maple syrup.
Notes: To remove the husk (stain-producing covering of the walnut), you may put
them on a paved driveway and roll them under your shoe. Or jack up a car slightly
(about 1") off the ground, engage the transmission, and let the walnuts shoot
under the tire. Some people wear gloves and use a hammer to pound and tug the
husk away. Before shelling, drop unshelled walnuts in a bucket of water—those
that float have worms that have eaten the nut meat. Open only the ones that sink.
Medicinal uses: Cholesterol-reducing in Loma Linda University test where par-
ticipants ate 20 percent of their daily calories from walnuts. Diet also, ratio of LDL/
HDL lowered by 12 percent (see Nutrition Today, vol. 30. No. 4, pp. 75–176; 1995).
Walnuts may help prevent hyperthyroidism, scabies; may lessen inflammation of
psoriasis and arthritis. Walnuts are rich in serotonin, mood-enhancing chemistry,
and they may improve satiety by reducing cravings, thereby treating obesity. Black
walnut husk extract is antifungal. An antifungal compound: Equal parts of tincture
of golden seal, cinnamon, tea tree oil, and black walnut husk tincture.
Trees and Nuts 83

Edible Plants of the Mountain West
Arrow-Leafed
BalsamRoot
Asteraceae (Balsamorhiza spp.)
Identification: Found in clumps and
colonies, these plants have arrow-
shaped, basal leaves, 8"–12" in length.
Leaves are hairy, rough to the touch.
Flowers are yellow and long stalked.
Up to 22 yellow rays encircle the yellow
disc of florets.
Habitat: Grows on dry, stony slopes
in the foothills and higher elevation
of the Rockies from Colorado to
British Columbia—widespread in the
Bitterroots and other Idaho wilderness
areas. Find balsamroot on the hike
from Pebble Creek Campground in
Yellowstone to the confluence of the
Lamar River and Cache Creek (take
along your fly rod).
Food uses: Young leaves and shoots are edible, as well as young flower stalks and
young stems. They may be steamed or eaten raw. Peeled roots eaten, but taste
bitter unless slow cooked to break down the indigestible polysaccharide (inulin).
Roots may be cooked and dried, then reconstituted in simmering water before
eating. Eat seeds out of hand or pounded into meal and used as flour. The roasted
seeds can be ground into pinole. The Nez Percé Indians roasted and ground the
seeds, which they then formed into little balls by adding grease. In a pinch (should
you get lost in these vast mountainous expanses), here is a readily available survival
food—but freeing the root, often deeply and intricately woven into the rock, is an
exhausting task.
Medicinal uses: Native Americans used the wet leaves as a wound dressing and a
poultice over burns. The sticky sap was used to seal wounds and considered anti-
septic. Balsamroot, when peeled and chewed, although bitter, contains inulin that
may stimulate the immune system, providing protection from acute sickness, such
as colds and flu. The sap is considered antibacterial and antifungal. A decoction of
the leaves, stems, and roots administered for stomachache, colds. Root traditionally
used for treating gonorrhea and syphilis. In sweat lodges, balsamroot smoke and
steam said to relieve headaches. Considered a warrior plant in smudging ceremo-
nies and a disinfectant; the inhaled smoke was said to relieve body aches. Chewed
root used as a poultice over sores, wounds, and burns. Whole plant decocted for
stomach pain.

Avalanche Lily,
Yellow Avalanche Lily,
Glacier Lily
Liliaceae (Erythronium grandiflorum
and other species)
Identification: Leaves lance and
ellipse shaped, narrowing at base, with
a deeply buried, edible corm. Single
yellow flower (sometimes 2) on 7" or 8"
stem (blooms in June and July).
Habitat: Found in alpine meadows and high slopes in western mountains. These
species are similar to, and from the same genus as, the trout lily (dogtooth violet) of
the eastern United States but are more sun tolerant.
Food uses: Reaching the corm is a difficult dig, requiring much effort. Native
Americans wrapped the bulbs in cattails and reeds, then cooked them in an earth-
filled pit over which a fire was burned; 10–12 hours in the pit would render the
corms both edible and delicious.
Warning: The corm contains the polysaccharide inulin—cook to make
digestible. Plant protected in most areas, so buy the roots online at herbs
.com or Pacific Botanicals (pacificbotanicals.com).
Medicinal uses: The inulin-rich bulb may be therapeutic to diabetics. (In Japan the
inulin in burdock root is used to treat diabetics.)
Beargrass, Turkey Beard,

Elk Grass
Liliaceae (Xerophyllum tenax)
Identification: Grasslike member of
the lily family that grows as a clump
of wiry, elongated, sharply pointed,
saw-toothed blades to 2' in height. As
it matures, an unbranched central stalk
emerges, producing a terminal raceme
(pyramidal cluster) of white flowers.
Often found in groups, with several
plants emanating from a single elongated rhizome, the plant produces 1 cluster of
flowers before dying back.
Habitat: Found on mountain slopes to the timber line, from Alaska south to
northern California. I have seen ample amounts near the tree line on Mount Rainier,
en route to the Burroughs at Sunrise, the northwest entrance to the park.
Food uses: Roots may be gathered and boiled or roasted until tender. Although
not delicious, and for some not even good, it may be the psychological lift one
needs in a survival situation.
Edible Plants of the Mountain West 85

Note: Fragile beargrass is a barometer of ecosystem quality, and it is vanishing from
numerous habitats—use only as a survival food. Florists gather leaves as filler for
bouquets.
Medicinal uses: Native Americans chewed the roots and applied them as a poul-
tice over wounds. Claimed to be hemostatic (stops bleeding). Roots chopped fine
and prepared in decoction to treat broken bones and sprains. Roots have saponins,
surfactant wetting agents that are used as a lather over wounds. For further refer-
ence, see Daniel Moerman’s Native American Ethnobotany.
Meadow Bistort, Alpine

Bistort, Lady’s Thumb
Polygonaceae (Polygonum
bistortoides, P. viviparum, P. persicaria)
Identification: Erect herb to 30", with
lance-shaped basal leaves, flowers
on erect stalk, producing brownish
achenes (seeds). Flowers white in single
dense cluster atop stalk, later forming a
seed head.
Polygonum seed salad
Habitat: P. bistortoides and P. vivparum
grow on wet, open slopes; abundant in
the alpine meadows of Mount Rainier,
the Cascades, from New Mexico to
Alaska. South of Bozeman, Montana, on
the Mirror Lake Trail, bistort spreads in
abundance. Around 6 p.m. have your fly
rod handy as the grayling feed on the
surface for a furious hour of catch-and-
release fishing. P. persicaria is found both
east and west of the Mississippi in drier Polygonum spp.
areas: vacant lots, meadows, and wet
areas, including my garden.
Notes: Easily identified and harvested
in areas where harvesting is allowed.
Food uses: Young leaves and shoots
edible raw or sautéed in butter; slightly
sour taste—older leaves tough and
stringy. Leaves in salads and cooked
with meat. Starchy root is edible, boiled
in soups and stews, or soaked in water,
dried and pounded (ground) into flour
for biscuits, rolls, bread. Cooked roots
said to taste like almonds, chestnuts.
Seeds are edible and pleasant tasting.
P. bistortoides

Medicinal uses: Vitamin C–rich plant used to treat or prevent scurvy. Alcohol tinc-
ture is astringent and used externally on cuts, abrasions, pimples, insect stings and
bites, inflammation, and infections. Little used today as a medicinal. Traditional uses
still employed by montane-dwelling Native Americans and Europeans.
Bluebells, Chiming Bells

Boraginaceae (Mertensia spp.)
Identification: Numerous species bear
numerous blue (sometimes pinkish-
blue) bell-shaped flowers (1" in length),
that droop and, in a generous wind,
appear to be ringing. Petals are fused.
Succulent lance-shaped leaves are
alternate, climbing the sturdy stem,
and as they approach the cluster of
flowers, appear to be almost opposite.
Plants spread in profuse colonies.
Habitat: Taller species prefer moist meadows and stream banks, shorelines, seeps.
Smaller subalpine and alpine species tolerate drier conditions. Meadows of chiming
bells dominate the wet areas of East Ten Sleep Creek in the Bighorns of Wyoming.
Food uses: Leaves have an unusual and palatable flavor raw, steamed, or sautéed.
Eat in moderation, as plant concentrates minerals, both good and bad.
Medicinal uses: Tea of aerial parts infused and taken to increase lactation. Infusion
of leaves also used to treat symptoms of smallpox and measles.
Devil’s Club
Araliaceae (Oplopanax horridus)
Identification: Shrubby perennial to
10', a twisted tangle of spiny thorns.
Has a sweet odor and displays large
maple-like leaves armed on the
underside with thorns. White flowers
grouped in a club-like terminal head.
Habitat: Western mountains to the
West Coast, especially in wet areas:
seeps, stream banks, moist, low-lying forests—prevalent in the Olympic Range and
Cascades, from sea level to the tree line in Canada.
Food uses: Berries inedible, but spring buds eaten as a survival food (meaning in
hard times, people eat dirt). Pick young shoots with soft spines; get there early,
right after the snow clears. This armored plant walls off every environment it loves.
Medicinal uses: One of the most important medicinal plants of the West; roots,
berries, and greenish bark are used. Berries rubbed in hair to kill lice and create a
shine. Inner bark chewed raw as a purgative, or decocted and imbibed for the same

reason. Infused inner bark taken to relieve bowel, stomach cramps; arthritis; and
ulcers. For further reference see the author’s Medicinal Plants of North America.
Elk thistle
Asteraceae (Cirsium scariosum)
Identification: Spiny leaves in whorls around
stem. Stem single spike studded with spines and
spiny leaves. Purple flowers are born on the apex
of the stem, flowers to 1½" wide.
Habitat: This thistle is abundant in meadows,
subalpine and alpine lowlands in the Mountain
West, especially abundant around Yellowstone.
Found in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington,
Colorado.
Food uses: Roots of elk thistle (also called
meadow thistle) may be eaten raw, roasted, fried,
pit-baked. Native Americans pit-baked the root.
Knife this plant where it stands, cut away spines
and skin, and eat core.
Medicinal uses: Roots of this thistle and others used as a poultice over wounds,
swellings. Root decoction used for many purposes to include treating back pain.
Whole plant smudged for treating headaches.
Fireweed
Onagraceae (Epilobium angustifolium,
E. latifolia)
Identification: Tall stem with narrow lance-
shaped leaves that alternate, rising to a spire
of pink flowers. Found singly or in colonies in
burned out areas, on disturbed ground, and
along roadsides of the West. Erect stem bears
a spired cluster of flowers with 4 petals. Leaf
veins form loops that are distinctive, leaves paler
underneath, darker on top. Seedpods borne on
spire, mature and release airborne fluffy seeds.
Blooms form April through August, dependent
on altitude.
Habitat: Burnouts, roadsides, disturbed areas
in profusion, more sparsely elsewhere. Tolerates
damp and dry areas, lowlands and highlands,
some shade, but prefers drier areas, full sun.
Food uses: Edible flower, raw or cooked. Vitamin-rich leaves and tender shoots of
early growth are steamed, sautéed, or stir-fried. Add tender young leaves to salads.
Shoots pushing up from the ground are tasty, tender, and worth discovering.

Medicinal uses: Intense infusion of whole plant used as a laxative. Leaf and flower
tea considered antispasmodic. Root chewed and used as a poultice over wounds.
Whole herb tea used to treat candidiasis.
Geranium
Geraniaceae (Geranium viscosissimum
and other Geranium species)
Identification: Showy flowers with
5 petals from pale white to pink and
purple. Plant grows to 3' but is usually
smaller, in colonies, mixed with other
wildflowers. Leaves are deeply cut,
palmate, and plentiful. Plant blooms
April–July, even into August at higher
altitudes.
Habitat: Meadow varieties, alpine dwellers and subalpine relatives, near water
sources in abundance at West Ten Sleep Campground in the Bighorns off Highway
16 and Hyalite Canyon around Mirror Lake. Found in wet areas, grasslands, and
around ponds and seeps.
Food uses: Sauté, or eat the flowers raw on the hoof. I avoid leaves, as they are
more astringent, but when astringency is desirable, use prudently. Although not a
favorite, this flower is abundant and can make the difference in a survival scenario.
Medicinal uses: Root decoction said to stem diarrhea. Leaf infusion, cooled and
used as a gargle. Decoctions of the aerial parts of the plant used by several Native
American tribes as a “life medicine”—a panacea, if you will, to treat internal ail-
ments. Dried leaves used as a snuff to stem nosebleeds.
Harebells
Campanulaceae (Campanula spp.)
Identification: Delicate bell-shaped
blue to lavender-blue flower (petals
partially fused) on delicate stem,
with delicate, simple, and extremely
narrow leaves. Leaves are alternate.
Plant grows 8"–12" tall when mature
and blooms April–August, depending
on latitude and altitude (and possibly
attitude).
Habitat: Found in drier foothills and
benches of western mountains. Quickly
found on the American Serengeti,
the broad overreaching meadows of
the Lamar River valley in Yellowstone.
(Forgot your fly rod? Too bad.)

