Arctostaphylos uva-ursi

Bearberry

Arctostaphylos uva-ursi is best known as a medicinal herb, especially good for urinary tract infections. But it also has edible berries, called Bearberry in English. The botanical name comes from the word for Bearberry in Greek (Arctostaphylos) and Latin (uva ursi). It is also known as Kinnikinnick in some American Indian languages.

The plant is a very low growing shrub, often hugging rocks, and only getting about 6 inches tall. The leaves are fairly tough (like manzanita, a closely related plant), 1-2 inches long, and obovate in shape, which means they are pointed at the stem end, and round at the far end. In the fall, the small bright red berries will be ripe. In my region, these plants are only found at high altitudes, but farther north they are more common and can be found in Canada and Alaska. The berries are ripe in the fall when other better-tasting berries are well past their season and no longer available.

When raw, the berries are somewhat dry, have a mealy texture, and not much flavor. The become sweeter when cooked, either boiled in water or cooked with grease. The water-boiled ones are somewhat sweet, and juicier from the water, but still have a mealy texture. The ones I fried in grease were similarly sweetish, and had less of the mealy texture, but the flesh inside had shrunk during the cooking. The best flavor seems to come from cooking in oil and pounding or grinding into a coarse powder. The pounding helps break up the seeds. They are still not good tasting enough that I would want to eat it very often.

Many tribes of the American Indians ate the berries for food in various ways. Moerman's "Native American Ethnobotany" has an unusually detailed recipe:

Fruit cooked in grease, pounded, mixed with raw fish eggs, and eaten. Approximate proportions of the ingredients were 1 tablespoon grease, 1½ cups fruit, and 2 tablespoons whitefish [or salmon] eggs separated from the adhering membrane. A little sugar was added for flavor. After the fruits were lightly cooked in grease, they were pounded until they were crumbly. They were then placed in a heavy cloth folded to make a sack and pounded with the back of an ax head. The fish eggs moistened the pounded fruit.

I tried preparing the fruit according to this recipe, except that I used a coffee grinder to grind the fruit to a powder, cooked it in a small amount of grease, then used tomato guts instead of fish eggs to moisten it. I didn't have fish eggs, but I thought the insides of a tomato would have a similar texture. When prepared this way, the flavor is fairly good. It has a good sweetness from both the bearberry and the tomato, though it is hard to find a flavor to compare it to. It has the texture of coarse gruel along with a few hard bits of seed that the grinder wasn't able to pulverize completely. This method of preparation is much more palatable than my previous attempts. 

Vaccinium caespitosum

Vaccinium caespitosum

I have known there is a dwarf species of bilberry or huckleberry that grew in my region, but I never thought I would find enough of it to make it worth eating or seeking out. That has now changed. 

I was down on hands and knees picking Alpine Wintergreen (Gaultheria humifusa), a berry everyone likes a lot, when I noticed some bilberry shaped berries growing at the edges of my wintergreen patch. They were on tiny plants only 2-3 inches tall, so I realized I had found the dwarf species of bilberry, Vaccinium caespitosum, commonly known as Dwarf Bilberry. And there were several ripe berries on each little plant, so it probably produces more fruit than normal bilberries, in terms of fruit per area, although I doubt that the plant is nearly as common as the normal bilberry. It certainly is not as noticeable, because it is so small, and the berries are mostly hidden under the leaves. 

Dwarf Bilberries are worth seeking out, because the berries have a very excellent flavor. They are somewhat like the typical bilberry or huckleberry, but they also have a fresh fruity taste which is distinctly noticeable. Definitely a winner in terms of flavor.

Look for Dwarf Bilberries if you are at high elevations or north in the Rockies. They can be found growing in meadows which are not too wet or too dry, along with other plants of similar stature. If the other plants are larger, they easily get over-shaded and out-competed. It doesn't like soil as thin as alpine wintergreen thrives in, but can grow in only slightly better soil, as shown when I found it growing next to alpine wintergreen.

