Epilobium angustifolium |
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 |
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 |
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