Food uses: Boil or sauté roots—a fireside nibble. When hiking I eat a flower or 2
just to say I did it.
Medicinal uses: Infusion of eastern species used by Native Americans to treat
whooping cough and tuberculosis.
Licorice
Fabaceae (Glycyrrhiza lepidota)
Identification: 3'-tall (plus or minus)
perennial, with pinnately divided
compound leaves with 11–19 leaflets.
Leaflets are lance-shaped to about
1½" in length. Flowers are yellowish
to green-white, pealike to ½", bearing
a burr-like fruit that is brown, covered
with Velcro-like bristles, and is
indicative of the plant.
Habitat: Found in moist, well-drained areas. A favorite foraging spot is near the
riverside campground along the edges of the North Fork of the Shoshone, just
above Buffalo Bill Reservoir in Wyoming, 10 miles west of Cody.
Food uses: Like Oriental licorice, the roots eaten raw or roasted in moderation,
and then pounded and sucked or eaten—use to flavor deserts and confections.
Glycyrrhizin in the root is sweeter than sugar and said to quench thirst. Like the
Oriental variety, use this herb in moderation, as its chemistry is steroidal and may
raise blood pressure.
Medicinal uses: Chewed leaves applied as poultice. Root used to settle stomach,
a soothing demulcent for the digestive tract. Root also used to treat ulcers and
arthritis. Like Oriental variety, used to regulate menses. Raw root juice gargled
to reduce toothache. Mucilaginous root soothes throat and suppresses coughs.
Steroidal-like compounds in root act similar to store-purchased licorice in Asian
markets.
Caution: Prolonged or substantive use may raise blood pressure and have
other undesirable steroidal effects.
Marsh marigold, Elkslip

Ranunculaceae (Caltha leptosepala)
Identification: Fleshy basal leaves,
oblong and heart-shaped leaves.
Flowers white or white and bluish
tinged to 1½" in diameter, 5 oval,
oblong petal-like sepals, no petals
borne on a 5"–7"-tall, sturdy stem.
Yellow reproductive parts: pistils,
stamens.

Habitat: This plant is abundant in western high places, along the edges of streams
and seeps and alpine pot holes, ponds, and lakes, often in 1" or 2" of water. Find
it on the trail along East Hyalite Creek in Hyalite Canyon and in the wet subalpine
edges of the Bighorns. Also available in the upper reaches of Cache Creek,
Yellowstone, and wet remote areas of the Cascades.
Food uses: Boil leaves and roots in 2 changes of water, then sauté in oil, margarine,
or butter. Many sources finish the greens in sour cream or whole cream sauce. Note:
Triple cooking leaves and roots reduces the toxic glycosides in the plant.
Medicinal uses: Masticated plant (aerial parts) applied to wounds (poultice) to
reduce inflammation.
Miner’s lettuce
Portulacaceae (Claytonia perfoliata)
Identification: Leaves form cup or saucer
around stems; delicate, small, white
flowers. Found in moist, shady places.
Habitat: Pacific coastal range, east to
plains. Particularly abundant near seeps in
slot canyons of Utah, and along river and
stream banks in Montana; tolerates shade.
Food uses: Cook like dandelion greens,
or eat leaves and stems raw. Best cut into
salads and laced with balsamic vinegar.
High in vitamin A. Goes well with curly
dock as a steamed green.
Medicinal uses: Tasty survival food, high in nutrients, and used as an appetite
stimulant.
Mints of the west

Lamiaceae (Mentha arvensis,
Mentha spp.)
Identification: Aromatic herbs; leaves
serrated (toothed); flowers in heads, or
flowers in stem axils as in Mentha arvensis;
stems square; flowers in clusters.
Habitat: Seeps, streamside, along hiking
trails where water runs off, creeks, springs.
Note: The pictured mint was found on the
climber’s route in the Grand Tetons—a
wonderful variety—fragrant and tasty.
Food uses: Add to sauces, pizzas, all bean
Mentha arvensis
dishes, chicken soup. Chew as a breath

cleanser or brain stimulator. Add to game marinades; try leaves or flowers in bread
and pancake batters.
Medicinal uses: Energizing tea, improves circulation to brain, helps ease altitude
sickness—although thyme tea is more effective. Tea also cooling, lowers fever.
Oxeye Daisy
Compositae (Chrysanthemum
leucanthemum)
Identification: Large daisy flower with
white petals (up to 3" wide) and yellow
center. Basal leaves are spoon shaped
with long stems (petioles); teeth on leaf
margins are round toothed. Leaves on
upper mature plant lack petioles. Plant
grows to 2'–3' and blooms throughout
the summer. Early spring basal cluster
of leaves are choice edibles.
Habitat: Found along roadsides, highways and byways, waste ground, meadows
and fields; prefers drier areas. This European import has become widespread and a
nuisance in the West. Get on your knees and start eating.
Food uses: Young basal leaves (which grow in abundance) are delicious fresh-
picked in salads or sautéed—closely approximating the flavor of romaine and Bibb
lettuce. Eat in abundance, as the locals and ranchers want to get rid of the weed.
Medicinal uses: Eating leaves and leaf tea is diuretic and may act as an antihista-
mine, to help relieve allergies and consequential mucus production. Leaves applied
to wounds have a hemostatic quality and stem bleeding.
Pineapple weed
Compositae (Matricaria matricarioides)
Identification: Unlike cultivated
chamomile, the domestic herb,
pineapple weed has flowers without
small white rays (petals) and a large
yellow center of reproductive parts.
It is spreading, many branched, with
severely cut leaves; rayless flowers are
conspicuous and pineapple scented,
unmistakable.
Habitat: Widespread, along roadsides
and in gravel roadways, pathways,
waste ground, low- and highly
impacted soils, throughout the country east to west, especially in the Northwest
and mountainous areas of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah.

Food uses: Tea: Fresh flowers preferred over dried. Fresh pineapple weed is
more powerful than chamomile. Leaves are edible but bitter. Native Americans
pulverized the dried plant and mixed it with meat and berries as a preservative.
Medicinal uses: Pioneers drank the fresh flower tea as an antispasmodic
carminative to aid digestion, prevent ulcers, and relieve arthritis pain. The tea,
said to soothe the nerves, may relieve toothache pain. Native Americans used the
herb in the same way, primarily for relieving stomach pain, and they considered
it a female plant, to be applied wet on hot rocks in sweat lodge as a soothing
aromatic—inviting in the good spirits. Infusion of herb used to relieve menstrual
cramps and relieve cold symptoms. Chamomile is widely used topically to treat
abrasions, inflammations, eczema, and acne with varied success. One study
suggests azulene in chamomile may stimulate liver regeneration. British scientists
purport chamomile stimulates infection-fighting macrophages and B-lymphocytes
of the human immune system. Commercial preparations in lotions and ointments
used as antiseptic treatment of sore gums, wounds, raw or sore nipples, and other
inflammations.
Note: A pineapple weed bath (1 cup flowers in a pair of pantyhose) makes an
emollient, moisturizing skin wash. Inhaling the steam may relieve upper respiratory
infection (sinusitis). Place ¼ cup fresh flowers in an 8-quart pan (containing 1 quart
water off boil, plus fresh flowers). Drape a towel over your head, lower head to
water, and inhale for sinus congestion. Washing hair with the tea improves quality
and sheen.
Caution: Like many herbs, there is a paradox here; although antiallergic for
some, pineapple weed may be allergenic to others, anaphylactic to a few. If
allergic to ragweed, best avoid using this plant.
Sego lily
Liliaceae (Calochortus nuttallii)
Identification: Deep-set bulb bears
4"–12" stem with grasslike leaves;
flowers to 3" in width, white to cream
colored typically, with 3 petals as wide
as they are broad. Fruit is a narrow
capsule, with 3 compartments bearing
seeds.
Habitat: Found in dry montane areas
from lower elevations to the timberline.
Pictured plant found at 8,000' at Devil’s
Canyon Ranch in the Bighorn. Dryness
of the environment and depth of bulb make this a difficult recovery.
Food uses: Credited for saving the Mormon pioneers in the fall of 1848, this
survival food provides an edible bulb and edible leaves. But grasslike leaves provide
little sustenance. Bulbs are best—peel and eat raw, or better, wrap in 2 folds of
foil and leave in the coals overnight. Come morning, squeeze soft flesh inside an

omelet. Hard-fried boletes are excellent
with this breakfast. Seeds are ground
into powder and used like cattail
pollen, inside baked goods. Bulbs can
be dried and used throughout winter.
Bulbs can be peeled and candied,
cooked in jelly, maple syrup, hypertonic
sugar water. . . . Bulbs also edible
throughout year, but best harvested in
bloom until you can identify the plant
in every season.
Medicinal uses: I believe, but have no
proof, that the raw bulbs would kick
up immune system activity, thereby
providing some protection from acute
infections like colds and flu.
Shooting Star
Primulaceae (Dodecatheon spp.)
Identification: Pink to deep-purple
flower, yellow at base, nodding on a
long stem, 1–5 flowers per stem. Flower
is dart shaped (thus shooting star),
petals bending backward, whole plant
4"–10" tall. Leaves are ovate and basal.
Habitat: Dodecatheon alpinum (see
photo) found to 11,000'; alpine flower
preferring moist area along streams,
seeps, weeping meadows dripping or draining into mountain lakes and creeks.
Found throughout the northern mountain ranges from Montana to Washington.
Food uses: Entire plant is edible. Use only in survival situation if lost and without
food. Eat leaves raw, roast roots, and munch on flowers. Eating a single flower will
not kill the plant but may not be enough to sustain you.
Medicinal uses: Leaf infusion used to treat cold sores.
Sitka Valerian
Valerianaceae (Valeriana sitchensis)
Identification: Plant to 24" or more, blooms April through July, has a terminal
cluster of white to cream-colored odiferous flowers. (Not a particularly pleasant
odor to many, but I love it—that stink means I’m back on Mount Rainier.) Petals are
feathery. Leaves opposite, staggered up the stem, often with several basal leaves.
Habitat: Montane plant, typically found on north-facing slopes; plentiful in alpine
meadows and along trails in the Olympics, Cascades, North Cascades, Mount
Rainier, Mount Baker, especially along Heliotrope Trail toward the climber’s route.

Note: Take the road to the Sunrise
Lodge on the north side of Mount
Rainier, and walk to the learning-center
garden to see this plant and many
other medicinal plants of the West and
Northwest.
Food uses: Edible roots not worth the
effort; if you have had valerian tea, you
catch my drift. But root tea is a mild
sedative (sleep aid). Seeds may be
parched and eaten. Prolonged cooking
of roots dilutes offensive odor and saps
taste—a survival food.
Medicinal uses: Root of plant in decoction used as a sedative—stress reducing,
tension relieving for insomniacs. Valeriana sitchensis roots decocted in water also
used to treat pain, treat colds. Poultice of root used to treat cuts, wounds, bruises,
and inflammation. Root decoction also used to treat diarrhea.
Western Skunk Cabbage

Araceae (Lysichitum americanus)
Identification: Large, green to yellow-
green, elephant ear–like leaves that
are lustrous and waxy in appearance
with a “skunky” odor when torn. Much
larger leaves than eastern variety; a
small child could use one for a sleeping
bag. Flower is an archaic showy sheath
surrounding a club-like flower spike.
Western skunk cabbage has yellow
flower and larger leaves; leaves often 3'
in length on Vancouver Island.
Habitat: Found as undercover in
wet woods, swamps, lowlands, wet coastal areas, along the West Coast Trail of
Vancouver Island, or the San Juan de Fuca Trail out of Sooke on Vancouver Island in
British Columbia.
Food uses: Native Americans ate western skunk cabbage leaves and roots after
washing and steaming or pit cooking until a mush-like consistency. Root can be
dried, roasted, and ground into flour. Leaves placed over cooking vegetables as a
spice. Young leaves, thoroughly dried, then cooked in soups.
Note: Several western tribes ate roots after boiling 8 times. Drying the leaves or
roots of western skunk cabbage eliminates some of the peppery, hot taste of the
calcium oxalate crystals. Calcium oxalate crystals (raphides) are toxic and make
these plants, when fresh, unsuitable foods. The waxy leaves used as plates to eat off
of, also to line cooking pits and cedar boxes used in cooking. Leaves are typically

used to wrap meat and vegetables for pit-style cooking. Also used to store foods
and cover fresh berries. Apparently the oxalate does not taint the food when
prepared with raw leaves as a lining or covering. Never eat these plants fresh and
uncooked. Roots are numerous and tentacle-like.
Caution: Oxalate crystals present and will burn your digestive tract if eaten
raw and fresh.
Medicinal uses: Western skunk cabbage (L. americanus) used in the same way as
eastern variety. Flowers were steamed and placed against joints to treat arthritis.
In sweat lodges, warm leaves used as sitting mats to treat arthritis. Poultice of
smashed root used on boils and abscesses. Root burned and smoke inhaled for
treating nightmares, disrupted sleep, and flu. Leaves used as poultice for burns.
Makah tribe chewed raw root to cause abortion. Charcoal of burned plants used
on wounds. Steamed roots used to treat arthritis. A liquid extract of skunk cabbage
is still used to treat bronchitis and asthma. Plant considered antispasmodic,
expectorant, sedative, and diaphoretic.
Caution: Use reserved for skilled practitioners only!
Note: Botanical Beach in Port Renfrew, Vancouver Island, Canada, has some of the
largest-leaved skunk cabbages I have ever seen. The leaf veins are tough enough to
make emergency cordage or sutures.
Western Spring Beauty

Portulacaceae (Claytonia lanceolata)
Identification: This relative of the
eastern variety has broader lance-
shaped leaves, flowers with 5 petals,
petals white or pink (with pink to
red veins) borne on sturdier stems,
providing a more robust appearance
than its eastern cousin. A basal pair
with long petioles, and narrow basal leaves die young and leave behind the mature
plants with 2 broader, opposite leaves, below a stalk bearing 1–5 flowers—blooms
April–July depending on latitude and altitude.
Habitat: Take a hike in mid-July from Hyalite Reservoir to Mirror Lake in Montana
(trailhead 19 miles south of Bozeman) and discover this plant along the edges of
the glacial lake surrounded by cliffs inhabited by mountain goats. Tolerates shade
and full sun and prefers moist meadows and wet seeps from snowmelt runoff.
Found from Montana and Wyoming high country to California, Washington, and up
to Alaska.
Food uses: Like the eastern variety, the corms are tasty, with a somewhat bitter
aftertaste. Eat corms (roots) raw, steamed or roasted. Leaves are edible raw or
cooked; welcome addition to a mountain meadow salad.
Medicinal uses: Nothing in the record. Relaxes my mind when sitting on a log and
chewing a corm. (Where’s my cave?)