Saxifraga odontoloma

Saxifrage flower

Brook saxifrage is one of the most common plants found on the banks of swiftly flowing mountain brooks, and seems to need that specific environment. You might occasionally find it in boggy areas if there is a stream nearby, but never in dry areas. It is easily recognizable from the leaves which have large even teeth, like fancy edges cut into paper. The flowering stems are leafless, and have many branches with small white flowers which are very pretty to look at. The flowers have five petals, ten stamens with wide (petaloid) filaments, and a 2-parted style. The latin name, Saxifraga odontoloma, has been changed due to genetic research. Newer references will call it Micranthes odontoloma instead.

Saxifrage leaves

The leaves are edible, but even though they don't taste bad, they don't taste good either. They seem mostly tasteless to me. And the texture is rather tough, especially in older, larger leaves. They are thicker than an average leaf, so there may be more food bulk in them at least. After cooking, even for 15 minutes, they taste nearly the same as they do raw, and they are very nearly still as tough as they are raw.

So, there isn't much here to excite me to eat these often. At best, I think they could be added to a recipe to give it more food bulk, and make it more filling.

Atriplex heterosperma

Atriplex heterosperma

This post is about Orach in general (also spelled orache), although I am talking about one species in particular. Orach is a common name applied to many species in the genus Atriplex, although mainly to the more herbaceous, spinach-like species. The woody ones are more often called "saltbush", which is relevant because the plants in the Atriplex genus, including orach types, can thrive in salty environments, and often have a more-or-less salty taste to them. Orach will most often refer to Atriplex hortensis or Atriplex patula, but the species I found in my area is Atriplex heterosperma. Ultra-modern botanists will call it Atriplex micrantha, but I like the older species name because it refers to a distinguishing characteristic of the species, namely that it has two different types of seeds.

But in the broader sense, Orach refers to quite a lot of different species, and they all taste more-or-less the same, and are used the same. Even many species in the sister genus Chenopodium, such as Chenopodium album (Lamb's quarters), are used the same and taste similar. Chenopodium is separated from Atriplex by botanists, because the flowers have a different morphology. As a botanist, I want to know the exact species of what I eat, so what I did was to identify the mature plant in late summer, and then come back in the spring to pick the tender new plants. None of the oraches are toxic, so you are usually safe if you don't know the exact species, once you are familiar with this type of plant. And besides that, modern botanists have nit-picked the genus into so many species, in spite of knowing how easily they crossbreed, that they are often not able to be sure of the species either.

My particular orach, Atriplex heterosperma, is found in the spring growing in great abundance underneath the old dried stalks of last year's plants. The leaves, like all orach, are generally triangular in shape, with a few teeth that are small at the tip and larger at the base. The lower tooth might even be considered a lobe. They have a sparsely powdery coating on the leaf, which might be from exuding salty compounds that the plant does not need. The leaves are usually opposite.

The taste of Atriplex heterosperma is very good. I don't detect any bitterness at all. It is hard to tell the difference in a side-to-side taste test with Chenopodium album, but I think the Atriplex heterosperma is slightly better tasting, in that it is more mild, without any hint of bitterness. (At least in the early growths I was testing.) Just like other Oraches, it provides its own saltiness, and it is very good cooked. Even though it is tender enough to eat raw, it fries or boils without getting squishy. Frying in oil gives it an excellent flavor, and this is may favorite way to eat it, because it stands up to the cooking very well without becoming limp or squishy. We use Orach or Lamb's Quarters in many dishes, such as omelets, or soups, or fried with other vegetables. It works well in quiche or pasta dishes, or basically anywhere you might use spinach.

Lamium purpureum

Lamium purpureum

Purple Dead Nettle may be bit scary for the name of an edible plant, but this is one plant that I am liking a lot, if I cook it right. The right way to cook it is to boil it. If you eat it raw or cook it other ways, it seems fairly average in flavor.

closer view of flowers

But first, to identify it, look for a mint (square stems, opposite leaves) with purplish flowers, which are two-lipped, with spots on the lower lip. In Lamium purpureum (Purple Dead Nettle) the leaves have petioles (stems) and are clustered at the top of the stem. The uppermost leaves are usually tinged with purple color as well. On the other hand, if the leaves clasp the stem (sessile, no leaf-stems) and are more widely spaced along the stem, you have found Lamium amplexifolium (Henbit Dead Nettle). If the leaves have white spots or patches, you have found Lamium maculatum (Spotted Dead Nettle). There are also Dead Nettle species with white or yellow flowers. By most accounts, Purple is the best tasting kind of Dead Nettle.

