Sambucus cerulea

Sambucus cerulea

Blue Elderberries are abundant and delicious in the late summer and fall months. Even though the individual berries are small, they grow in large clusters, so it is easy to gather a lot of them. I enjoy snacking on a cluster full of berries while on a hike. They have a tart and pleasant flavor. I save a few from the cluster to throw out somewhere else, where hopefully they will grow into more elderberry bushes.

Elderberries are fairly easy to identify. The leaves are opposite and compound. Compound means that botanically, each leaf is a collection of leaflets (5-9) on a short branch. Opposite means that the leaf branches occur in pairs on opposite sides of the main stem. The leaflets are longish and tapered, with serrated edges. The center of the stalks is filled with pith. The closest thing to Sambucus cerulea (blue elderberry) in this area is Sambucus racemosa (red elderberry). The difference is obvious in the fall when the berries are ripe, but you can tell them apart earlier because blue elderberries grow in flat-topped clusters, while red elderberry clusters are more rounded. Another look-alike is Dogwood, which has similar opposite compound leaves, but the stem-bark is red, and dogwood flowers have 4 petals, while elderberry flowers have 5 petals.

Besides nibbling them on the trail, I like to collect bunches of them in the fall and make elderberry syrup. Once you train your eyes to see them, you can spot the bushes from a distance, and wander from bush to bush, breaking off large clusters of the ripe berries from each one. Later at home, the berries need to be removed from the stems, and one way to make this easier is to freeze the berries first, so that they can be easily stripped of the stems without worrying about crushing them too soon and losing the juices. I have used either a mechanical juicer or boiled and strained them to extract the juice. Using the juicer makes a thicker end product with more solids in the juice. I then combine the elderberry juice with about an equal amount of sugar or honey, boil it, and preserve in jars. This syrup is delicious on pancakes and is also a good medicine for colds and flu. The syrup tastes even better when combined with 1 part hawthorn berry for 4 parts elderberries.

One of my other favorite uses for elderberry is to use the old dried stalks as hiking poles. They are light-weight because of the center pith and smooth on the outside, so they are easy to hold. While they are not as strong as heavier woods and will break eventually, they are adequate for hours of hiking and the lightness is appreciated for that.

Red Elderberries are also edible, but have higher amounts of "cyanide producing glycosides" in the seeds, so they need more careful processing. I have not personally used them yet, but here is a good first-person account. The bark and leaves of all elderberries are considered toxic; only the berries and flowers are considered edible. Also, note that until recently, blue elderberry was considered a subspecies of black elderberry (Sambucus nigra ssp. cerulea), so the scientific literature for Sambucus nigra applies to blue elderberry as well.

Nasturtium officinale

Nasturium offincinale

(notice the seed pods)

Watercress is a traditional food in Britain, where the herb was originally found in the wild, but became so popular that they have to cultivate it now to keep up with the demand. It is a member of the mustard family, and can be quite spicy on its own, but goes well with other food.

To find watercress, you must find clean, slow-moving water. Often that means a natural spring, but it can also be found growing in small rivulets. The biggest clue from a distance will be the white flowers with four petals. Upon closer examination you should find the alternate compound leaves. (Compound leaves look like a branch of smaller leaflets, but botanists consider it a single leaf.) Finally, find the sea pods, which should be growing underneath the flowers, unless it is very early in the spring. Technically, seed pods in the mustard are called "siliques". But the important thing is that they are about a centimeter long and slightly curved. You've found your watercress. Remember to make sure your water is clean. Usually that means no farm animals grazing upstream.

When I eat watercress plain, I can only enjoy a single stem's worth before it gets rather too burny-hot. However it combines very well with other food and in salads. I tried it the British way, on a sandwich with butter and hard-boiled egg, and I was piling more and more watercress on, because it tastes very good, and the egg and bread remove most of the hot spiciness.

Watercress has a lot of vitamins and some trace minerals. Compared to the same amount of spinach it has about twice as much vitamin C, a quarter the amount of vitamin A, and about half as much vitamin K. It has similar amounts of calcium, about half as much potassium, and about a quarter the magnesium and manganese as spinach.

Note that the ivory-tower botanists are still bickering over what to call watercress in Latin. Many call it Rorippa nasturtium-aquaticum instead of Nasturtium officinale. It has no relation to the garden flowers called nasturiums. Recent DNA studies are placing it closer to the Cardamine genus than the Rorippa genus, to which I say, "duh!"

I also noticed that there is something called "fool's watercress". This is a member of the carrot family. The flowers have five petals (not four, like watercress), and like all the carrot family, the flowers grow in umbels (all the flower stems come from a single point). In the mustard, including with watercress, the flowers grow in racemes, where each flower branches off individually from a central stalk. Fool's watercress is also edible, but some other members of the carrot family are poisonous.