Edible Plants of the Desert
Agave
Agavaceae (Agave spp. to include
American century plant, Agave
americana)
Identification: Grayish-green desert
plant, with long swordlike succulent
leaves, to 10' in height—leaves and
shape of plant similar to yucca but
larger.
Habitat: Extreme southwestern United
States, California, Arizona, Nevada,
New Mexico, Mexico, Central and
South America. Found in arboretums
nationwide.
Food uses: American century plant
roots are pit-cooked, crushed in water,
and fermented. Young leaves are roasted and eaten (or stored). Fruit heads, young
buds, and flower stalks are roasted and eaten (I have also eaten the flowers). Mescal
agave “leaves” are cut out from center of plant, then “water” from the plant weeps
into the hole. A pulque farmer, using a hollow calabash with a cow horn snout
fused to one end, sucks watery sap into gourd. The sap is fermented in a bucket
for 6 or 7 days, then served. Agave water is harvested in this way and is used as
potable drinking water. Every Hispanic worth his salt (and a squirt of lime) grows
an agave on his ground. Demand for tequila has greatly inflated its value. Disease
is also threatening the crop, and urban sprawl in Mexico leaves less land available
for cultivation. Agave brewed into pulque, vino mescal, and tequila, all of which as
home brews gave me diarrhea. The core of the tender inner leaves of the plant may
be cooked and eaten.
Medicinal uses: Agave water (juice, sap) considered anti-inflammatory, diuretic.
The root extraction is an insecticide. Also, the fresh juice may raise metabolism and
increase perspiration. Pulque (agave beer), mescal (agave fire water), and tequila
(agave elixir) take the pressure off living.
Notes: The sap is used for treating and sealing wounds. Hernan Cortez dropped his
ax halfway through his thigh and surely would have died had not the Mesoameri-
can natives stopped the bleeding and sealed the wound with agave sap, honey,
and charcoal. The leaf was cut open, and the sticky sap was applied to the wound.
Edible Plants of the Desert 97

Buffalo Gourd
Cucurbitaceae (Cucurbita foetidissima)
Identification: Annual, perennial
herb; hairs on stems often hardened
by calcium deposits. Stems trailing or
climbing, tendrils generally 1 per node,
stems often branched. Leaves simple,
alternate, palmately lobed, and veined,
with 3"–7" petioles; flowers at nodes,
white to off-white or cream colored,
and corolla cup-shaped, generally
5-lobed. Fruit 3" in diameter, round gourd or melon-like. Many seeded.
Habitat: Dry plains, semiarid areas of Southwest: Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico,
Arizona, Nevada, California. Found growing along and up fences, or sprawling
along the ground. Very large plants covering up to a hundred square feet and more.
Food uses: What I call a survival food, because of its bitter principle, it produces
oily protein-rich seeds that are edible after preparation. Seeds are 43 percent oil
and 35 percent protein, making them an excellent choice for cultivation. Seeds
dried, then roasted before eating. Unlike the pulp of the gourd, the seeds do not
contain bitter glycosides: cucurbitacins. Be certain to clean all bitter pulp from
seeds before roasting. Cook the seeds in oil or on an oil-sprayed pan over an open
fire or in the oven. After 15 minutes of cooking, the protease inhibitors in the seeds
are deactivated, making the seeds more digestible. Roasted seed coats may be
digestible or you may remove them. Like the pumpkin seed, seed coat can be eaten
(insoluble fiber) or removed. Seeds, like mesquite pods and seeds, may be dried
and ground into flour. Roots are starch rich and may be smashed and then leached
of their starch in water. Fibrous cellulose in roots is bitter; remove cellulose from
starchy water to improve taste. Root water is fermented into an alcoholic beverage.
This plant has commercial potential in arid biomes where there is a need for
protein, starch, and oil. Bitterness is a problem with this survival food—if too bitter,
do not eat.
Warning: A potentially toxic plant related to the edible squashes.
Medicinal uses: Dried hollow gourd used as a rhythm instrument in religious
rituals. Ritual use may precede 10,000 years. Dried roots used as an emetic.
Decoction of root used as a therapy for venereal disease.
Note: Saponins in root make for suds when pounded and mixed with water.
Morman Tea, Joint Fir and Ephedra, Ma Huang

Ephedraceae (Ephedra viridis, E. sinica)
Identification: There are several joint fir species. Ephedra viridis looks like it has
lost all its leaves. It is a yellow-green plant, many jointed and twiggy, 1'–4' tall, with
small leaf scales, and double seeded cones in autumn.

Habitat: Various species are found
on dry, rocky soil or sand in dry and
desert areas of the United States:
Utah, Arizona, western New Mexico,
Colorado, Nevada, California, Oregon.
Food uses: Native Americans roasted
the seeds and then infused them into
tea. Roasted and ground seeds were
mixed with corn or wheat flour to make
hot mush.
Medicinal uses: E. viridis, Mormon
tea, was used in infusion as a tonic, laxative, to treat anemia, to treat backache, to
stem diarrhea, for colds, to treat ulcers, and as therapy for the kidneys and bladder.
The decoction or infusion considered a cleansing tonic (blood purifier). Dried and
powdered stems used externally to treat wounds and sores. Powder moistened and
applied to burns. In women’s health, tea used by First People to stimulate delayed
menstrual flow (dysmenorrhea). Seeds roasted before brewing into tea.
Warning: E. sinica, as a cardiovascular stimulant and central nervous system
stimulant, this ephedra may be dangerous for people with elevated blood
pressure, heart disease, and/or tachycardia. It is federally regulated and is
not to be used during pregnancy or by nursing mothers. The import and use
of this drug is restricted in several countries. Deaths have been associated
with the abuse of this drug (100 mg may be lethal).
Prickly Pear
Cactaceae (Opuntia spp.)
Identification: All species are low-
growing perennials and have an oval
pad with thorny leaves of various sizes.
Flowers are yellowish. Fruits are dull
red to purple.
Habitat: Various species found from
coast to coast in dry, sometimes sandy
areas, even along the East Coast and
on dry islands of the Pacific Northwest.
The Badlands of South Dakota have
prickly pear, as does the Sonoran
Desert from British Columbia to Central
Mexico. Great foraging found along the
back roads of Texas.
Food uses: Pads are edible, and
most edible species have flat joints
between pads. Flowers and flower

buds are roasted and eaten. The pads, which are often mistaken for leaves (actually,
the spines are the leaves), are edible. Plump pads thrown on hot coals of fire and
roasted. The fire burns off the spines and cooks the interior. Let them cool, then peel
the skin and eat the inner core. I like to slice the inner “meat” and stir-fry, or chop
the pad “meat” into huevos rancheros with yucca blossoms and salsa verde. I have
eaten the flowers of several species, as have Native American foragers, but there is
little about this practice in the literature. So do so at your own risk. The fruit when
red and ripe is tasty, often made into jelly. I like to eat it out of hand right off plant
(avoid the prickly hairs). The pads mixed with water, sugar, yeast, and fermented
into an alcoholic drink. The young fruit boiled and eaten by Pima Indians. Numerous
other cacti are edible and often used as survival food in the desert.
Medicinal uses: Flowers are astringent and poulticed over wounds. Flowers in tea
for treating stomach complaints including diarrhea and irritable bowel syndrome.
The stem ash applied to burns and cuts. Pima Indians believed the edible pads are
good for gastrointestinal complaints. Pima also stripped spines, cooked, sliced, and
placed a poultice of the plant on breasts as a lactagogue. Leaf pads also sliced in
half and used as poultice for cleansing and sealing wounds, infections, bites, stings,
and snake envenomation. Pads scorched of spines, then slit, and the moist side
placed against the insult or wound. The inner flesh, a chemotactic attractant (sur-
factant), draws serum from the wound site, cleaning and sealing it. Southwestern
holistic practitioners report success in treating scorpion and recluse spider bites.
Sage
Asteraceae (Artemisia tridentate)
Identification: Gray, fragrant shrub to
7'. Leaves are wedged shaped, lobed
(3 teeth), broad at tip, tapering to the
base. Yellow and brownish flowers
form spreading, long, narrow clusters,
blooming July–October. Seed is hairy
achene.
Habitat: Desert plant, found in dry
areas of Wyoming, Washington,
Montana, Texas, New Mexico,
California, Idaho, Oregon, Colorado.
Food uses: Seeds, raw or dried, ground
into flour and eaten as a survival food.
Seeds added to liqueurs for fragrance
and flavor. Use as a spice or flavoring in
small amounts as a substitute for salvia
sage, good with venison, turkey, and
chicken. Often sage is the only source
of firewood in the desert. Most varieties
of sage seeds used as food by Native Americans.

Medicinal uses: Native American medicine warrior plant used for smudging and
sweeping to rid the victim of bad airs and evil spirits. Leaves used as a tea to treat
infections, or as a wash for sore eyes, and as a tea to ease childbirth. Leaves soaked
in water and used as a poultice over wounds. Tea used to treat stomachache.
Limbs used as switches in sweat baths. Infusion used to treat sore throats,
coughs, colds, bronchitis. Decoction or infusion used as a wash for sores, cuts, and
pimples. Aromatic decoction of steaming herb inhaled for respiratory ailments
and headaches. Decoction said to be internally antidiarrheal and externally
antirheumatic. This panacea drug also drunk to relieve constipation. For details, see
the DVD Native American Medicine at herbvideos.com.
Note: Add this herb to your hot bath, hot tub, or sweat lodge for a fragrant, disin-
fecting, and relaxing cleanse.
Yucca
Agavaceae (Yucca filamentosa,
Yucca spp.)
Identification: Common lawn
ornamental, with long swordlike leaves
to 2'; tough, fibrous, white flowers on a
tall flower stalk, central to the plant, a
striking and distinctive attribute.
Habitat: Almost universal in
distribution (helped by landscapers
and gardeners), various species in
mountains, deserts, temperate areas;
loves sun, tolerates drought, but does
well on drained soil. Found coast to
coast, north and south.
Food uses: Yucca flowers are edible.
The young seedpods may be stir-fried.
The flowers picked and sautéed in olive
oil. Roll them into an omelet. Attractive
addition to a salad, or eat out of hand.
Medicinal uses: Used for liver and
gallbladder cleansing.
Note: I use the water extraction of the root to make an organic, water-soluble
insect-repelling spray for fruit and vegetables. I spray pears with yucca root water in
the spring. The results are excellent. Take about a cubic inch of root and blend it in
2 cups water. Strain, filter into sprayer. Add another pint of water and spray directly
on buds, flowers, and young pears, apples.

Marine Vegetables
Almost all marine seaweeds are safe to consume, and the 2 questionable varieties are
easy to avoid: foul-tasting Lyngbya, a thin, hairlike species that clings to mangrove
roots in warm subtropical and tropical waters; and Desmarestia, which is found in
deep, open waters and contains sulfuric acid and imparts an unpleasant lemon-like
taste. Therefore, avoid mangrove-clinging seaweeds and deep-open-water varieties.
Because of limited space, only a few popular edible seaweeds are covered—by
no means the limit of your foraging choices.
Beach Pea
Fabaceae (Lathyrus japonicus var.
maritimus)
Identification: Marine coastal dweller
that dawdles along upper littoral area
of the beach. Beach pea leaves are
compound, even numbered, typically
6–12 leaflets; leaflets tipped with a
curling tendril typical of pea family;
opposite leaflets about 2½" long. Fruit
is pea pod–like and hairy, about 2½" long.
Warning: Many members of the pea family are potentially toxic. Make
positive identification, eat only small amounts of edible wild foods, and
follow all foraging rules.
Habitat: Coastal areas of East and West Coasts. Found in sandy upper areas of
beach among driftwood and dunes.
Food uses: Cook peas with salmon. Stir-fry, boil, or steam new growth (stalks of
spring). After peas flower, tender young pods may be cooked and eaten like snow
peas. The Inuits dried peas and roasted them like coffee, then percolated.
Medicinal uses: Chinese use peas as tonic for the urinary organs and intestinal
tract. Eskimo (Inuit) consider the peas poisonous. Coastal Iroquois treated rheuma-
tism with cooked whole young plant.
Bladderwrack,
Fucus, Sea wrack
Fucaceae (Fucus gardneri, Fuscus
vesiculosis)
Identification: Bladderwrack, or fucus,
is a perennial seaweed that thrives in
wave-sheltered to moderately exposed
conditions. The plant reaches 16" in
length, and consists of many branches
with little inflated bulbs at their tips.