One nice thing about these flowers, is that the sepals (green bracts at the base of the flower) are soft and edible as well. (Horehound and Motherwort are examples of mints with stiff and sharp sepals.) This means you can break off the entire top leafy part of the plant and eat or cook it whole (leaves, stem, flowers, and sepals), resulting is a larger vegetable that doesn't get lost in a stew the way individual leaves might. 

You can eat this whole top raw. It is soft instead of crisp, so not especially good as a salad green. It is a bit hairy, so the texture is not the best. But it is mild for a mint, with no strong or unpleasant aftertaste. Some describe it as earthy, which is not unfair. So expect a mildly minty, earthy flavor from it. Not bad, but also not something I would seek out for the fine flavor.

I tried cooking it in several ways. Frying in butter did not improve the flavor much. The texture is better that way, since it comes out slightly crisp instead of soft-hairy. It was pretty good cooked with egg. The flavor does not stand out, but it is a good addition to an omelet, and well worth eating this way.

The best way to cook it is to boil or steam it for about 3 minutes. I notice that the steam coming from the cook pot has an odd or funky smell at first. This may indicate that there is a volatile oil being boiled off, which can explain the change in flavor. After about three minutes, the steam seems to smell sweeter, so this is probably a good indicator of when it is done cooking. The flavor is much improved, in my opinion, and much less earthy. The boiled flavor can almost be described as sweet. The boiled version is the flavor that I want to eat more of. 

The earthy flavor seems to be left behind in the water. It is not bitter or unpleasant, so it can be drunk as a tea. It would not be a bad additional flavor to a soup or stew, so while I haven't tried it that way yet, I would not pre-boil and discard the water. I would just add them directly to the soup and wait for the volatile oils to boil off.

Mertensia brevistyla

Mertensia brevistyla

Bluebells (Mertensia species) are a very common plant, and they are edible. I'm usually not very impressed with their flavor, but accounts of successfully enjoying them say the young shoots and tips should be used for best results. Since most bluebells are shrub-sized, although not woody, it is long past the shoot stage when the flowers come out and makes them simple to identify.

However the species of bluebells pictured here neatly sidesteps that problem. Short-styled Bluebells or Mertensia brevistyla is endemic to (only occurs in) Utah and Colorado, and is a spring ephemeral, which means it is a small plant which grows early in the spring before most other plants get started, but only for a short time, and then dies off as everything else outgrows it. This means that the entire plant is nothing other than a young shoot, six inches high or less, and the flowers grow immediately to give away its identity. The appearance is a bit different than you might expect if you are familiar with the more common bluebells species, since they are quite small, and the flowers are shorter and do not hang down. They are a bit of an outlier in the genus, but still definitely a bluebell. Just like other bluebells, the flowers start out pink when young, and have the same blue color when mature. But because they more open (instead of cylindrical) than other bluebells, you can see the light-colored center of the flower, which is common in the Boraginaceae (Borage) family.

They are fairly abundant in their limited area and time of growth, but remember to practice good foraging etiquette and only take a few of the ones you find. You will get enough if you walk and bushwhack around the area. You can just break off the upper portion, which will leave the root and give it a good chance to grow again next year.

Like other bluebells, the raw leaves have a distinctive flavor, which some people describe as "fishy". This may not be entirely accurate, but it is probably as close a description as you can get with actually tasting it yourself. It is not a particularly strong or unpleasant taste, though, and these leaves are never bitter, like the older leaves on larger plants can get. Cooking removes that flavor from the leaves, and softens any fibers in the stems. So the cooked leaves together with the stems is a mild and very nice tasting green. I boiled them for three minutes, which is my standard time for most greens, but they may not need even that long. The flowers do not survive the cooking process. They looked like they turned clear in the simmering water, and washed away through the sieve when draining the water off. Some of my plants still had flowers in bud stage, and those cooked up fine, just like the leaves and stem. The raw flowers could be used as a pretty addition to a salad or as a garnish.

