Stellaria media

Stellaria media

Chickweed (Stellaria media) is a common weed in most places. But unfortunately not where I live, which is semi-arid. Fortunately one can sometimes find it populated areas at lower elevations, where it has found its way with the help of people in one way or another.

The most distinguishing feature is the white petals, which are very deeply cleft into two parts, but if you look closely they are joined near the base. The leaves are fairly small and opposite on the stem. The stems tend to grow prostrate along the ground and can form dense mats of vegetation. 

The flavor of the greens is excellent, and I very much enjoy eating them raw whenever I can find them. If you are lucky enough to have a large amount of the greens they are excellent in soups, stir-frys, and even as a pesto.

They are high in vitamin C and has too many beneficial constituents to list here. They are an ideal micro-green (if you are into that fad) because of the great flavor and many health benefits.

Rosa woodsii

Rosa woodsii

There are several species of wild rose, but the common species in my area is Rosa woodsii, known by the common name of Woods' Rose. Wild roses are common and fairly easy to identify, with the typical rose thorns, compound leaves, and long canes which like to form dense brambles. They have large, five-petaled flowers, which are usually pink or whitish. The five petals is a notable difference from domesticated roses, which have been bred and grafted in order to get the domestic plants to produce a large number of petals. While this is very beautiful, it is not the natural state of roses. 

The fruit, called a rose hip, is the main edible part of all roses. It develops beneath the sepals (an "inferior ovary" in botanical terms) and has the appearance of a red, inflated end of the stem. It is full of hard seeds, and somewhat hairy inside, but you can split it open and scrape out the seeds. The taste can vary from plant to plant, but usually it is a fine tasting fruit, reminiscent of the smell of roses. The texture can vary from leathery in the fall, to soft in the winter, to dry and hard in the spring. Some people say the rose hips reach the peak of flavor after the first frost, so they are a good thing to forage in the late fall and are still available and tasty in the winter. They are very high in vitamin C, and because they remain on the plant all winter, when I stop by a rose bush in the winter to eat a few rose hips, I think of it as "taking my vitamins".

Rose hips also make a very well known and good tasting tea. Just dry the hips, with or without the seeds, and you can use them later to make tea. This is another good way to get vitamin C, which is always helpful to fight off sickness in the winter months, when colds and flus are common.

The other part of the rose which is commonly eaten is the petals. The wild rose petals usually have a slightly bitter taste to me. Personally I have found that the domestic rose petals are superior to the wild rose petals, both in taste and texture. They are usually larger, and it also helps that there are a lot more of them. They can be an interesting addition to a salad, or a decoration on desserts.

Pinus monophylla

Pinus monophylla cone,
with seeds ready to fall out

Pinyon Pines produce the largest pine nut, and thus the best for foraging and eating. There are two common species of Pinyon Pine, Pinus edulis (literally, edible pine) and Pinus monophylla (literally, one-leaved pine). They both produce very similar edible nuts, but Pinus edulis has two needles per packet, while Pinus monophylla has one needle per packet. Pinus monophylla still has the papery sheath around the base of the needle, but with only a single round needle coming out, it seems like an oddity compared to other pines. I live on the border between the two species, because P. monophylla is the dominant pinyon species to the west of me, while P. edulis is the dominant pinyon species eastward up to the great plains. The nearest Pinyon Pine forest to me is Pinus monophylla, so this article is about that species specifically, although everything I say applies equally to Pinus edulis, if you find that species.

The season for collecting pine nuts is in the fall, from September to October. Early in the season is green cone time, when you pick the unopened green cones off the trees. Late in the season you will be looking for fallen nuts on the ground. Some people, perhaps in other areas, are able to find good nuts which have already fallen, but I have no luck with the ones on the ground. Many are invaded by insects, and the critters abscond with all the goods nuts. So I recommend getting out early in the season and picking the green cones. You know it is time when some of them start to open, and you can pick the unopened ones as well. The green cones are thickly coated with pine resin, so using gloves to pick them is very highly recommended. Take them home and spread them out somewhere dry, probably outside unless you really like the overpowering scent of pine in your home. By the end of October, they should all have opened on their own. 

Some of the nuts may fall out on their own, especially if you place them upside down like they typically grow on the trees. But most of my nuts need a bit of help, so holding the cone in one gloved hand, I use a nut pick to loosen or pry the nuts out of the cones. The inside of the cone and the nuts do not have the resin on them, so after this step, the gloves are no longer needed. There are two nuts on most fertile scales, so a single cone can have up to 2 dozen nuts.