The gas-filled vesicles on each side of the midrib vein float the plant in an upright
position from its holdfast anchorage, enabling the plant to absorb nutrition and
sunlight. Although a brown algae, color ranges from green to brown.
Habitat: Bladderwrack, a cold-water seaweed found in both the sublittoral
(exposed at low tide) and the littoral (not exposed) tidal zones. It ranges in the
Atlantic from New Jersey to Maine and north, and in the Pacific Oceans from
California to Alaska. Gather from clean water free of heavy metals and other
pollution. Forage at low tide in wave-sheltered coves and rocky niches.
Food uses: A common food in Japan, it is used as an additive and flavoring in
various food products in Europe. It is dried and made into a nutritious tea, added
to soups, particularly Japanese- and Chinese-style noodle soups. It flavors stews,
fortifying them with iodine. I like to put a dried piece in my mouth and suck on it
until soft, and then chew and swallow. For landlocked Midwesterners, the seaweed
is available at Asian markets.
Medicinal uses: Bladderwrack is a component of tablets or powders used as nutri-
tional supplements. It contains concentrations of iodine and is used as a treatment
for hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid gland) and obesity. (Note: Amounts of
iodine vary, making this a dubious use.) Bladderwrack contains alginic acid that
swells upon contact with water. When taken orally, it forms a seal at the top of the
stomach and is sold over the counter as a heartburn treatment and bulking laxa-
tive. Natural health enthusiasts also use the plant to treat dysmenorrhea.
Kelp
Laminariaceae (Laminaria spp.)
Identification: A brown seaweed that
can grow to more than 100' in length.
Large frond-like leaves; stem can be
thick as a human’s wrist; air-filled bulbs
or bladders hold plant erect in water.
Plant torn loose and washed ashore
after storms.
Habitat: Found along the West Coast,
from California to Alaska, in 10'–100' of
water.
Food uses: Excellent food for fiber and
contains most minerals humans need.
Wash the plant in clean water. Soak in
weak wine vinegar or lemon juice until
pliable. Air-dry in sun. After drying,
scrape off blue-green surface layer.
Kelp’s thick white core can be chopped,
shredded, or ground—best cooked
in soups and stews. Dry the shredded
Marine Vegetables 103

parts for later use. I have dried various seaweeds by spreading them on my car
windshield in full sunlight.
Medicinal uses: Improves yolk color and calcium content when fed to chickens.
Good source of iodine (important clotting agent). Kelp salt prevents muscle
cramps.
Note: Gardeners are encouraged to spread seaweeds of all types on their organic
gardens. Containing more than 90 minerals, marine algae are a wonderful addition
to the garden.
Nori, Laver, Porphyra

Bangiaceae (Porphyra spp.)
Identification: Rose pink to red brown
with aging; flat, bladelike, irregular
shape to 20"; satin sheen, thin, elastic.
Habitat: Mid–tidal zone.
Food uses: Forage in late spring. Sun-
dry and store in airtight canning jars or
plastic bags. When used fresh, season
and tenderize in soy sauce. Sauté fresh
and then add to pizza. Dry and flake
into baked goods, or use in soups and stews.
Medicinal uses: May lower blood cholesterol levels (but as yet unproven) and is
nearly 36 percent protein and high in iodine and vitamins A and C.
Narrow-leafed seaside
plantain, Goose tongue
Plantaginaceae (Plantago maritima)
Identification: Long, narrow, lance-
shaped leaves growing from basal
whorl; no basal sheath; leaves
with thick longitudinal ribs. Plant’s
appearance is similar to narrow-leafed
garden plantain (P. lanceolata).
Warning: Goose tongue can be
confused with arrow grass. Arrow
grass leaves are flat on one side and
round on the other, with sheaves
at the base of the leaves. Goose
tongue leaves have prominent
ribs and are more flattened. If you
cut the goose tongue leaf in cross
section, it would appear flat or
slightly V-shaped. The characteristic

plantain spike of goose tongue is distinctive. Remember Wild Plant Foraging
Rule #1: Follow these 2 plants through an entire season before eating goose
tongue.
Habitat: West coast of North America. Upper tidal zone or shoreline, often
submerged at high tide.
Food uses: Succulently salty and mineral rich. Eat it fresh and raw. Also used as
a stuffing for salmon. Mix it with finely sliced kelp, and sauté it with olive oil and
water. Then stuff the mixture in the cavity of a cleaned and washed salmon and
steam the fish in a reed basket or in a Chinese basket steamer over a pot of boiling
water until done.
Medicinal uses: Fresh leaves and fresh juice considered anti-inflammatory and
antimicrobial. Native American healer Patsy Clark chews the leaves and applies
them over wounds. In Germany leaves are simmered in honey for 20 minutes to
treat gastric ulcers.
Sea Asparagus, American

Glasswort, Saltwort
Chenopodiaceae (Salicornia virginica,
S. maritima)
Identification: Fleshy mats. Individual
plants grow from slender rhizomes;
leaves are absent, reduced to tiny
opposite scales; leafless stems are
prostrate or erect, many jointed, with
numerous flowering stems growing
upright from the main stem; plant
stems generally brown-purple. Eastern
variety is emerald green in spring to
red in late summer.
Habitat: Coastal areas, beaches, salt
marshes in the upper tidal zone from
Washington State north in the West
and Nova Scotia south in the East.
Food uses: Wash and eat stems raw
or cooked—salty. Eat like asparagus.
Boil, sauté, or fry young stems. Older
stems are not tender. Fresh plant can be purchased in seafood and grocery stores
on the Washington and British Columbia coast. Native Americans dried and ground
the plant and used it like flour in cakes and bread, typically sweetened with honey.
Stems eaten as food by Salish, Heiltsuk, and Goshute First People.
Medicinal uses: External use (whole aerial parts of plants) by Heiltsuk peoples to
treat edema, pain, arthritis, and rheumatism.
Marine Vegetables 105

Appendix A: Poisonous Plants
Here are a few poisonous plants for you to identify and remember. Several of these
plants have long traditions in natural medicine but are best reserved for the skilled
hands of a knowledgeable holistic health-care practitioner. See the FalconGuide
Medicinal Plants of North America (by this author) for additional information. As
mentioned earlier, many members of the buttercup family are considered toxic,
and although a few varieties are eaten, I recommend you avoid them, as they are a
novelty food and not particularly good tasting.
American
Liverwort
Ranunculaceae (Hepatica
americana)
Liver-shaped leaves with
hairy petioles; one of the first
flowers of spring. Toxic alka-
loid—avoid eating the plant.
Arrow Arum
Araceae (Peltandra virginica)
Arrow-shaped leaf, pinnate
veins; green primitive-looking
flower; grows in water. All
parts of the plant, including
the flower and mature fruit,
are toxic. I mistakenly ate a
seed from arrow arum, and
it almost ended my history.
Compare the leaf veins of
arrow arum with those of edi-
ble duck potato (arrowhead).
Baneberry, Red and

White; bugbane
Ranunculaceae (Actaea
rubra, A. pachypoda)
Actaea pachypoda has more
rounded white flower clusters
than A. rubra. Baneberry
contains toxins that have an White baneberry Red baneberry
immediate sedative effect
on human cardiac muscle. The berries are the most poisonous part of the plant.
Ingestion of the berries can lead to cardiac arrest.
106

Bittersweet Nightshade
Solanaceae (Solanum dulcamara)
Climbing vine, found clinging to shrubs
in wetlands, with purple rocket-shaped
flowers, bearing a reddish-orange fruit
with leaves lobed and alternate. Con-
sumption rarely fatal.
Blueflag, Wild Iris

Iridaceae (Iris versicolor)
Wetland plant with swordlike leaves,
blue flower; rhizome grows to about
3'. Stems typically have a gray-blue
tint and are flat. Flower is orchidlike
(irregular) blue to violet. Found in
damp marshes, fens, bogs, along
streams and the edges of lakes. It
transplants to the garden and is
resplendent. May induce vomiting.
Note: Prior to blooming, this wild iris
can be confused with edible cattail
shoots. Remember cattail stems do
not have the gray to blue tint and are
rounded instead of flat (see reference to Herbal Odyssey CD in Appendix C).
Buckeye, Horse Chestnut

Hippocastanaceae (Aesculus
hippocastanum)
Medium-size tree. Leaves compound
with 5 leaflets, fine toothed. Fruit has
husk with thick knobby spines, cover-
ing a shiny brown seed. Dried leaves
and nut oil used as medicine. Nut is
not edible. Active compounds are
triterpene saponins, rutin, quercitrin,
isoquercitrin. Traditional uses of dried
leaves prepared in infusion to treat
coughs, arthritis, rheumatism, varicose
veins, leg pain such as from varicose veins or phlebitis. Infusions also used as a
treatment for hemorrhoids and painful menstruation. Oil extract of seed used to
treat venous insufficiency, swelling of the legs—a vascular tightening effect.
Poisonous Plants 107

Buckthorn,
Cascara Sagrada
Rhamnaceae (Rhamnus spp. and R.
purshiana)
Small shrubs or trees, from 4' to 20' tall,
many branched and densely foliated.
When mature, bark is gray-brown with
gray-white lenticels (spots). Leaves are
thin, bladelike, and hairy on the ribs,
fully margined, elliptical to ovate, and
2" in length. Greenish-white flowers are
numerous and grow on axillary cymes.
Flowers are very small, 5 petals. Ripe
fruit is red to black purple with 2 or 3 seeds. R. purshiana is taller, to 30', with leaves
that have 20–24 veins. White flowers are in clusters. Purshiana grows in the foothills
of British Columbia, Idaho, Washington, Montana, and Oregon. Another small
shrub-like Rhamnus species grows throughout the dunelands of Lake Michigan.
Berries eaten from a Rhamnus species I imbibed in the Midwest once ruined my
anniversary dinner—severe diarrhea.
Datura, Jimsonweed
Solanaceae (Datura stramonium, D.
meteloides)
Trumpetlike flower is distinctive. Seed
capsule studded with spines. Flowers
white to light violet. Leave are toothed,
coarse textured. Found along roadsides
and in bean and corn fields throughout
the United States. Datura meteloides,
more common in the Southwest and
Four Corners, is a popular, showy gar-
den flower throughout the Midwest.
The plant is an unusual example of
the Doctrine of Signatures (like cures
like): With all its spines, the plant fairly
screams at you, “Stay away!”
Dutchman's Breeches
Papaveraceae (Dicentra cucullaria)
Deeply dissected leaves without a
stalk, with white flower that looks like
a man’s breeches. Tuber is toxic. Rarely
fatal, may cause convulsions.
108 Appendix A

Foxglove,
Purple Foxglove
Scrophulariaceae (Digitalis purpurea)
Biennial 3'–5' with lance-shaped, fuzzy, and hairy
leaves in basal rosette. Basal rosette of leaves looks
somewhat like mullein leaves or comfrey leaves, rarely
dock leaves—the leaves of digitalis are toxic. Thimble-
shaped flowers on a spike, white to purple. They look
like gloves, hence the name. Flowers bloom in sum-
mer of second year. Common mountain wildflower,
found along roadsides in Northwest and eastern
mountain states. This is a favorite ornamental in gar-
dens from coast to coast.
Hellebore, False
Liliaceae (Veratrum viride)
Large, ovate, stalkless leaves, clinging and
spiraling up sturdy stem; flower yellow-
green in branched clusters. In East grows in
wet, swampy areas; in West found on open
mountain slopes. Potentially fatal if eaten.
Hemlock, Poison
Umbelliferae (Conium maculatum)
Purple spotted, hollow stems; grows to 6'
or 7' with white flowers in umbels that are
either flat or umbrella shaped; leaves are
divided parsley-like into small leaflets (like
carrot leaves too). Plant has many charac-
teristics of edible members of the parsley
family. Ingestion of toxin, conine, can be
and often is fatal.

Horse Nettle
Solanum (Solanum carolinense)
Leaves and stems with spines. Leaves
coarse, irregular, large toothed; white
flower with yellow reproductive parts.
Alkaloid, solanum, causes vomiting,
stomach and bowel pain.
Jack-in-the-Pulpit
Araceae (Arisaema triphyllum)
Flower is a spathe and spadix, and with
little imagination you see preacher-in-
a-pulpit. A dangerous and contracep-
tive herb if not prepared properly, and
even at that, not palatable.
Larkspur, western
Ranunculaceae (Delphinium glaucum)
A poisonous plant defined by the
flower color, evident spur, and shape
of leaves (deeply cut). Various species
found throughout United States. D.
glaucum found in moist areas in the
mountainous West.
Lobelia, Indian tobacco,

pukeweed
Campanulaceae (Lobelia syphilitica
and other species)
Once used to treat syphilis, this mem-
ber of the bluebell family has showy
blue flowers about 1” in size found in
leaf axils. Various species found across
the continent, in woods, meadows, wet-
lands, mountains. Tubular and lipped
flower is indicative. Toxic alkaloids.
110 Appendix A

Mayapple
Berberidaceae (Podophyllum peltatum)
Woodland plant creates ground cover of
large umbrella-like leaves. Parasol-like
leaf deeply dissected, with a single white
flower bearing an edible fruit in July. All
other parts of the plant are toxic. Inges-
tion may lead to coma and death.
Milkweed
Asclepiadaceae (Asclepias syriaca and other
species)
Stomach-shaped seedpod, large ovate leaves
that exude milk-like sap when damaged.
Although flowers, young shoots, and seed-
pods eaten, with proper cooking (2 changes of
water, then sauté), the toxic substance is a car-
diac glycoside, and there are numerous other
safe plant choices.
Moonseed
Menispermaceae (Menispermum canadense)
Climbing vine with green stems, berries red
when ripe and toxic, leaves round or heart
shaped with a pointed tip; when not round,
showing 3 shallow lobes (6"–10" wide). Unripe
green fruit may be confused with wild grapes;
ripe fruit is red—moon-shaped crescent on
seed indicative—pluck seed from fruit to
discover the crescent.
Cherokee used root decoction as a laxative,
diuretic, and as treatment for venereal diseases
and arthritis.
Poison Ivy
Anacardiaceae (Toxicodendron radicans)
Climbing hairy vine, or shrub, leaflets in threes,
with white or pale-yellow berries; contact
causes dermatitis. Rub with jewelweed to
reduce redness and itching. A thorough scrub-
bing with soap and water within an hour of
contact prevents this discomfort.