All of the Mertensia species are edible, with varying degrees of good taste. This is one of the better tasting species, especially when cooked. However, not everything called "Bluebells" is edible. The Hyacinthoides genus in the Lily family is also known by the common name Bluebells, but they are definitely not edible. They hang down like most bluebells, and some of the species are blue, but they have six petals instead of five, and they are never found in Utah unless cultivated. The Wahlenbergia genus grows mostly in Australia and is known as Bluebells there. There is one species which grows in North America, mainly in the southeast, but it is called Rockbell there. Campanula species are sometimes called Bluebells, but more properly called Harebells or Bellflowers. Harebells are edible. This is case where you have to fear the synonyms instead of the look-alikes.

Lomatium triternatum

Lomatium triternatum

Lomatium triternatum is a species of Biscuit Root, also known by common names such as Ternate Desert-parsley, Nineleaf Biscuitroot, Nine-Leaf Lomatium, or some variation on those names. In my locality, Cymopterus longipes is more common, so read that blog article for more information. Lomatium and Cymopterus are very closely related genera, so much so that it is difficult to know which genus some species should be placed in. But that's probably not a concern for you. 

Lomatium triternatum looks quite different from Cymopterus longipes. It has yellow compound umbels of flowers, which is characteristic of the Carrot family (Umbelliferae). And it has long slender leaves whose stalks are divided into threes (ternate), and each stalk divides a second time into three, resulting in nine leaflets, on average. Botanists call this branching pattern biternate. A triternate branching pattern would repeat the ternate branching once more, resulting in 27 leaflets, so the species name might be a bit of a misnomer, although it does invoke the thought that three times three equals nine leaflets. It grows very early in the spring, and few plants in the carrot family have such thin leaves. Orogenia linarifolia has narrow leaflets, but it is much smaller. Perideridia gairdneri has similar leaves, but they are usually withered when you find them, and the flowers are white. Lomatium graveolens also occurs in the area, but is has much, much more than nine leaflets.

The root is the important edible part of this plant, and it is very similar to Cymopterus longipes, being a long taproot, usually about a half inch in diameter, and as deep as you care to dig. The raw root has a hint of carrot flavor to it, but that goes away after drying. The raw roots are rather fibrous, so grinding the dried root into a powder fixes that problem.

The leaves have a rather resiny flavor to them, so I don't like to eat them, although some taste testers have suggested they could be used in place of rosemary.

Digging the roots can be a laborious process, especially in the rocky ground which the Rocky Mountains are named after. Rather than trying to dig down to the bottom of the root, I prefer to dig a few inches, in order to make sure I have the root and not the bottom of the stem, and to be sure where the root is and which way it is going. Then I push my hori hori down on all sides and wiggle it around a bit to loosen the soil and hopefully break the little side roots which would hold it in the ground. After that I can grab the top of the root and pull. I usually get about six inches of root this way (which coincidentally is the length of my hori hori) for only a couple minutes of digging. Any root which is deeper is left to regrow another plant.

Some root can be rather thin. These are younger plants, and the amount of root is probably not worth the digging effort. To find larger roots, look for larger top parts of the plant, of course. Larger roots will often put up more than one stem, so two or more stems growing very close together is a good sign to look for.

As I say in my other biscuit root article, the processing of the root takes several steps. 1) Peel or scrape off the dark outer layer. 2) Dry the root. 3) Grind or pound it into a powder. 4) Form it into "biscuits" of various size and thickness. 5) Bake or dry the biscuits.

Removing the dark outer layer is important because it prevents the root from drying out, which is an important thing for a desert plant. The inside is white and dries easily, either in a food dryer, or merely sitting in the open air. It will be brittle when fully dry, which helps with the powdering process. Traditionally a metate (hand grinding stone) was used, but a modern blender is much faster.

The biscuit root flour is pretty bland tasting. So when making biscuits, add salt and some sort of fat to it for flavor. The fat will also help hold it together. It has no gluten, so without the fat the biscuits are very crumbly. Try a ratio of 1 part fat to 8 parts flour, and adjust to taste. Add enough water to make a thick dough. Them form into biscuits and bake or fry them.

The taste of the biscuits is good, like a dry whole wheat biscuit. They are good to eat plain, as a side to a meal, or with some sort of jam. (Choke-cherry, Serviceberry, and Oregon Grape are good local sources for fruit to make jam from.)