Pinyon pines produce a lot of bad nuts. This may be from not being properly pollinated or from insect attack. But I estimate that 2/3 to 3/4 of all the nuts are bad. The bad ones can be identified in various ways. Good nuts always have a very dark shell, although some dark shells may also contain bad nuts. When cracking them with rock or hammer, the bad ones are easily crushed because they are mostly hollow, while the good ones will offer some resistance because they are completely filled with the edible nut. By dumping all the nuts in water, you can reliably distinguish the nuts which are completely filled from the partially filled or empty nuts, because the good, completely filled nuts will sink. I checked some of the floating nuts with dark shells, and found that the nut meat inside them was flawed in some way and did not taste as good as those which sink. So the float test seems to be the quickest and most reliable way to separate good nuts from bad. 

Shelling the nuts is a labor intensive process. I'm still looking for a way to do it more efficiently. They are too small for most nutcrackers, so I tap them with a rock or hammer to crack the shell and then remove the shell by hand.

The raw nuts are very good tasting. They are soft and have a mild flavor which is slightly piney, but mostly fresh and starchy. I roasted some, with shells off, at 350° for 5-10 minutes. (One must be careful not to roast them too long or they will get too hard, so check them often.) The roasted nuts are crunchy with a good nutty flavor which is quite different from the the unroasted nuts. Both ways are excellent eating, and I like them both ways. But there is something about the roasted nuts which keeps me reaching for one more, and one more after that, and so on.

Diplotaxis muralis

Diplotaxis muralis

Diplotaxis muralis is a member of the Mustard Family, commonly known as Wall Rocket. It might bear some resemblance to Yellow Rocket (Barbarea vulgaris), but Yellow Rocket is rather bitter, while I think Wall Rocket has a very good mustard flavor. In taste, I would compare it to Purple Mustard (Chorispora tenella), which might actually taste a bit better, but Purple Mustard is only available in the spring and soon turns tough and weedy, while Wall Rocket is available all summer and into the fall. I found it still flowering in the middle of October. 

Diplotaxis muralis exhibits many of the typical characteristics of the Mustard Family, such as the four-petaled yellow flowers, and long thin seedpods growing off the main stem one at a time. The flowers are large enough that you can easily see one of the most distinctive features of the Mustard Family. This is the six stamens, arranged with four long ones, which can be seen projecting slightly out of the flower, and two short stamens, which can be seen just peeking out of the throat of the flower. To distinguish this from other mustards, you should look at the seeds, because yellow mustard flowers are pretty common. The seedpods in the mustard family are called "siliques" and usually have two halves which fall away when mature, leaving a central membrane which often remains on the plant for some time. (This is especially large and noticeable in the money plant.) Diplotaxis is greek for "double arranged" because there are two rows of seeds on each side of the central membrane inside this long thin silique. It also has the female parts of the flower (style and stigma) persisting on the end of the silique. The leaves are mostly at the bottom of the plant, with a few smaller ones on the stem. It tends to grow in dense clumps, so harvesting the good-tasting leaves is fairly easy. It is a fairly common weed is some places. Although it is not native to my area, it is found in more populated areas, in weedy fields and parks.

Diplotaxis muralis leaves

The leaves are the main edible part of the plant. They have a good and fairly mild mustard flavor, but also have a hot/spicy aftertaste. It is usually better to eat them as accompaniment to other foods, so you can get the mustard flavor, while the spiciness is dispersed by eating it in combination with other foods. It is a very good green to put on sandwiches, for example. The stem is too tough to be enjoyable eating, but the flowers and seedpods have the same mustard flavor and are also tender and good to eat. The flowers probably taste even better than the leaves, and make an attractive addition to a salad.

Pastinaca sativa

Pastinaca sativa

I have developed a fascination for for the family of plants known in Latin as Umbelliferae (or Apiaceae for those handicapped by post-modernism), or in English as the carrot family. The Latin name refers to the compound umbels that serve as a recognizable unifying characteristic of the family. An umbel is when many flower stalks branch from a single point, and a compound umbel is when each stalk branches again into a smaller umbel. You can see simple umbels in onions, for example, but compound umbels are almost exclusive to Umbelliferae. This makes the family very easy to recognize, but unfortunately the genuses and species generally all look very similar, making it a challenge to correctly identify them. Actually, I find that the smells can be very distinctive, but those are rarely described in botanical references. The carrot family has many common food and spices, such as the aforementioned carrot, and also parsnips (see below), celery, fennel, cumin, dill, coriander, parsley, caraway, anise, lovage, and chervil. I have previously written in this blog about Osmorhiza occidentalis (sweetroot), Perideridia gairdneri (yampah), and Orogenia linearifolia. The seeds contain various volatile oils which is why so many of them make great spices. But this chemically active family also contains a couple very poisonous plants, namely poison hemlock and water hemlock. And because it is difficult to distinguish the poisonous plants from the good tasting plants, it is recommended that most people not eat any members of the carrot family, unless they are very sure about the species. Keep that in mind as you read on.