Rubus parviflorus

Rubus parviflorus

Thimbleberries are one our favorite treats in the mountains. My daughter is especially fond of hiking when they are in season, usually ripening in August and September. They are closely related to raspberries, and taste somewhat tart, like a velvety raspberry.

They are easy to identify. When ripe, the resemble a raspberry, but the individual juicy segments of the fruit are smaller, and there are more of them, in a thimble shape, wider and shallower than raspberries. The leaves are quite large, around 8 inches wide, and the stems are unarmed, lacking the prickles that raspberry bushes have. In the spring, there will be large white flowers, from which the berries will form. The berries are white when unripe, bright red when ripe, and dty out as the age.

The berries are quite soft and fragile, but they come off of the receptacle easily. They are best eaten right off the plant, either by gingerly pulling the berry off with your fingers (and inevitably getting red-stained hands), or biting/sucking it off directly into your mouth.

I have never tried collecting the berries for jam or any other purpose, because they are so fragile and would not travel well. One would have to pick them directly into a clean mason jar, and plan to make jam, or perhaps a real velvet cake, very soon after picking.

Oxyria digyna

Oxyria digyna

OK, this is probably not a plant you will be eating very often. Mountain Sorrel (Oxyria digyna) grows in high alpine habitats (about 9000 feet and upwards), so unless you are stranded on top of a rather high mountain with no way down (down is easy; there's always a way down), there won't be much demand for it.

But I was fortunate to find an area with a good amount of healthy, tender Mountain Sorrel thriving, so it was a good time to give it a try.

The leaves when raw have a fresh, lemony taste, very much like members of the Rumex genus, but with no bitterness at all. Even so, I personally find the lemon flavor rather strong, but it might work well mixed with other greens. If you like raw Curly Dock, you will probably like this even more.

I tried boiling the leaves for about 3 minutes, because I had excellent results with cooked Curly Dock leaves. Cooking had mixed results. The bad news is that the bright green leaves turn a darker grayish-green as soon as they hit the hot water. The good news is that, just like Curly Dock, the cooking tones down the lemon flavor, and as long as you don't mind the color and limpness of the leaves, the taste is rather good. I would eat much more if the color were better... and it was more common... and it grew a few thousand feet lower...

close view of leaves and seeds

To identify this plant, first be in a very high, alpine environment. As I said, you are only likely to find this at 9000 feet and upwards. It appreciates wet places, but with all the precipitation being squeezed out of the clouds as the air moves over the mountain, it is not restricted to such places, and is often found in rocky outcroppings as well. The leaves are all basal and are about three quarters or more of a circle. The seeds are very distinctive. Unlike their cousins, the docks (Rumex species, which have three wings on seeds), these seeds have two wings so they can lay flat. They also develop a bright red color on the outside fringe of the wing.

Rudbeckia occidentalis

Rudbeckia occidentalis
(with pollinator)

Western coneflower is the most common coneflower in the mountains where I live. Unlike most other coneflowers, it lacks the showy ray-flowers that other species have at the base of the cone, such as black-eyed susans or cut-leaf coneflower. This can make it hard to identify using a botanical key, because they don't put the Rudbeckia genus in the division of Compositae which has disk flowers only. On the other hand, once you recognize it as a coneflower, there isn't any other species it could be.

I enjoy eating these young coneflowers occasionally. One should eat the very young cones, about and inch or less tall. The larger flowers become pithy and tough inside. The young flowers are tender enough to eat, and have a vaguely minty flavor.

The leaves are very bitter; not recommended. They might be better in the spring, if one can learn to identify them when they are young.

A related species (Rudbeckia laciniata) is known as "Sochan" to the Cherokee Indians. They used the early spring leaves and shoots. There are reports of them being good tasting but they do not grow this far west.

Michael Moore [Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West, p. 93] describes good results with using Rudbeckia laciniata similar to how one uses Echinacea for colds and flus. His comments are intriguing. "Unlike Echinacea, lance-leafed Coneflower stimulates secretions, respiration, and the skin and kidneys, thereby helping to excrete the very waste products its immunostimulus help create." A closely related species like Rudbeckia occidentalis is likely to have similar effects. Moore uses the roots and sometimes the leaves for medicinal purposes.

Thistle roots

Everyone in Utah knows that the early Mormon pioneers learned to dig Sego Lily bulbs from the Indians, in order to survive during the first years in Utah. It seems that few people have actually looked up those references, because most of them say the Indians taught them about Thistle roots at the same time they taught them about Sego Lily bulbs. Even though Thistle roots are much more common, and very much easier to dig up, Sego Lily has become the state flower, while Thistles are an undesirable weed. I wonder which the pioneers really ate more of?