Poison Sumac
Anacardiaceae (Rhus vernix)
Shrub with compound leaves, 7–15 leaf-
lets with white fruit (berries dangling
from delicate stems). Causes contact
dermatitis.
Pokeweed
Phytolaccaceae (Phytolacca americana)
Ovate leaves, pointed at tip; purple
stem when mature; elongated clusters
of purple berries. The plant grows in
gardens, wastelands, vacant lots, and
along the fringes of woods. Young
green leaves are edible after cooking in
change of water and then sautéing; pick
before stems turn purple for maximum
safety. Causes cramps and vomiting.
Skunk Cabbage
Araceae (Symplocarpus foetidus,
Lysichitum americanus)
Large, green, elephant ear–like leaves
that are lustrous and waxy in appearance
with a “skunky” odor when torn. Found as
undercover in wet woods, swamps, low-
lands. Flower is an archaic showy sheath
surrounding club-like flower spike. Avoid
using the fresh parts of this plant as food
or medicine.
112 Appendix A

Water Hemlock
Umbelliferae (Cicuta maculata)
Found near wetlands. Has sharply toothed
leaves, white umbrella-shaped flower
clusters, hollow stems, and in many ways
similar to poison hemlock in appearance—
and like a few of its edible family members.
Distinctive is the leaf venation, which ter-
minates within the marginal notches.
Note: Veins on water hemlock terminate at
the notch instead of the tip. This is indicative.
Western skunk cabbage

Araceae (Lysichitum americanus)
Lowland, wetland dweller has yellow
flower; large, up to 3' leaves, waxy sheen;
grows in colonies. Contains caustic oxalate
crystals. Drying the leaves or roots of west-
ern or eastern skunk cabbage eliminates
some of the peppery, hot taste of the cal-
cium oxalate crystals. Calcium oxalate crys-
tals (raphides) are toxic and makes these
plants unsuitable as food.
Yaupon, Yaupon Holly

Aquifoliaceae (Ilex vomitoria)
Yaupon is an evergreen holly, shrub-like
with glossy green leaves that have sharp
points. Found in Texas and throughout the
Southwest. Berries are toxic, not edible.
Leaves and berries can be used to make
dyes. The ripe red berries make a red dye in
a mordant of alum. Use it on wool—place
the wool item in the dye and let the color
infuse in full sunlight. Achieve gray color by
pounding leaves in water with iron and or copper.

Appendix B: Recipes
The secret to successful wild plant cooking is to start with traditional recipes that you
enjoy. Try a dandelion leaf on a hamburger. Stuff miner’s lettuce in an omelet. Add
burdock root and Jerusalem artichokes to stew. Always add a sprig or 2 of wild mint
to chicken and bean soups. Substitute what is available for what is in the following
recipes—I dare you to do it. Become a wild foods wizard. You’ll be rewarded with a
long, happy, and healthy life.
Jungle Berry Toast

The best way to preserve and enjoy a fruit
year-round is to make it into a jam or jelly.
Autumn olive makes a terrific jelly. Blackberry
is second to none. Scoop pawpaw fruit from its
skin, and spread on toast. Gather elderberries,
cook them to a juice, and strain from their skin
and seeds; add pectin, sugar, and follow the
recipe. These recipes and more than a hundred
more are found at herbvideos.com. Go to the Toast wedges: blackberry, elderberry,
index bar on the left of the page, and click pawpaw, and autumn olive. Drizzled with
maple syrup.
"Recipes."
Paleo Greens
Serves 4
Combine 1 cup each of curly dock leaves, dandelion leaves, and stinging nettle leaves
with 3 whole chopped wild leeks and 1 cup each of chopped lovage and French sorrel
leaves (optional). Remember, dock, nettle, and watercress are available throughout the
year. Miner’s lettuce, nuts, and fruit are welcome additions to this dish. Experiment!
Combine chopped greens in a pan with ½ cup water and 3 tablespoons butter or olive
oil and 1 teaspoon lite soy sauce; cover, steam for 2 to 3 minutes; toss twice. For added
flavor, add chopped bacon or chopped smoked ham.
Crepe de Lasceau
Serves 2
2 cups pancake batter
Cattail pollen
Morels
Violet petals
Maple syrup
Sour cream
Black walnuts, raspberries, Crepe de Lasceau variation with blueberry, spearmint
blueberries, and/or mulberries blossoms, hickory nuts, and autumn olive butter
114

Optional: Bacon, sausage, ham
Make a thin pancake batter and stir in cattail pollen (1 cup pollen to 4 cups batter). Sauté
morels in butter. Cook a thin pancake (crepe) in a pan, add chopped morels and violet
petals; roll crepe, wet with syrup, and plop—on goes the sour cream.
Sprinkle with black walnuts, raspberries, blueberries, and/or mulberries.
Piltdown Pizza
Serves 4
Ingredients: Pizza dough, cattail pollen,

wild greens (nettle, leeks, dandelion, plantain,
garden sorrel, dock, burdock), oyster or other
available mushrooms, oats, and flax seed.
About ½ cup each of greens and 1½ cups
sautéed mushrooms (whole or chopped). Olive
oil. If you are foraging out West, flip on bistort,
chiming bells, fireweed shoots, and geraniums.
Pizza dough: Mix 3 cups each of white and Brown top under broiler for 1 minute.
whole-wheat flour; add ¼ cup flax seeds, 1
tablespoon rolled oats, and 1 cup cattail male reproductive parts; add 2 tablespoons
instant yeast to about 2 cups warm water. Add water and 1 tablespoon olive oil while
mixing dough. Mix until you have a nice, semidry spongy ball. Cut ball into 3 pieces to
make 3 pizzas; freeze what you don’t use.
Sauce: For 1 pizza, 1 can of diced tomatoes. Pour into a saucepan and add basil, garlic,
oregano, dill (to taste), and 1 teaspoon pickle juice. Simmer to thicken.
Cook dough in pizza pan at 500°F for about 3 minutes; pull, and add sauce and chopped
wild foods (wild foods may be raw or cooked). Sprinkle on a combination of your favorite
pizza cheeses, return to 500°F oven, and cook for 12 minutes or until cheese browns.
Serve.
Neanderthal Buzz
This dish works well with oxeye daisy leaves and spring beauty corms.
Serves 2
Ingredients: 3 cups watercress, 2 cups woodland or garden sorrel (substitute French

sorrel), 1 cup chopped celery or young lovage leaves, 4 cups chicken broth (or mammoth
broth if available), 6 chopped leeks (more if you date or are married to a Cro-Magnon), 1
cup sour cream, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, butter and olive oil, salt and pepper as needed.
Preparation: Sauté all vegetables in 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 3 tablespoons butter, and
3 tablespoons olive oil. Add greens and leeks to broth, simmer, cool, stir in sour cream—
eat cold in cave, or reheat over the campfire and slurp. Powdered mushrooms change
the taste of this soup but not the pleasure of eating it.
Hint: Top soup with several wild raspberries.
Recipes 115

Frittata Archaeopteryx
Serves 4–6
1 cup chopped nettle leaves
¾ cup chopped leeks with leaves
½ cup curly dock leaves
½ cup raw purslane
½ cup chopped watercress
Olive oil
10 slices Jerusalem artichokes
7 thin or sliced spears wild asparagus
1 cup morels and/or sautéed wood ear mushrooms
½ cup mozzarella
½ cup Parmesan cheese
6 eggs whipped
Sauté chopped wild leaves in olive oil. Layer oiled iron skillet first with Jerusalem
artichokes, then asparagus and mushrooms—add sautéed leaves, layer cheeses, pour
over 6 whipped eggs, and cover with a heavy sprinkle of extra Parmesan on top. Preheat
oven to 375°F, add pan full of ingredients; cook for about 12 minutes; brown cheesy
top for 1 minute under broiler (watch closely). Substitute liberally: Shooting star petals,
harebells, cinquefoil all work in this dish.
Serve with fresh or prepared salsa. (For more details see Tortilla Español recipe below.)
Velociraptor Pie
Serves 4–6
4 sheets phyllo dough
Cooking spray or butter
1 cup each: 2 strong-flavored cheeses: Asiago, Jarlsberg, Romano, Parmesan, etc. (2 cups
total grated). I know, I know, it’s a lot of cheese, but we prehominids don’t even know
what a heart attack is, and we work all the time.
Generous additions of oregano, fennel leaves, basil
1 cup each: sautéed nettle leaves, dock leaves, watercress, leek leaves; seasonal
mushroom—oyster and puffballs work great in combination. This is a mix-and-match
creation—put in what is available, and see what happens.
In pie plate, layer 4 sheets of phyllo dough, one atop the other. Spray each sheet or brush
with melted butter. Mix grated cheese and seasonings with wild vegetables and spoon
all into the phyllo dough nest. Fold over tips of phyllo dough, to cover vegetables, and
then spray or brush top with butter. Cook at 400°F until top is light brown.
Pteropod Pickles
Only a miserly Mousterian could come up with this: Buy a jar of “party stuffer olives.” Pour
pickling juice from jar into a saucepan, bring to a boil—meanwhile, stuff olives with
wild leeks, wild asparagus bits, cooked chicken, mushroom pieces, and/or Jerusalem
artichokes cuttings. Drop stuffed olives back into jar, pour boiling hot pickle juice over,
116 Appendix B

and jar will self-seal—keep refrigerated. Leek-
stuffed olives are terrific in a stone cup of Celtic
gin and polar ice. Got pickling juice left over
from a pickle jar? Then reheat to a boil and
drop in all of the above, sans olives. Pickled
wild foods enhance eggs, pizzas, sauces, sopa,
and salsas—in any language the flavor is
terrific.
Options: Burdock root, spring beauty corms,

fireweed flowers, pokeweed greens, cattail Leek-stuffed olives
shoots can all be stuffed and pickled.
Lucy’s Lasagna
Here is a modern twist on humankind’s oldest recipe, created by our first mother:
Lucy of the Rift Valley.
Serves 4–6
Take your favorite lasagna recipe, but instead of spinach add sautéed leeks, dock,
peppergrass seeds, watercress, and strips of burdock root—also oregano, basil, dill and
fennel seeds, salt and pepper for seasoning. Stronger cheeses are best, and load up on
sautéed mushrooms in season. Nuts and wild rice help this formula too.
Useful tip: First mix cheeses, i.e., ricotta, Parmesan, and cottage, together with spices and
seasoning. Layer cheese blend with a blend of canned (or fresh) crushed plum tomatoes
and a can of tomato sauce (fresh, organic, and local is best—ask any Neanderthal).
Homo Habilis Hontzontles

Serves 1–2
3 dodo eggs, fresh,
or 3 chicken eggs, fresh
Salsa—green and red and local
(imported is fine)
4 stems lamb’s quarter seeds per
person, or flower spikes, about
10" in length
Salt and pepper
Preparation: Whip eggs; dredge Hontzontles with salsa, beans, mint flowers, Asiatic day
lamb’s quarter seed heads through flowers, evening primrose blossoms
eggs until thoroughly soaked. Sift thin
sheen of flour over egg batter; fry in oil (½ inch of canola or peanut oil) until brown.
Pat dry on paper towel. Arrange on plate with salsa and black bean side; sprinkle with
blackberries and sunflower petals and/or Jewelweed blossoms.
A side dish of wild rice and chopped leeks, stirred into salsa, supports enthusiasm for this
recipe.
Recipes 117

Mushroom Sauce Australopithecine
Crush air-dried puffballs into powder. This white powder, when reconstituted with
water or broth, makes a strong-flavored sauce—unbeatable.
Serves 4–6
Any gravy mix will work—I prefer a turkey gravy mix. Use the hot water that you
reconstituted the puffball in to rehydrate the gravy mix. Add oyster, chicken mushrooms,
aborted entolomas, or honey mushrooms to the gravy.
Dip toast points into the gravy, or use it as an effective styptic over a mastodon goring.
Magdalenian Mushrooms
Serves 4
Sauté 2 cups mushrooms de jour in butter and 3 tablespoons minced wild ginger root
(Oriental ginger will work), cool, stir into sour cream, season with nutmeg (about ½
teaspoon). Use on soups, tacos, burritos, toast points, or as a chip dip—great on a serving
of lamb or venison—rich too; jawohl, das stimmt!
Fungal Jim’s Morel Mushroom Pâté (or Any Other Edible Mushroom)
Serves 6
1½ ounces dried morel mushrooms (You may also use shiitake or other favorite
mushrooms.)
1 medium shallot
1 teaspoon garlic, minced finely
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons vegetarian oyster sauce
½ cup soft yogurt
½ cup soft tofu
Soak dried mushrooms for about 1 hour or until rehydrated. Squeeze out excess water,
then chop. Sauté mushrooms, shallots, garlic in a tablespoon of olive oil and oyster sauce.
Process (whip) ½ cup yogurt with ½ cup tofu.
Fold in sautéed mushrooms to make yogurt/tofu pâté. Goes great inside a Crepe de
Lasceau (see above).
Leaky Fry Bread with Prickly Pear Sauce

This is a 2-to-1 mix—bread flour to skim milk. In the Paleolithic tradition, increase
the fiber and protein of the fry bread by adding cattail pollen and flax seeds—a
tablespoon of each, to a cup of flour.
Serves 4
Mix 1 cup whole-grain bread flour with slightly less than ½ cup skim milk. Knead mix
over a board sprinkled with flour, fold 20 or so times (form a moist, firm dough ball). Pluck
an egg-size ball from the dough, roll it out on a floured board with a rolling pin until it
118 Appendix B

forms a flat ¹ ⁄₈-inch-thick pancake of dough. Cut a slit or two into the fry bread dough.
Place the pancake (fry bread dough) into 400°F oil (canola, peanut). Fry 5 or 6 seconds on
each side (until the dough fills with air and browns slightly).
Prickly pear sauce made from the fruit. Press the juice from the fruits until you have a pint.
Simmer until thickened slightly; add 1 tablespoon lime juice and a ½ cup sugar, stir. Pour
hot prickly pear sauce over fry bread.
Tapas-Style Wild Plant Recipes

To be redundant, substitute what you have available in your area at your time of the
year for the following ingredients. If it is a strong herb, use only a little, then balance
the bitterness with something tart or sweet. These are taste-as-you-go recipes and
withstand a great deal of sniffing, handling, and tasting.
Wild Leek and Poblano Guacamole

Serves 4
1 large poblano pepper
7 wild leek bulbs
1 ripe peeled avocado, coarsely mashed
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon mild salsa or 2 tablespoons chopped fresh tomato
Juice from ½ lime
Cut pepper in half lengthwise and broil until soft (turn frequently), then peel skin and
chop.
Mash and chop wild leek bulbs, place in pan, cover with water (¼ inch), and simmer over
medium heat until moisture is gone; remove immediately.
Add avocado, leeks, pepper, cilantro, and salsa (tomatoes) in mixing bowl, squeeze in
lime juice, and combine. Salt to taste.
Wild Asparagus and Stinging Nettle Crostini