domestic parsnips
compared to wild parsnips

Part of my fascination for the family, besides the great foods I find, is the challenge of identifying them correctly. So I often stop to key out members of the family using a botanical key, such as the Utah Flora, for example. Recently I was pleased and surprised to key out Parsnips, or Pastinaca sativa. This is a wild or escaped version of the well-known garden parsnip. It is the same species, and basically the same in every way, except that the roots are not as large. So I also bought a couple at the store, to make a direct comparison.

But first, there is the problem of identifying the plant in the wild. The real answer is the get a botanical key and practice, practice, practice. But here are a few tips for this species. First, you will recognize the compound umbels of the carrot family. This species has yellow flowers (about half the family is white-flowered and half is yellow-flowered). The seeds are about 6mm tall, greenish, flattened and smooth when young. When older, the seeds are brown with darker stripes. They separate easily into two even flatter halves. The leaves come off the stem (i.e. they are not basal), and are pinnately compound, with about six pairs of sessile leaflets, which are both lobed and toothed. The whole plant is 1 to 2 meters tall, and has several compound umbels per plant, typically 7 or more (which is a lot for an Umbellierae under 2 meters tall). All this is helpful, but not certain for identifying the species. As I mentioned before the smell is more distinguishing than the appearance. Pull up a root, and it will smell like parsnip, which is a bright carroty smell. If you have gotten this far, you have identified the second year of a biennial plant, so the root, just like a second year carrot you let overwinter in your garden, will be tough and woody after expending its stored energy in growing the seed stalk. Look around some more, and find the same leaves growing directly from the ground (i.e. basal) without a tall stalk. These are the first-year plants, which will have good edible roots. The first-year roots hold on to the soil much better than the second-year roots and have only tender leaves instead of a tough stalk, so you will actually have to dig for them, rather than just pull them up.

The taste of wild parsnip roots is very similar to domestically grown parsnips. Domestic parsnips are larger, and have a smoother texture. The wild parsnips have a bit more of a fibrous texture, so you will probably want to cut it in pieces with a knife. It is good either raw or cooked. The flavor is milder than domestic parsnips. I prefer the flavor of the wild parsnips raw. After boiling for about 5 minutes the flavor becomes quite mild and the texture is soft and easy to chew. The domestic parsnips have an even smoother texture when boiled and retain more of their flavor when cooked, so I preferred the flavor of cooked domestic parsnips better. Both lose a lot of their flavor in the water. I have only eaten parsnips before in Europe, where they are used as a sort of generic soup vegetable, which is sometimes removed from the soup before serving, because they will often just use it to flavor the soup broth. The water from boiling the roots has a nice brothy flavor, which is why adding this root to soups is one of the best uses for it.

Bistorta bistortoides

Bistorta bistortoides

Bistort root

American Bistort is Bistorta bistortoides in latin (formerly Polygonum bistortoides). It is found as a dense head of small white flowers in wet (but usually not boggy) meadows at high altitudes. If you get out your magnifying glass, you may be able to count 8 stamens and 3 styles in each flower.

Although this is known to have been used as a food plant by Native Americans, I found that Bistort is not very tasty for eating. 

The most important part of Bistort for food is the root. It is not large, but it is easy to dig, being only 1-2 inches deep in the soil. The biggest problem is cleaning the roots. They curve back on themselves (as shown in the picture below), and have many rootlets, creating many recesses where dirt can remain. The best method I found was to break or cut them into straightish pieces, pull most of the rootlets off, and then wash them under fast running water. At home I use a colander and sprayer for this, but in the mountains I have net bag which I can hold under a swiftly running stream or small waterfall. 

I boiled the roots for 30 minutes. This was at 10,000 feet elevation, so you might need less time down where water boils at a higher temperature. They finally softened some after that time. The taste is rather bland and unremarkable. The consistency is not starchy, but rather chalky instead, and it is stightly astringent. One source said they were good baked, so I baked them in tin foil on the coals of a fire for 20-30 minutes. The result was drier than the boiled roots, which accentuated the chalkiness. Boiling tasted better, but I cannot say I enjoyed them either way, because the main taste was "chalky".