Many Lomatiums were used as Biscuit Root, but not all. For example Lomatium dissectum is a well-known medicinal plant, whose root is much too resinous to be used for food.

Cymopterus longipes

Cymopterus longipes

There are a large number of species known as biscuit roots, all from the carrot family (Umbelliferae), and mostly from the Lomatium or Cymopterus genera. Many of them were used as food by native Americans in similar ways, and they were probably less picky about distinguishing them into as many species as modern botanists want to do, because they have "resisted all attempts at morphologic systematic approaches that make sense," or in more colloquial language, they are very difficult to distinguish by appearance. 

The most common species in my area is Cymopterus longipes, which is one of the earliest plants to grow in the spring. It can be recognized by the clusters of yellow flowers rising from a rosette of bluish-green parsley-like leaves. A more specific characteristic to look for is a pseudoscape. This is a sort of stem between the top of the root and the leaf rosette. This allows the top of the root to be lower in the ground, but later in the season, it may elongate and lift the leaves off the ground. It prefers dry fields with full sun.

The root is a vertical tap root which can go quite deep, so I usually just get as much root as my spade will go deep, assuming the ground is not too rocky to dig at all. This species tends to have roots which can be up to a half inch in diameter, and as long as you can dig. They have a thin dark outer layer, and the inside is white. Some of the better-known Lomatium species of biscuit roots can form larger tuberous roots, but I dig what is available to me.

The traditional processing of the root takes several steps. 1) Peel or scrape off the dark outer layer. 2) Dry the root. 3) Pound it into a powder with a metate. 4) Form it into "biscuits" of various size and thickness. 5) Bake or dry the biscuits.

I found that removing the outer layer is necessary in order for the root to dry out completely, which is not too surprising for a plant so well adapted to dry desert habitats. I used a food dryer running at a low temperature overnight to dry the roots. The dried roots are light and brittle, so pounding them would turn them into a powder pretty easily, but in modern times, a blender or coffee grinder is much easier for making it into a powder. If fully dried and kept that way, they should store well, but I have not tested how long one can store the biscuits.

To make the biscuits, combine the powdered root with some salt and fat (lard or bacon grease or butter or whatever you have) for flavor. Without the salt and fat, the biscuits will be very bland and crumbly, and much less enjoyable to eat. Add water until you have a good doughy consistency. The root can probably absorb more water than you expect, because that is what these roots are made to do. Form it into a biscuit shape, and bake or fry it. There is no gluten, of course, so the result will be the sort of dry bread-like consistency we describe as a biscuit.

The taste is mild and pleasant, though it varies some depending on the species. It's not too different in taste from a dry whole wheat biscuit. It may be important to collect the roots of Cymopterus longipes in the spring, because I have tasted them later in the year and found them to be bitter.

The leaves are also edible. They have a good earthy-parsley flavor, which is probably too strong to eat much of it alone, but it can work as a pot-herb when combined with other milder plants, or better yet, as a spice to improve the flavor of soups and sauces. They get quite mushy when boiled, so they will soon disappear into the broth if stirred much. When the leaves are used, the plant is often called "spring parsley" instead of "biscuit root". And this particular species is called "longstalk spring parsley" because of the pseudoscape.

The next most common species in my locality is Lomatium triternatum. I get similar results with its roots. The flavor of the biscuit is very similar, but maybe a little lighter in flavor. There is a hint of carrot flavor in the raw root. The few narrow leaves have a strong resiny flavor, so I don't like eating those.

Lomatium dissectum is also common around here, but you should not use this species for food, at least not the root in the same way as other biscuit roots, because its roots are very resinous and balsamic. It is more of a medicinal plant.

John Mionczynski: Some Interesting Plants of the Ancient People of the Yellowstone

I found this very interesting presentation on native plants of the Yellowstone region. John Mionczynski has lived in Wyoming for many years, often living entirely on local foods. He features many of the plants which appear in this blog, and goes into some details about the edible, medicinal and other uses of our local plants. He also has some interesting information about bears.

John Mionczynski Presents: Some Interesting Plants of the Ancient People of the Yellowstone

(I found more short videos from John Mionczynski at https://nativememoryproject.org/plants/)

Plants talked about in this video:

Yampah (Perideridia gairdneri)

Biscuit Root (Lomatium and Cymopterus sp.) -- I hope to publish information on this soon. Some of the more common biscuit root species in this area are Lomatium triternatum and Cymopterus longipes.