Serves 3–4
1 loaf whole-wheat French bread
4 tablespoons olive oil
½ pound fresh wild asparagus
¼ pound chopped nettle tops
¼ pound finely chopped chickweed (or substitute chopped dandelion leaves)
¼ teaspoon salt and pepper, equal amounts
½ cup grated Asiago or Manchego cheese
2 fresh tomatoes, sliced
¼ cup Parmesan cheese
Slice bread loaf in half, brush cut half with olive oil, place under preheated broiler for 1
minute. Remove.
Recipes 119

Cook coarsely chopped asparagus, nettle tops, and chickweed for 2 minutes in ½ inch
boiling water. Add salt and pepper. Makes 2 cups.
Spread cooked wild vegetables on toasted side of bread. Top with grated Asiago cheese
and broil for 1 minute or until cheese bubbles.
Top each crostini with half a slice of tomato, sprinkle with Parmesan, cut, and serve.
Wild Leek, Watercress, and Nettle Pie

Serves 6
Cooking spray
2 cups whole wild leeks, chopped
Water
5 cups chopped watercress
2 cups chopped wild violet leaves
3 cups fresh arugula
5 cups chopped nettles
2 cups chopped chickweed
¾ cup fresh chopped fennel (bronze preferred)
½ cup ricotta cheese
½ cup grated elderberry wine cheese (available in gourmet supermarkets—made in
Great Britain). If not available, use Fontinella or Asiago.
½ cup chopped fresh parsley
¼ cup chopped fresh dill or 2 tablespoons dried dill
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
8 sheets phyllo dough, thawed
3 tablespoons chopped black walnuts garnish
Spray the bottom of a 6-quart pan (spaghetti boiling pan) with cooking spray, then sauté
chopped leeks until slightly browned. Remove to colander and drain. Spray the pan
again, then add 4 ounces water; fill the pan with the watercress, violet leaves, arugula,
nettle, and chickweed, and simmer until wilted.
Use a colander to press moisture from all the vegetables including the leeks. Then in
a large mixing bowl, combine the chopped (and uncooked) fennel with the cooked
vegetables, the ricotta, and the grated cheeses. Mix in seasonings: parsley, dill, salt,
pepper. Set aside.
Coat sheets of phyllo dough with cooking spray, press them into a 10-inch (oil-sprayed)
pie dish. Arrange in a crisscross pattern. Gently press into the bottom and up the sides.
Then spoon in vegetables and cheese mixture evenly. Fold ends of phyllo dough toward
center of the pan, coat ends with cooking spray, and press to form shape.
Bake in a preheated oven at 375°F for 40 minutes (until golden brown). Sprinkle chopped
nuts over and serve.
120 Appendix B

Watercress and Wild Leek Stir-Fry
Serves 2, or 6 small tapas dishes
4 tablespoons stock (1 tablespoon seasoned rice wine vinegar, 3 tablespoons vegetarian
stock)
2 tablespoons peanut oil
2 tablespoons chopped ginger
½ teaspoon brown sugar (optional)
3 tablespoons low-salt soy sauce
1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
6 whole wild leeks (cut lengthwise, i.e., cut bulb in half )
1 bunch watercress (cut away large stems and chop coarsely)
2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds
3 tablespoons chopped cilantro
Combine stock, peanut oil, ginger, sugar, and soy sauce and swirl until hot in a wok or 12-
inch frying pan. Add dark sesame oil and leeks, fry until tender (2 minutes). Add chopped
watercress for 1 minute. Serve garnished with toasted sesame seeds and cilantro.
Options: Add or substitute chopped stinging nettle and chopped cattail shoots.
Wild Mushrooms with Wild Leeks and Stinging Nettles

Serves 2, or 6 tapas
3 wild leeks, leaf and bulb
1 tablespoon olive oil or canola spray
6 spring morels, chopped
3 cups chopped stinging nettle
2 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons walnuts, chopped and roasted
3 tablespoons olive oil and 1 tablespoon aged red wine vinegar (combine as dressing)
Salt and pepper
Sauté chopped leeks in olive oil for 1 minute, add chopped morels and stinging nettle
and water; stir-fry for 2 minutes until steam wilts the stinging nettle. Serve hot or cold
with toasted walnuts and olive oil and vinegar dressing. Salt and pepper to taste.
Options: Add watercress to this recipe. Also try with cattail shoots.
Tortilla Española with Morels, Jerusalem Artichokes, and Wild

Asparagus
Serves 6, or 12 tapas
3 Jerusalem artichokes sliced ¼ inch thick (enough to cover the bottom of a 10-inch iron
skillet)
12 asparagus shoots
1 cup sliced roasted green, yellow, or red pepper (combine or your choice)
½ cup cleaned and coarsely chopped watercress
1½ cups morel mushrooms, sliced (substitute available other edible mushrooms)
6 whole eggs
Recipes 121

1 teaspoon Lawry’s salt or
equivalent, or salt and pepper
3 tablespoons fresh chopped
cilantro
¼ cup Parmesan cheese
Optional: ½ cup thinly sliced
burdock root
Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray

bottom of iron skillet with nonstick
oil. Arrange slices of Jerusalem
artichokes across the bottom of the Tortilla española
pan, forming a base. Place asparagus
shoots above the artichokes like the
spokes of a wheel. Spread roasted peppers over the first 2 layers, then a thin layer of
chopped watercress and mushrooms. Whip eggs, salt, pepper, and chopped cilantro
into a froth. Slowly pour the airy mix of eggs over the layers of vegetables in the skillet.
Sprinkle top liberally with Parmesan cheese. Cook for 15 minutes in the heated oven,
brown the top for about a minute under the broiler. Cut like a quiche and serve over a
corn tortilla with fresh salsa and refried beans.
Divorced* Eggs with Morels

and Wild Leek (Ramps)
Leaves
Serves 1
2 tablespoons of finely chopped
wild leek leaves
2 tablespoons minced watercress
1 morel, chopped
1 tablespoon butter
Salt and pepper
3 tablespoons green salsa
3 tablespoons red salsa
2 eggs
1 corn tortilla
1 teaspoon chopped cilantro
½ cup refried black beans
Red salsa recipe: Combine 1 cup

of chopped fresh tomatoes, 1 cup of Eggs up with wild currant and goose tongue (Plantago
maritima)
chopped onions, and half a jalapeño
pepper, minced. Add juice of half a lime, 3 minced wild leek bulbs, and 1 tablespoon
chopped cilantro. Salt and pepper to taste.
*Red salsa represents passion and anger, and green salsa is for naïveté or inexperience,
the colors of a failed marriage. Traditional Yucatecan breakfast.
122 Appendix B

Green salsa recipe: Boil 6 whole tomatillos until tender, about 5 minutes, in water at a
boil. Cool tomatillos in ice water. Blend tomatillos with ½ cup chopped sweet onion (use
countertop electric blender). Add ½ minced jalapeño pepper (optional) and juice of ¼
lime. Salt and pepper to taste.
Sauté chopped (minced) leek leaves, watercress, and morels in butter for 2 minutes. Salt and
pepper to taste. Warm the 2 salsas in the microwave separately (do not mix). Divide chopped
leeks and morels in half and add to salsas in equal amounts. Cook 2 eggs over easy. Pour
green salsa over one egg and red salsa over other. Serve over an oil-fired corn tortilla, garnish
with cilantro, and serve with a side of refried beans.
Vegetarian Beans with Wild Greens in Spring Stock

Serves 4
1 cup chopped watercress
1 cup chopped wild leeks
1 cup chopped stinging nettle
1 cup chopped violet leaves
½ cup chopped dandelion leaves
1 cup chopped young (3 inches high) daylily shoots
2 quarts pure water
2 tablespoons vegetable bullion
1 clove garlic chopped
1 can black beans
1 can pinto beans
Sprig of epazote (optional)
Juice of 1 lime
1 teaspoon each dried oregano and basil
Soy or salt and pepper to taste
Coarsely chop greens. Add all ingredients to a saucepan with 2 quarts water. Bring to a
boil; back off to a simmer for 15 minutes. Strain off the water and use for soup, stir-fry,
anywhere vegetable-flavored water will enhance the cooking.
Wild Plants and Morel Vegetarian Lasagna

Serves 4
½ cup cottage cheese
¾ cup Parmesan
½ cup ricotta
1 cup milk
½ teaspoon each dried parsley, thyme, chervil, thyme, oregano, basil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 (14–16-ounce) can tomato sauce
1 pound spinach pasta
8 coarsely chopped morel mushrooms
2 cups chopped stinging nettle
½ cup chopped wild leeks
1 cup finely chopped wild asparagus (domestic variety OK)
Recipes 123

Combine cheeses and milk. In separate bowl combine dry seasonings and finely
chopped garlic with the tomato sauce. Place a layer of uncooked dry lasagna in the
bottom of an ovenproof dish. Ladle tomato sauce over lasagna. Sprinkle mushrooms,
nettles, chopped leeks, and asparagus over sauce. Ladle a layer of cheese mixture over
the vegetables. Add another layer of pasta, then repeat the sauce, vegetables, and
cheese layers. Next, another layer of noodles, sauce, vegetables, cheeses.
Bake covered in a preheated 325°F oven for 45 minutes. Cool. Garnish with Parmesan
cheese and chopped Italian parsley.
Wild Leeks with Anchovies Salad in Vinaigrette

Serves 6–8
½ gallon water
30 wild leeks
3 hard-boiled eggs
5 anchovies (soaked several times in freshwater to release salt)
To make vinaigrette:
Juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon chopped wild onion tops or, preferably, chives
Salt and pepper
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon finely chopped lovage (substitute 3 tablespoons chopped parsley)
Bring water to boil, add leeks, and simmer for 20 minutes. Combine vinaigrette
ingredients. Cool leeks, dry, and refrigerate for half an hour. Peel and chop eggs
coarse, and cut the anchovies into small bits. Spread cold leeks on a plate, drizzle with
vinaigrette, and garnish with finely chopped anchovies and parsley.
Vegetarian Egg Roll with Wild Berries and Maple Syrup Salsa
Serves 3–4
¼ cup Riesling wine
3 tablespoons maple syrup
½ cup blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, autumn olives in combination or by
themselves (substitute any other wild berry)
¼ cup dried elderberries
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame seed oil
12 prepared vegetarian egg rolls or pot stickers
Mix wine, syrup, berries, lemon juice, mustard, and soy. Bring to a boil, then simmer and
reduce (mash berries into the salsa and cook until thick). Stir sesame seed oil into finished
salsa. Steam pot stickers and/or egg rolls. Use maple salsa as dip, or drizzle over pot
stickers and egg rolls.
124 Appendix B

Miso Burdock Soup with a Nasturtium Flower Garnish
Serves 1
Vegetable bullion cube or vegetable stock
Miso soup base
1 burdock root
1 cup watercress
Prepare this soup according to your taste for miso. I like using the lighter mix, white miso:
about a tablespoon to a cup of stock. Peel and slice thinly (¹ ⁄₈") the burdock root. Simmer
the miso and burdock root for 10 minutes. Drop in a sprig or two of watercress for each
cup. Simmer for 2 minutes. Serve with a dollop of sour cream, and garnish each bowl
with 2 nasturtium blossoms and a feather of fennel leaf.
Marinated Lamb Shank with

Jerusalem Artichoke Croquette
Serves 2–4
Croquettes:
2 egg yolks
½ teaspoon chopped wild chives
1 cup Parmesan cheese
4 cups mashed Jerusalem artichokes
3 tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon pepper
1 egg, beaten Juniper-and-soy-marinated lamb shank with
Jerusalem artichoke croquette
Bread crumbs or panko mix (add cattail
pollen to fortify)
Peanut oil
2 lamb shanks
¼ cup lite soy sauce
5 crushed juniper berries
¼ cup red wine (Cabernet or Burgundy)
½ teaspoon rosemary
1 tablespoon chopped ginger root (wild American or Oriental)
1 cup apple juice

½ cup beef broth
Croquette recipe: Beat 2 egg yolks, then stir in wild chives, Parmesan, mashed
Jerusalem artichokes, flour, and pepper. Chill, then shape into squares or balls. Dip into a
beaten egg and roll in bread crumbs or panko mix. Cook in a pan of peanut oil (about ½
inch oil) until brown on all sides.
Marinate lamb shanks in a large ziplock bag with soy sauce, crushed juniper berries,
red wine, rosemary, and ginger root. (Optional: Add ¼ teaspoon herbes de Provence.)
Marinate for at least 4 hours, up to 6, shaking bag every 2 hours. In a roasting pan, add
Recipes 125

apple juice and beef broth to the marinade and roast the shanks at 300°F until tender,
about 3 hours—baste to keep moist. Serve with Jerusalem artichoike croquettes.
Option: Roast chunked root vegetables in the last hour with the lamb shanks: potato,
sweet potato, rutabaga, parsnip, and onion.
Navajo Fry Bread

Makes 4 fry breads
1 cup whole-grain flour
½ cup skim milk
Canola or peanut oil
Mix 1 cup of whole-grain flour with slightly less than ½ cup skim milk.
Knead mix over a board sprinkled with flour. Fold 20 or so times (form a moist, firm
dough ball).
Pluck an egg-size ball from the dough, roll it out on a floured board with a rolling pin
until it forms a flat ¹ ⁄₈-inch pancake of dough.
Cut a slit or two into the fry bread dough.
Place the pancake (fry bread dough) into 400°F oil (canola, peanut).
Fry 5 or 6 seconds on each side (see the dough fill with air and brown slightly).
Jerusalem Artichoke Shoot Tempura

Break off early spring shoots of Jerusalem artichokes before the leaves open. Whip an
egg (may leave out yolk), dip shoots in egg, drop in bag of rice or wheat flour, shake, coat,
sauté, or deep-fry until golden.
Persimmon Pudding
Serves 6
1 cup persimmon pulp
1 cup sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ pound butter
1 cup milk
¼ cup black walnuts
¼ cup hickory nuts
Combine persimmon pulp with sugar, beat in eggs; mix flour and baking powder with
cinnamon, nutmeg, butter, and milk. Mix all, including nuts, into persimmon base and
then pour into a 9-inch, well-greased cake pan. Bake at 325°F for 35 minutes.
126 Appendix B