The raw leaves are good, but not very flavorful. There is more flavor than lettuce and not as much as spinach, but it doesn't stand out in any way. Boiling the leaves for 10 minutes did not change the taste or texture of the leaves much. They were only slightly softer. I did not notice any bitterness or unpleasant flavor, but they did not stand out with any pleasant flavor either. Some sources say they contain oxalic acid, which has a distinct lemony taste, but I did not notice that taste in them, so they must not contain very much at all.

The base of the stem where it nears the root is pinkish or orangish in color. It was soft and had a mild flavor, either raw or boiled. This might be the best tasting part of the plant.

I also tried the flowers (raw). They had more flavor than the rest of the plant. It is still not a particularly strong flavor, but I would describe it as a parsley and spicy flavor.

Epilobium angustifolium

Epilobium angustifolium

Fireweed, or Epilobium angustifolium, is a beautiful plant. It has a tall flowering stalk, full of fairly large, purple flowers. The flowers bloom starting at the bottom of the stalk, and work their way up, while the top is still growing new flowers, so that it continues blooming for most of the summer.

The flowers have four purple petals, and four narrower and darker purple sepals. The prominent style (female part) is divided into four curled stigmas at the end. It has eight stamens. These are all common characteristics of the Evening Primrose family of plants (Onagraceae). It also has a long tube behind the petals where the seeds form. This will get longer after the flower fades and falls off. This is characteristic of the Epilobium genus, and this is the largest and showiest member of the genus.

I have found many sources which say that fireweed is edible, but mostly when I have tried it, I have found it very unsatisfactory. The leaves are rather bitter, and the flowers and seedpods are not much better. Some sources recommend the small amount of juicy core inside the pithy stem, but this is a very small amount of food, and it's hard to justify tearing up such a beautiful flower for that.

The key to eating fireweed turns out to be that you must eat the young stem before the flowers form. The stem will be less that 2 feet tall, and growing only new leaves at the top. The stems can vary in thickness from about 2-5mm, and you should select the thicker ones to get more food. The outer part of the stem can be very fibrous, so it may help to peel the stem. The lowest portion of the stem may have finished growing already and will have become tough and fibrous or even pithy already. So you need to find the tender section of the stem. Too low will be tough and fibrous. The bottom of the tender section will need the outer part peeled off. Higher up the stem will be thinner, but not need peeled. At the top, the stem is very thin, and consists mostly of the bitter leaves, so I usually discard that too. But the tender section is quite good tasting. It is juicy and fresh and a bit crunchy. Some sources compare it to cucumber in taste, and it is not entirely unlike cucumber in taste. The texture is more mucilaginous than fresh cucumber. If you scrape the small amount of juicy core from a mature flowering stem, you can get a good idea of the taste of the full stem when it is young.

Young plant /
close-up of leaf

The problem with eating fireweed is identifying the young stems without flowers. When flowering, it is easy to identify, because there are no other flowers quite like them. But before the flowers bloom, there are a lot of plants which look very similar in leaf shape and growth form, so it is not easy for a novice forager to identify it at that stage. To be confident in identifying young plants before flowering requires a lot of observations, usually over several years, so that once you confidently know the mature plant, you can identify it confidently at younger and younger stages. Fortunately, you can use the mountains to shorten this process significantly, because summer comes later at higher elevations. If you identify the plant at low elevation, so can hike or drive to a higher elevation and try to identify it at a younger stage. Or, if you suspect you have identified something at a high elevation before it flowers, you can try going to a lower elevation and see if you can find the same plant in bloom.

This still requires some experience with the plant to be able to identify the young stage confidently. It is difficult to explain how I do it in text, or even with pictures. But one characteristic I look for, is that the leaves, which are long and fairly narrow (lanceolate), have a semi-prominent vein all the way around the leaf, inset about a millimeter from the edge. You can see this in the picture above. This is fairly unusual, so it is helpful, but not necessarily a guarantee that you have the right plant. I have found that the youngest plants are sometimes purple in color, with the first leaves changing from purple to green as it matures. It is especially tender at this stage, but I still find it helpful to peel the stem. On the other hand, if the stem is hairy, you definitely have the wrong plant, perhaps something like Senecio serra, which grows in the same area, looks similar when young, and is at least mildly toxic.

progression
from buds
to flowers
to seed pods

But actually, my favorite use of fireweed is for entertaining children, and sometimes adults too. If you find the long thin seedpods when they are not quite mature enough to open on their own, you can pick them, and then gently roll them between your fingers, until you get them to pop open. They will suddenly spring open, releasing the tiny seeds, along with quite a surprising amount of fluffy silk material (considering how thin the seedpods are) which can carry them away on the wind. When I do this, I tell children I have a magic trick to show them. My kids have been entertained in this way for hours.