Desert Parsley (probably Lomatium dissectum) -- antimicrobial root

Oshá (Ligusticum porteri) -- I used this a lot last winter. Everyone else around me got sick, but I didn't.

Limber pine (Pinus flexilis) and Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) -- See my article on Piñon pine (Pinus monophylla) for information on harvesting pine nuts.

Whortleberry (Vaccinium scoparium) -- leaves used to prevent blindness in aged

Huckleberry (Vaccinium membranaceum)

Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana) -- pudding is antitumor

Cattail (Typha sp.) -- Food, padding, insulation. Definitely on the to-do list.

Fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium) -- food, padding, antifungal, healing.

Evening Primrose (Oenothera caespitosa) -- food, perfume, healing.

Milkweed (Asclepias speciosa)

Elephant Tree (Adenium obesum) -- A tree found in Ethiopia; used similar to milkweed.

Bee Balm (Monarda fistulosa) -- perfume

Sedges (Carex sp.) -- food, basketry

Elk Thistle (Cirsium foliosum) -- rubbing stick for teeth, chlorophyll is antibacterial.

Bitterroot (Lewisia sp.) -- I have found it here, but not common.

Sage brush (Artemisia sp.) -- antimalarial

Pineapple weed (Matricaria discoidea) -- perfume

"Abortion Plant" (probably Lithospermum ruderale) -- contraceptive

Black tree lichen (Bryoria fremontii) -- jello

Juneberry or Serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia)

Brassica nigra

Brassica nigra
(flowers and seeds)

lots of mustard

Brassica nigra, or Black Mustard, is a common lowland weed, especially around cultivated farmland. It is fairly tall and noticeable, with lots clusters of yellow flowers at the top of it many branches. 

Unsurprisingly, it is a member of the Mustard family, with four petals and narrow seed pods about an inch long. This is typical of the mustard family. The stems are much branched, with clusters of yellow flowers at the top of each branch. The clusters are somewhat small, because it proceeds from bud to flower to seed in a short time, but it keeps growing new buds at the end of the stem, so there can be a lot of seed pods below the flowers. It can be distinguished from other mustards by how the mature seed pods grow pressed up against the stem ("appressed" in botany terms). The leaves are pointed and variously lobed, being quite large and compound at the bottom, and small at the top near the flowers and seed pods. The taste is also very distinctive. The whole plant has the flavor of mustard, and when raw, it is very pungent and spicy-hot.

The mustard flavor is the main reason for eating this plant. The leaves, flowers, buds, and the youngest stems can all be used to add some of that flavor to your food. The pungency is moderated by combining it with other foods or by cooking. It is not a green I would eat as a main course, but it is good when added as a flavoring to other foods.

But this plant is more important as a spice than as a food, and the seeds are the source of spicy-hot mustard. Other species, such as Brassica alba, are also used to make mustard, but they are less spicy-hot than Brassica nigra. 

Collecting the processing the seeds is a longer enterprise. First, you need to collect the branches full of seed pods. It is helpful to let them dry completely before trying to separate the seeds, by leaving them in a dry place for a week or more. Or even much more, if you want to save them for winter when you have less fresh plants to work with. They need to be threshed and winnowed similar to grains, but there are some differences because the seeds are so small. Threshing is fairly easy and similar to wheat. Just put the stems or seed pods in a cloth bag, and beat them with a thick stick for a few minutes. Winnowing is a bit more difficult than wheat because the seeds are small and nearly as light as the chaff. It is helpful to sift them through a screen to separate the seeds from the larger chaff. Then pour the seeds and chaff from one bucket to another in front of a fan to blow away the lighter chaff. Using a fan is better than natural wind, because it is more consistent, and you can move closer or farther from the fan to get the right amount of wind to blow the chaff without blowing away the seeds. Large, deep buckets are helpful, because the seeds have a tendency to bounce. Repeated sifting and winnowing will eventually leave you with clean mustard seeds.