Italian Cream Cake with
Hazelnuts, Black Walnuts,
Blackberries, and Blueberries
Serves 8
5 egg whites
5 egg yolks
1 cup butter
1¾ cups sugar
2 cups white flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup black walnuts
½ cup chopped hazelnuts
¾ cup coconut
1 teaspoon vanilla Italian cream cake
1¹ ⁄₈ cups sour milk (or buttermilk)
Garnish: blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries
To make the cake: Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease and flour two 9-inch round
cake pans. Separate the eggs. Beat the whites until soft peaks form, and set aside. Cream
the egg yolks, butter, and sugar. Set aside. Take 2 bowls—one for the dry ingredients, and
another for the milk and vanilla. In the bigger bowl combine the dry stuff—flour, baking
soda, salt, nuts, and coconut. In the smaller bowl or tiny pitcher, add the vanilla to the
sour milk or buttermilk (whatever you choose). Alternate adding the dry ingredients and
the milk ingredients to the egg/butter/sugar you creamed together.
Now, fold in the egg whites. Pour the batter into prepared pans. Bake for about 20 to 25
minutes. Do the basic toothpick test to be sure they’re done. When cool, slice each layer
into two thinner layers.
The frosting: 4 cups powdered sugar (Sift it if lumpy!), 1 cup butter, 4 ounces cream
cheese, 1 tablespoon rum (optional), ½ teaspoon vanilla, ½ cup orange marmalade
(optional).
Frosting procedure: Beat together all the ingredients except marmalade. Set the orange
marmalade in a cup or pitcher so you can pour it out slowly. Make certain your cake has
cooled. For the middle layer, drizzle orange marmalade over the frosting. If you want to drizzle
it on top, try warming it a bit first, and then it will be “drizzly”-looking instead of clumpy.
Compliments to Bill Fields.
Dried Salal Berry Cakes

Salal berries were an important traditional food of Native Americans of the
Northwest. They gathered the berries and prepared them in cakes.
Serves 10
To make a fair facsimile of a dried cake, boil 8 cups berries until they are a soft mash, and
then pour them into a greased cupcake pan. Fill each cupcake holder half full and bake
at 200°F until the cakes dry (about 3½ hours). Reconstitute dried cakes with an overnight
soak in the refrigerator.
Recipes 127

Rabbit Stew with Juniper
Serves 4
5 crushed juniper berries
3 cups chicken broth
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons dried and powdered
puffball mushroom
¼ cup Riesling wine
1 rabbit
Boil juniper berries, broth, soy sauce,

puffball mushroom, and Riesling in a Rabbit stew with juniper
stockpot. Sauté rabbit, add it to the stock,
and stew for 30 minutes. Option: Add wild
veggies—like Jerusalem artichokes, wild
leeks, and chopped burdock roots—in
the last 10 minutes.
Hazelnut-Encrusted Chicken
Breast with Raspberry Currant
Sauce
Serves 2
2 chicken breasts
1 cup ground hazelnuts
1 cup panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
¾ cup raspberries
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
½ cup safflower oil
3–6 teaspoons water Hazelnut-encrusted chicken breast with raspberry
currant sauce
Coat chicken with a mix of the ground
hazelnuts and panko. Fry chicken.
Simmer raspberries, vinegar, sugar, oil, and water to reduce. Serve with the chicken, and
enjoy.
128 Appendix B

Crab Cakes with Wild Leeks
Serves 4–6
1 pound blue crab meat (or use
Dungeness, rock, king, or other crab
meat or a mixture)
8 saltine crackers
1 egg beaten
2 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 teaspoon mustard
¼ teaspoon Worcestershire
½ teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
10 wild leeks, finely chopped Crab cake with chopped leeks and jewelweed shoots
Salt to taste (Recipe at herbvideos.com.)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Juice of 1 lime or 6 slices of lime
Put meat in a bowl and set aside. Crush crackers fine and mix with the next 7 ingredients.
Gently fold in crab. Don’t break up the crab into fine shreds. Shape 6 crab cakes, and
refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Then heat about 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil in a non-
stick frying pan. Sauté until golden brown on each side, about 3–5 minutes per side.
Squeeze on lime juice or garnish with lime slices.
Recipes 129

Appendix C:
References and Resources
Jim Meuninck has produced several 2-hour DVDs that identify and demonstrate
the use of edible and medicinal wild plants. For free and useful information, visit his
website, herbvideos.com.
DVDs
Cooking with Edible Flowers and Culinary Herbs. Jim Meuninck and Sinclair Philip (60 minutes/
DVD). Herbvideos.com.
Diet for Natural Health. Jim Meuninck, Candace Corson, M.D., and Nancy Behnke Strasser,
R. D. (60 minutes/DVD). One diet for disease prevention and weight control.
Herbvideos.com.
Edible Wild Plants IV. Jim Meuninck and Dr. Jim Duke (2-hour DVD, 2013). More than 100
useful wild herbs documented, recipes demonstrated. Herbvideos.com.
Herbal Odyssey. Jim Meuninck (CD-ROM, 2005). Interactive media with World Wide Web
links covering more than 500 herbs, edible plants, edible flowers, and medicinal plants.
Herbvideos.com.
Herbvideos.com, Jim Meuninck’s ethnobotany website. 3,500 pages of information and

1,500 photos, video.
Native American Medicine. Jim Meuninck, Patsy Clark, Estela Roman, and Theresa Barnes (2-
hour DVD, 2005). Herbvideos.com.
Natural Health with Medicine Herbs and Healing Foods. Jim Meuninck, Ed Smith, and James
Balch (60 minutes/DVD). Herbvideos.com.
Survival X. Jim Meuninck (2-hour DVD, 2011). Self-reliance and survival skills demonstrated.
Herbvideos.com.
Books
American Indian Medicine. Virgil Vogel. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970.
The Audubon Field Guide to North American Wild Flowers. New York: Alfred Knopf, Chanticleer
Press Edition, 1992.
Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West. Gregory Tilford. Missoula, MT: Mountain Press
Publishing, 1997.
130

Edible Native Plants of the Rocky Mountains. Harold D. Harrington. Albuquerque, NM:
University of New Mexico Press, 1967.
Edible Wild Fruits and Nuts of Canada. Nancy Turner and Adam Szczawinski. Victoria, BC,
Canada: National Museum of Natural Sciences, 1979.
Edible Wild Plants. Oliver Medsger. Collier Books, 1966.
Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants. Bradford Angier. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1974.
Field Guide to Medicinal Plants and Herbs of Eastern and Central North America, 2nd ed. Steven
Foster and James Duke. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
Field Guide to North American Edible Wild Plants. Thomas Elias and Peter Dykeman. New York:
Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1982.
Field Guide to North American Medicinal Plants. Jim Meuninck. Guilford, CT: FalconGuides,
2009.
Handbook of Edible Weeds. James A. Duke. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2001.
Handbook of Medicinal Herbs. James A. Duke. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2001.
Handbook of Northeastern Indian Medicinal Plants. James A. Duke. Lincoln, MA: Quarterman
Publications, 1986.
Handbook of Nuts. James A. Duke. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2001.
An Instant Guide to Edible Plants. Pamela Forey and Cecilia Fitzsimons. Gramercy Books, 2001.
It’s the Berries. Liz Anton and Beth Dooley. North Adams, MA: Storey Communications, 1988.
Medicinal and Other Uses of North American Plants. Charlotte Erichsen-Brown. Mineola, NY:
Dover Publications, 1989.
Medicinal Plants of the Pacific West. Michael Moore. Santa Fe, NM: Red Crane Books, 1993.
Medicinal Wild Plants of the Prairie. Kelly Kindscher. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas,
1992.
Michigan Trees. rev. and updated, Burton Barnes and Warren Wagner Jr. Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan Press, 2004.
Native American Ethnobotany. Daniel Moerman. Portland, OR: Timber Press, 1998.
Plants of Coastal British Columbia. Jim Pojar and Andy MacKinnon. Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada: Lone Pine, 2004.
Sea Vegetables. Evelyn McConnaughey. Happy Camp, CA: Naturegraph Publishers, 1985.
References and Resources 131

Shellfish & Seaweed Harvests of Puget Sound. Daniel Cheney and Thomas Mumford Jr. Tacoma,
WA: Puget Sound Books, 1986.
Sturtevant’s Edible Plants of the World. U. P. Hedrick, ed. Mineola, NY: Dover Books, 1972.
Traditional Plant Foods of Canadian Indigenous People. Harriet Kuhnlein and Nancy Turner.
New York: Macmillan, 1991.
Western Forests. Stephen Whitney. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.
Seed and Plant Resources, Catalogs, and Information

American Botanical Council (512-926-4900; herbalgram.org). Ask for their book catalog.
Horizon Herbs (541-846-6704; horizonherbs.com). Rare wild plants, both edible and
medicinal.
J. L. Hudson, Seedsman Catalog (jlhudsonseeds.net). Rare and unusual seeds.
Richter’s Herb Catalogue (905-640-6677; richters.com). A free catalog of edible and medicinal
plant seeds and live plants.
Seeds of Change (888-762-4240; seedsofchange.com). Free catalog.
132 Appendix C

Recipe Index
Crab Cakes with Wild Leeks, 129 Navajo Fry Bread, 126
Crepe de Lasceau, 114–15 Neanderthal Buzz, 115
Divorced Eggs with Morels and Wild Leek Paleo Greens, 114
(Ramps) Leaves, 122–23 Persimmon Pudding, 126
Dried Salal Berry Cakes, 127 Piltdown Pizza, 115
Pteropod Pickles, 116–17
Frittata Archaeopteryx, 116
Fungal Jim’s Morel Mushroom Pâté (or Any Rabbit Stew with Juniper, 128
Other Edible Mushroom), 118
Tortilla Española with Morels, Jerusalem
Hazelnut-Encrusted Chicken Breast with Artichokes, and Wild Asparagus, 121–22
Raspberry Currant Sauce, 128
Homo Habilis Hontzontles, 117 Vegetarian Beans with Wild Greens in
Spring Stock, 123
Italian Cream Cake with Hazelnuts, Vegetarian Egg Roll with Wild Berries and
Black Walnuts, Blackberries, and Maple Syrup Salsa, 124
Blueberries, 127 Velociraptor Pie, 116
Jerusalem Artichoke Shoot Tempura, 126 Watercress and Wild Leek Stir-Fry, 121
Jungle Berry Toast, 114 Wild Asparagus and Stinging Nettle
Crostini, 119–20
Leaky Fry Bread with Prickly Pear Wild Leek, Watercress, and Nettle Pie, 120
Sauce, 118–19 Wild Leek and Poblano Guacamole, 119
Lucy’s Lasagna, 117 Wild Leeks with Anchovies Salad in
Vinaigrette, 124
Magdalenian Mushrooms, 118 Wild Mushrooms with Wild Leeks and
Marinated Lamb Shank with Jerusalem Stinging Nettles, 121
Artichoke Croquette, 125–26 Wild Plants and Morel Vegetarian
Miso Burdock Soup with a Nasturtium Lasagna, 123–24
Flower Garnish, 125
Mushroom Sauce Australopithecine, 118
133

Index
Acer saacharum, 78–79 bedstraw, 61 Chrysanthemum
acorn, 79–80 beebalm, 4 leucanthemum, 92
Actaea pachypoda, 106 beech, 73 chufa sedge, 52
Actaea rubra, 106 bittersweet nightshade, 107 Cichorium intybus, 15
Adiantum pedatum, 62 blackberry, 30 Cicuta maculata, 113
Aesculus hippocastanum, 107 black cherry, 32–33 cinquefoil, 52
agave, 97 black elder, 34–35 Cirsium scariosum, 88
Agave americana, 97 black morel, 5 Cirsium vulgare, 26
alder, 72–73 black mustard, 27 Claytonia caroliniana,
Allium sativum, 26 black walnut, 83 67–68
Allium spp., 26–27 bladderwrack, 102–3 Claytonia lanceolata,
Allium tricoccum, 1, 66 bluebell, 87 67–68, 96
Alnus spp, 72–73 blueberry, 30–31 Claytonia perfoliata, 91
alpine bistort, 86–87 blueflag, 107 Claytonia tuberosa, 67–68
amaranth, 13 Boletus edulis, 9 cleavers, 61
Amaranthus spp., 13 Brassica nigra, 27 clover, red, 16
Amelanchier spp., 38–39 buckeye, 107 coconut palm, 74–75
American beech, 73 buckthorn, 108 Cocos nucifera, 74–75
American glasswort, 105 buffalo gourd, 98 Commelina communis,
American liverwort, 106 bugbane, 106 13–14
American white water bull thistle, 26 common milkweed, 22–23
lily, 50 burdock, 14–15 Conium maculatum, 109
anise, wild, 68 butternut, 73–74 conservation practices, vi
Apios americana, 63–64 Corylus cornuta, 75–76
apple, 28 Calochortus nuttallii, 93–94 cowslip, 65
Arbutus menziesii, 77–78 Caltha leptosepala, 90–91 cranberry, 33
Arctium lappa, 14–15 Caltha palustris, 55–56, 65 Crataegus laevigata, 37
Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, 29 Caltha species, 65 Cucurbita foetidissima, 98
Arisaema triphyllum, 65, 110 Calvatia gigantea, 7 currant, 33–34
Armillaria mellea, 11–12 Campanula spp., 89–90 cut-leaf toothwort, 69
arrow arum, 106 carrion flower, 31 Cyperus esculentus, 52
arrowhead, 50 Carya illinoinensis, 80
arrow-leafed balsamroot, 84 Carya ovata, 76 dandelion, 3, 16–17
Artemisia tridentate, cascara sagrada, 108 datura, 108
100–101 Castanea dentata, 74 Datura meteloides, 108
Asarum canadense, 62–63 cattail, 2, 51 Datura stramonium, 108
Asclepias syriaca, 22–23, 111 Cercis canadensis, 81 daylily, 2, 17–18
Asiatic dayflower, 13–14 Chenopodium album, 21–22 Delphinium glaucum, 110
Asimina triloba, 42–43 cherry, wild, 32–33 Dentaria laciniata, 69
Auricularia auricula, 11 chestnut, 74 devil’s club, 87–88
autumn olive, 28 chicken mushroom, 9–10 Dicentra cucullaria, 108
avalanche lily, 85 chickweed, 4 Digitalis purpurea, 109
chicory, 15 Diospyros virginiana, 43–44
Balsamorhiza spp., 84 Chimaphila maculata, 48–49 Dodecatheon spp., 94
baneberry, 106 chiming bell, 87 dog rose, 44–45
Barbarea vulgaris, 27 Chinese lantern plant, dryad’s saddle, 6
beach pea, 102 36–37 duck potato, 50
bearberry, 29 chives, 26–27 duckweed, 53
beargrass, 85–86 chokecherry, 32–33 dutchman’s breeches, 108
134

