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.