Once you have your seeds, you can make mustard. The general recipe is 1 part mustard seeds to 2 parts water or other liquid. (And add a bit of turmeric if you want the mustard to actually be yellow.) The seeds need to be ground, and this can be done while dry or after soaking the seeds in water. If you are doing a small amount, grinding dry works better, because the wet seeds will stick to the sides of your spice grinder instead of falling into the blades. You could also use a mortal and pestle, but that will be a lot more work either way. Once the seeds are both ground and mixed with water, the chemicals in the mustard seeds start reacting, producing the spicy-hot pungency which is very intense in fresh mustard. It should be left out for a while until it mellows out a bit. The spiciness is also antibacterial, so you don't have to worry about it going bad. It is also common practice to extend the amount of mustard with some filler, such as flour or other meal. I have used wheat flower, almond flour, and other things. It does not affect the taste much and gives you more mustard in the end.

Mahonia repens

Oregon Grape with berries

Oregon Grape (flowers)

There are several species of Oregon Grape. The most common in my area is Mahonia repens, which is a low, creeping species, usually found in our mountain forests, often under pine trees and on steep shady slopes, but also everywhere as a ground cover. Mahonia aquifolia is taller and more woody, and more commonly cultivated, and has volunteered in my yard. Mahonia fremontii is a species found in the desert, with even more prickly leaves. They are all used the same and taste similar.

It is recognized from the very tough, evergreen leaves, which have prickles along the edges. The flowers in the spring are yellow and the berries in the fall look blue, although they are actually purple with a light bloom on the surface. Many people mistake Oregon Grape for some kind of ivy or holly, because the leaves are tough and evergreen. Ivy does not have the prickles on the edges of the leaves, like Oregon Grape does. Holly has spiny leaf edges, but it has red berries instead of blue.

The berries are the edible portion of this plant. They are sour with unripe, but pleasantly tart with fully ripe. They can be enjoyed raw, although they have a few hard seeds which can either be spit out or swallowed. The best use for them is to make them into a jam or jelly. The added sugar offsets the tartness and results in a very good tasting jam. The taste is most similar to grape jelly, but with a unique flavor of its own. I use the normal recipe from a pectin package, following wthichever fruit variant uses the least sugar.

The roots are bright orangish-yellow on the inside, which you can see if you scrape off the outer root bark. This is the color of berberine, which is an antimicrobial alkaloid. Because of this, Oregon grape has many medicinal uses. The berberine is poorly absorbed in the body, so its main uses are a topical antimicrobial externally, and for gut infections internally.

On a taxonomic note, the genera Mahonia and Berberis used to be separated based on whether the leaves were compound or simple, but botanists have more recently decided that this distinction is unimportant because (among other things) hybridization occurs between the genera. The hand-wringing among the experts is ongoing, but the two genera should be considered synonyms, and all the species will probably end up being placed in the Berberis genus.

Streptopus amplexifolius

Streptopus amplexifolius

Streptopus amplexifolius is quite a mouthful, but it is a fairly close translation into Greek of the common name for this plant, which is known as Twisted-Stalk, or sometimes clasp-leaved twisted-stalk. The genus name comes from the Greek "streptos" meaning twisted, and "pous" meaning foot. It refers the the 90 degree angle in the stalk of the flower or fruit of this plant. "Amplexus" means clasped, and "folius" means leaf, so "amplexifolius" literally means clasp-leaf. It may be that the scientific name encourages the less used common name in this case. But that's enough etymology.

Note the 90⁰ angle in the
stalks of the flower/fruit

Twisted-stalk is a member of the Lily family, and it has a superficial resemblance to False Solomons Seal (Smilacina racemosa) because the leaves come off the stem on opposite sides as the stem bends slightly from side to side. Twisted-stalk leaves are are closer to being on a single plane than False Solomons Seal, but the main distinguishing feature is that False Solomons Seal flowers and fruit are in a cluster at the end of the stalk, while Twisted-stalk flowers and fruit are hidden singly underneath each leaf. It has a much closer resemblance to Fairybells (Prosartes trachycarpa). Fairybells are not as tall, and the leaves are slightly more rounded, but the main difference is that when you look under the leaves, the stalks of the flower or fruit do not have the 90 degree angle found in Twisted-stalk.