eastern redbud, 81 goosefoot, 21–22 lady’s thumb, 86–87
Elaeagnus umbellata, 28 goose tongue, 104–5 Laetiporus sulphureus, 9–10
elder, black, 34–35 grape, wild, 36 lamb’s quarter, 21–22
elk grass, 85–86 Grifola frondosa, 10 Laminaria spp., 103–4
elkslip, 90–91 ground cherry, 36–37 larch, 76–77
elk thistle, 88 groundnut, 63–64 Larix laricina, 76–77
ephedra, 98–99 larkspur, 110
Ephedra viridis, 98–99 harebell, 89–90 Lathyrus japonicus var.
Ephredra sinica, 98–99 hawthorn, 37 maritimus, 102
Epilobium angustifolium, hazelnut, 75–76 laver, 104
88–89 heal all, 19 Ledum glandulosum, 55
Epilobium latifolia, 88–89 Helianthus tuberosus, 21 Ledum groenlandicum, 55
equisetum, 53–54 hellebore, 109 leek, wild, 1, 66
Equisetum arvense, 53–54 Hemerocallis fulva, 17–18 Lemna trisulca, 53
Equisetum hyemale, 53–54 hemlock, poison, 109 licorice, 90
Erythronium americanum, 70 hemlock, water, 113 Lindera benzoin, 46–47
Erythronium grandi- hen of the woods, 10 lion’s mane, 12
florum, 85 Hepatica americana, 106 lobelia, 110
evening primrose, 18 Hericium erinaceus, 12 Lobelia syphilitica, 110
evergreen huckleberry, 38 hickory, 76 Lycoperdon, 7
high bush cranberry, 37–38 Lycoperdon perlatum, 7
Fagus grandifolia, 73 honey mushroom, 11–12 Lysichitum americanus,
false hellebore, 109 hops, 20 95–96, 112, 113
false morel, 6 horse chestnut, 107
false Solomon’s seal, 61–62 horse nettle, 110 madrone, 77–78
fern, maidenhair, 62 horsetail, 53–54 Mahonia aquifolium, 41–42
fireweed, 88–89 huckleberry, 38 Mahonia nervosa var.
foraging rules, vi Humulus lupulus, 20 nervosa, 41–42
foxglove, 109 ma huang, 98–99
Fragaria californica, 47–48 Ilex vomitoria, 113 maidenhair fern, 62
Fragaria vesca, 47–48 Impatiens capensis, 54–55 Malus domestica, 28
Fragaria virginiana, 47–48 Indian cucumber, 64 maple, 78–79
fucus, 102–3 Indian tobacco, 110 marsh marigold, 55–56, 65,
Fucus gardneri, 102–3 Indian turnip, 65 90–91
Fuscus vesiculosis, 102–3 Iris versicolor, 107 Matricaria matricarioides,
92–93
Galium aparine, 61 jack-in-the-pulpit, 65, 110 mayapple, 40, 111
garlic, wild, 26 Jerusalem artichoke, 21 meadow bistort, 86–87
Gasteromycetes, 7 jewelweed, 54–55 Medeola virginiana, 64
Gaultheria procumbens, jimsonweed, 108 Menispermum
48–49 joint fir, 98–99 canadense, 111
Gaultheria shallon, 45 Juglans cinerea, 73–74 Mentha aquatica, 56
geranium, 89 Juglans nigra, 83 Mentha arvensis, 91–92
Geranium viscosissimum, 89 juneberry, 38–39 Mentha piperita, 56
ginger, wild, 62–63 juniper, 39–40 Mentha spp., 91–92
ginseng, 63 Juniper communis, 39–40 Mertensia spp., 87
glacier lily, 85 milkweed, 22–23, 111
Glycyrrhiza lepidota, 90 kelp, 103–4 miner’s lettuce, 91
goatsbeard oyster plant, king bolete, 9 mint, 56
yellow, 19 kinnikinnick, 29 mints of the west, 91–92
gobo burdock, 14–15 Monarda didyma, 4
gooseberry, prickly, 35 Labrador tea, 55 Monarda fistulosa, 4
Index 135

moonseed, 111 Podophyllum peltatum, Rubus allegheniensis, 30
Morchella spp., 5–6 40, 111 Rubus idaeus, 44
morel, 5–6 poison hemlock, 109 Rubus laciniatus, 30
Morman tea, 98–99 poison ivy, 111 Rubus occidentalis, 44
mountain ash, 41 poison sumac, 112 Rubus parviflorus, 48
poke salad, 24 Rubus spectabilis, 46
narrow-leafed seaside pokeweed, 24, 112 rue anemone, 66–67
plantain, 104–5 pollution, vi Rumex crispus, 58–59
Nasturtium officinale Polygonatum biflorum, 67 Rumex orbiculatus, 58–59
(watercress), 2, 59–60 Polygonum bistortoides, Rumex patientia, 58–59
nightshade, bittersweet, 107 86–87
nori, 104 Polygonum persicaria, 86 safety, vi
Nuphar luteum, 60 Polygonum viviparum, 86–87 sage, 100–101
Nuphar variegatum, 60 Polyporus frondosus, 10 Sagittaria latifolia, 50
Nymphaea odorata, 50 Polyporus squamosus, 6 salal, 45
Pontederia cordata, 57 Salicornia maritima, 105
oak, 79–80 porphyra, 104 Salicornia virginica, 105
Oenothera biennis, 18 Porphyra spp., 104 salmonberry, 46
onion, wild, 26–27 Portulaca oleracea saltwort, 105
Oplopanax horridus, 87–88 (purslane), 3, 24–25 Sambucus canadensis,
Opuntia spp., 99–100 Potentilla anserina, 52 34–35
Oregon grape, 41–42 Potentilla canadensis, 52 Sambucus nigra, 34–35
Osmorhiza odorata, 68 prickly gooseberry, 35 sassafras, 82
Osmorhiza species, 68 prickly pear, 99–100 Sassafras albidum, 82
oxeye daisy, 92 Prunella vulgaris, 19 scouring rush, 53–54
oyster mushroom, 8 Prunus serotina, 32–33 sea asparagus, 105
Prunus virginiana, 32–33 sea wrack, 102–3
Panax quinquefolius, 63 puffball, 7 sego lily, 93–94
pawpaw, 42–43 pukeweed, 110 selfheal, 19
pecan, 80 purple foxglove, 109 serviceberry, 38–39
Peltandra virginica, 106 purslane, 3, 24–25 shagbark hickory, 76
peppermint, 56 shooting star, 94
persimmon, 43–44 Quercus alba, 79–80 sitka valerian, 94–95
Phragmites communis, Quercus macrocarpa, 79–80 skunk cabbage, 112
57–58 Quercus spp., 79–80 Smilacina sp., 61–62
Physalis spp., 36–37 Smilax herbacea, 31
Phytolacca americana, ramps, 66 smooth carrion flower, 31
24, 112 raspberry, 44 Solanum carolinense, 110
pickerelweed, 57 redbud, 81 Solanum dulcamara, 107
pigweed, 21–22 red clover, 16 Solomon’s seal, 67
pineapple weed, 92–93 reed grass, 57–58 Sorbus americana, 41
Pinus edulis, 80–81 Rhamnus purshiana, 108 Sorbus decora, 41
Pinus strobus, 80–81 Rhamnus spp., 108 Sorbus sitchensis, 41
pinyon pine, 80–81 Rhus typhina, 47 spatterdock, 60
Plantago lanceolata, 23 Rhus vernix, 112 spicebush, 46–47
Plantago major, 23 Ribes cynosbati, 35 spider plant, 25
Plantago maritima, 23, 104 Ribes spp., 33–34 spiderwort, 25
plantain, 23 rice, wild, 58 spotted-touch-me-not,
Pleurotus cornucopiae, 8 Rosa rugosa, 44–45 54–55
Pleurotus ostreatus, 8 Rosa spp., 44–45 spotted wintergreen, 48–49
Pleurotus pulmonarius, 8 rose, 44–45 spring beauty, 67–68
136 Index

staghorn sumac, 47 Typha angustifolia (cattail), wild ginger, 62–63
stinging nettle, 1 2, 51 wild grape, 36
strawberry, 47–48 Typha latifolia (cattail), 51 wild iris, 107
sugar maple, 78–79 uva ursi, 29 wild leek, 1, 66
sumac, poison, 112 wild onion, 26–27
sumac, staghorn, 47 Vaccinium myrtillus, 30–31 wild rice, 58
sun choke, 21 Vaccinium ovatum, 38 wild rose, 44–45
sunflowers, 3 Vaccinium oxycoccus, 33 winter cress, 27
swamp dock, 58–59 Vaccinium spp., 30–31 wintergreen, 48–49
sweet cicely, 68 Valeriana sitchensis, 94–95 wood anemone, 66–67
Symplocarpus foetidus, 112 Veratrum viride, 109 wood ear, 11
Viburnum trilobum, 37–38 wrinkled rose, 44–45
tamarack, 76–77 Viola spp., 2, 70–71
Taraxacum officinale violets, 2, 70–71 Xerophyllum tenax, 85–86
(dandelion), 3, 16–17 Vitis spp., 36
Thalictrum thalictroides, yaupon, 113
66–67 walnut, black, 83 yellow avalanche lily, 85
thimbleberry, 48 wapato, 50 yellow goatsbeard oyster
thistle, bull, 26 watercress, 2, 59–60 plant, 19
toothwort, cut-leaf, 69 water hemlock, 113 yellow morel, 6
Toxicodendron radicans, 111 western larkspur, 110 yellow nut sedge, 52
Tradescantia occidentalis, 25 western skunk cabbage, yellow pond lily, 60
Tradescantia pinetorum, 25 95–96, 113 yellow wood sorrel, 3
Tradescantia virginiana, 25 western spring beauty, 96 yucca, 101
Tragopogon dubius, 19 white pine, 80–81 Yucca filamentosa, 101
Trifolium pratense, 16 white trillium, 69 Yucca spp., 101
trillium, white, 69 widow’s tears, 25
Trillium grandiflorum, 69 wild anise, 68 Zizania aquatica, 58
trout lily, 70 wild cherry, 32–33 Zizania palustris, 58
turkey beard, 85–86 wild garlic, 26
Index 137

About the Author
Jim Meuninck, biologist, naturalist, writer, and lecturer, has authored four books
and fourteen special-interest DVDs on edible wild plants, self-reliance, and
alternative health. Now residing in Michigan, he has lived in four different countries,
documenting indigenous culture on four continents. His favorite pastime is fly
fishing, living with and admiring his wife, visiting his daughter and son-in-law, and
discovering and preserving primitive technology. A few of Jim’s DVDs include Native
American Medicine, Survival X, and Edible Wild Plants IV. For more information on these
programs and thousands of pages of free information, visit his informative website
at Herbvideos.com. Jim’s novel (five-star Amazon review), God's Mistake . . . Never Give
Up on a Bad Idea, is available from Amazon and other retail outlets.

Basic Illustrated Edible Wild Plants and Useful Herbs

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Edible Wild Plants and Useful Herbs

Jim Meuninck is a biologist and counselor who, for more than

Cover image of beebalm by Jim Meuninck

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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

FalconGuides is an imprint of Globe Pequot Press.

Photos: Jim Meuninck, except beargrass, page 85, licensed by Shutterstock

Text design: Sheryl P. Kober

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Printed in the United States of America

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1. STINGING NETTLE is number one. Trans-

2. WILD LEEKS come in numerous varie­

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4. WATERCRESS is a pungent spicy green

5. CATTAILS, found near your watercress and leek

6. DAYLILIES, found coast to coast, har-

2 Basic Illustrated Edible Wild Plants and Useful Herbs

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8. YELLOW WOOD SORREL, often found in

9. PURSLANE, famous as a rich source of

10. DANDELION, for many, is a noxious

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Beebalm, red didyma Beebalm, blue fistulosa

4 Basic Illustrated Edible Wild Plants and Useful Herbs

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Caution: Like wild plants, there are dangerous mushrooms. I recommend

Habitat: Moist woods, under and

Forager’s Dozen Mushrooms 5

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Habitat: Similar to black

6 Basic Illustrated Edible Wild Plants and Useful Herbs

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Forager’s Dozen Mushrooms 7

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8 Basic Illustrated Edible Wild Plants and Useful Herbs

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Forager’s Dozen Mushrooms 9

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Hen of the woods

10 Basic Illustrated Edible Wild Plants and Useful Herbs

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Forager’s Dozen Mushrooms 11

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12 Basic Illustrated Edible Wild Plants and Useful Herbs

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Yards, Gardens, Prairies, and Meadows 13

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Burdock, Gobo burdock

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Yards, Gardens, Prairies, and Meadows 15

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16 Basic Illustrated Edible Wild Plants and Useful Herbs

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Yards, Gardens, Prairies, and Meadows 17

2. WILD LEEKS come in numerous varie