Most common thistles are members of either the Circium genus or the Carduum genus, but there is a whole tribe, called Cynareae, which contains the extended thistle family, including star thistles, sow thistles, and other thistle-like plants. Thistles tend to be biennial, growing a low rosette of leaves the first year in order to store up energy in the root and then using that energy during the second year to send up a large flowing seed stalk. This all means you want to dig the root when the plant is in the rosette stage, and the biggest roots will be found either in the fall or in the early spring. After the seed stalk starts forming, the root is likely to be woody and inedible. (If you have ever let carrots overwinter in your garden and tried eating them the second year after the seed stalk forms, you will know what I mean.) Since plant taxonomy relies mainly on the flower to distinguish between species, this also means you might not be able to identify the exact species you are digging up. And this is not of much concern, since most common thistles are culinarily interchangeable, along with several genuses of similarly thistle-y plants, such as Cnicus (blessed thistle), Silybum (milk thistle), and Onopordum (scotch thistle). Most of the other genuses in the tribe look less like the classic thistle or do not grow in this area.

Thistle rosettes are easy to find and not very difficult to dig up, especially if you are wearing gloves. If you are not wearing gloves, just dig up the rosette as much as you can, grab it by the root, and cut off the leaves.

I experimented first with the roots of thistle, since it was spring and while the rosettes are common, the tall stalks are not. While digging them up, I often only got the top part of the root, leaving the long thin lower portion of the taproot still in the ground. I found out this was actually a good thing because those thinner parts of the root are too tough to eat, even after cooking. Raw, the roots were very tough, but could be eaten if cut into thin enough pieces. The taste was fairly bland, not bitter at all, but the toughness made me want to cook it.

After cooking for about 20 minutes, the roots had softened up and were edible. The large roots softened the most, and could be eaten like a carrot by biting off pieces. Middle sized roots were still rather fibrous, but could be eaten easily enough after chopping into pieces. Small roots were still too tough and woody to eat at all. The flavor was good enough although not exceptional. Perhaps somewhere between the taste of spinach and cauliflower, with no bitterness and even tending toward the sweet side. I noticed that the crown of the root, where the leaves join together, is especially tender and tastes better too.

Another way to enjoy thistles, is to eat the central vein of the leaf. The leaf must be picked from the plant, and the sides of the leaf with all the spines stripped off. This is fairly easy to do with gloves or with a knife, and less easy but possible with bare hands. The taste is a lot like celery, with a little bit of bitterness, but it still makes a good snack while on the trail. The smooth-skinned thistles are much better for this than the ones with a lot of hairs.

Wild Onions

Allium biceptrum

Allium acuminatum

Normally I would title my article with the latin name of the plant(s) I am talking about, so that there is no confusion about what species is being covered. But in the case of Allium, the common name is actually less confusing than the latin name. The Allium genus includes onions, garlic, shallots, chives, and leeks. But I want to talk about just the species of Allium which we call "onions", so the common name is the easiest way to be specific about that.

We have several species of wild onions in my area, including Allium acuminatum or Tapertip Onion (whose flowers are a bright purple color, fading to white with age), and Allium bisceptrum or Aspen Onion (whose flowers are pale pink). I have also tried Allium cernuum or Nodding Onion. All the wild onions are similar in taste, and the intensity of the onion flavor can vary from plant to plant within the species. It can also vary by location, because the amount of sulfur in the soil affects the flavor strongly.

Many people worry about confusing wild onions with other similar-looking plants, but I have not found it very easy to be confused, unless you are looking at young specimens before they flower, which is always difficult. The onion smell and taste are always a reliable indicator. Even if you don't want to smell or taste them to be sure, it is not that difficult. The species that are cited the most as worrisome confusors are Camas (Camassia species) and Death Camas (Zigadenus species). But both of these genuses grow their flower clusters in racemes, where the flowers branch one by one from a central stalk, instead of in an umbel, where all the flowers branch from a single point. Allium flowers come in many colors, but always cluster together in an umbel. In addition the young cluster is completely covered by a papery sheath, making the entire cluster look like a single bud. And the cluster grows on top of a "naked scape", or stem without leaves. The long and usually flat leaves rise from the same spot as the scape, from a shallow bulb.

The only thing easily confused with wild onions is Wild Hyacinth, which has bright blue flowers in an umbel, but the flowers are larger and more urn-shaped, with the bottom half of the petals united. Wild Hyacinth is also edible, but does not smell of onions.

The bulbs of wild onions are small (about 1/2 inch), which is normal for wild edibles. But the entire plant is flavorful, and it should all be used, except maybe the rootlets below the bulb. The flower stalk and leaves can be used like scallions or green onions. I have found that the flowers or unopened flower cluster is often the part with the strongest flavor. The mature flowers are also good to eat, and make an attractive and very tasty addition to any salad.

I use a lot of onions in my day-to-day cooking, so it is good you know I can find the same flavor I love in the wild as well. Onions can grow lots of places, but I find them most often in moister areas (or at least, less dry areas), and usually shaded by taller trees. They can be some of the earliest plants to grow in the spring, and are available throughout the summer.