I usually find Twisted-stalk growing on the banks of small mountain streams. It loves having lots of water. (Fairybells does not need so much water. I usually find them in shady pine forests.) Small waterfalls where lots of water gets splashed about is a great environment for it. And sometimes it can be found on wet slopes which are kept damp with plenty of seepage. But I seldom see it in flat swampy or stagnant areas. It loves swiftly running streams, not bogs.

The flowers hang down from that 90 degree angle, and are typical white, six-petaled lily flowers. The fruit, when ripe, is red and oval shaped. The taste of the ripe fruit is soft and slimy. I have not tested it, but the ripe fruit is reputed to be mildly laxative when eaten in large quantities. This is one of those plants where I much prefer the taste of the unripe fruit, when it is still green. The unripe fruit is sweetish, crunchy, and has soft seeds. The taste is not entirely unlike cucumber. Another very good tasting part of the plant is the stem. On the lower stem, the outside is very fibrous, but after that is pealed away, the inner part of the stem is crunchy and sweet, and tastes like cross between cucumber and celery. Early settlers sometimes called this a cucumber plant because of the taste. The upper stems are still tender enough to be eaten without being peeled. And the leaves can be eaten raw or cooked. When raw, they are a little tough, and not as sweet. The taste is like cucumber with a little bit of onion mixed in. Boiling the leaves for 3-5 minutes makes them more tender and milder in flavor. I definitely prefer the boiled leaves over the raw ones. Use the leaves on the upper stems. The larger leaves from where the stem branches and downward do not seem to tenderize much when boiled.

I enjoy eating nearly the whole plant raw (except the root), from the large lower stems after to peeling them, to the tender upper stems, leaves and fruit. Because nearly the entire above ground part of the plant can be eaten (minus the outer skin of the lower stems), this plant can provide a good amount of food, and the taste is pleasantly cucumberish either raw or cooked. This local abundance is unfortunately offset by the plant preferring to grow only under specific conditions, mainly on the banks of running streams, so it is not extremely abundant everywhere. If you are taking the whole plant, remember to harvest only small amounts, and only where you find a good healthy population. But sampling a few of the green fruit is a nice snack whenever you find it in the right condition.

Prosartes trachycarpa

Prosartes trachycarpa

Fairybells are a shade-loving member of the lily family, with large leaves growing on alternate sides of the stem in a flat plane so as to make as large of surface area as possible to catch the shady light. The flowers and fruit hang down under the leaves (like bells) where they are often hidden until you lift up the branch to find them. (I pulled the fruit up above the leaf to get the picture on the right.) It has largish three-lobed berries which are red when ripe. The latin name is either Prosartes trachycarpa or Disporum trachycarpum, depending on who you ask and when a source was published. The skin of the berries is thick and has a rough texture, which is one way it is distinguished from other species of Prosartes or Fairybells, by calling it Rough-fruited Fairybells.

The berries are edible. When ripe they are mildly sweet and filled with slightly slimy juice, but the taste is rather bland and they are full of hard seeds and the skin has a rough, almost leathery texture. They taste somewhat better when they are still green and unripe. They have a taste similar to cucumber, the berries are firmer and less slimy, and the seeds are softer and chewable, but the skin still has the rough texture. The stems are woody and the leaves are tough, so the berries are the only part worth eating.

The Blackfoot Indians have an interesting use for this plant, to clear foreign objects from an eye. [Moerman, Native American Ethnobotany, p. 202] A fresh seed is put in the eye and the eyelid closed. Then one rubs the eye until the seed comes out with the object sticking to it. I have not tried this myself, but I can understand how the slightly slimy juice would catch onto an object without irritating the eyeball, which is why it is important to use a seed fresh from the fruit.

Fairybells are a fairly close relative of Twisted-Stalk (Streptopus amplexifolius) which it resembles in many ways, and especially in the leaf structure. Twisted-Stalk is taller and likes very wet areas, being typically found next to small streams, while Fairybells are happy in any shady damp area. The flowers and fruit are a good way to distinguish them, because Twisted-Stalk has one flower or fruit growing from the axis of each leaf, the fruit is ovoid (not lobed), and the stalk of the flower or fruit has a 90 degree angle in the middle. Fairybells have the flower or fruit growing at the end of the branch in small cluster of 2 or 3. Twisted-Stalk also has much greater value as a food plant.

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.