Which wild plants do you commonly use?

Ekstasis · Aug 13, 2012

I love that book, it was required in my elementary school.

Rose hips? Has anyone mentioned them? Watch out for the prickly hair inside.

face · Feb 28, 2014

nikggernogin said:
I've used stinging nettle to slow down police dogs before. Slows em down for a clean get-away!

You just run through the patch?

kecleon · Feb 28, 2014

face said:
You just run through the patch?

unless its some kind of king nettle I doubt that works. If you've got police chase dogs anywhere near you you're probably fucked. They're fast as hell and I think they'd run through fire to get you. I used to watch them in training.

You could make nettle tea good for all kinds of things. I use rosemary and wild garlic for cooking lavender to make thing s or people smell good, relaxes you as well works on dogs too ( not police ones). Mint, again tea or cooking. Dock leaves for nettle stings.

I'd love to learn all the mushrooms but need to get a book or something to take with me

Deleted member 2626 · Feb 28, 2014

Plantain which is edible and so are the stem seeds and they supposively help stop bleeding and help heal, dandelion, sassafras, chicory, wild onion and garlic as well

Ridire · Mar 29, 2014

In Central Florida, I can usually get fresh citrus in some form or another just about anywhere. Oranges, tangerines, loquats and blackberries are common and taste fine as is, if a bit sour for the wild ones. Lots of people grow cabbage and taro, so I nick a few leaves every now and then to boil and eat. Up north, I rely more on roots, mushrooms, and barks like White Pine/Oak, orange jelly, chanterelle, and sassafras. You can nick apples from the orchards pretty easily, or just find them growing in semirural areas. Wrinkled Roses are edible too, you can eat them fresh or candy the flowers. Wild Grape grows in the swamps near Kingston, and there's all sorts of edible stuff around Swansea and Seekonk in Mass.

Rob Nothing · Mar 30, 2014

Apparently the weed Lady's Wort is supposed to act as contraceptive. But I've never tried it, personally.

Also, My Side of the Mountain was required reading in my elementary school. And it was one of the few I read all the way.

Deleted member 9462 · Sep 9, 2014

great thread! thanks for posting!

stryk3 · Feb 27, 2015

Sweet topic i'm excited to get into different ecosystems and become more familiar with the local flora.

Up in Alaska there's tons of stuff to munch on during our short summers.

Fireweed is a great plant, the shoots are edible in the spring as well as the young leaves. You can eat the flowers as well and it produces this cottony shit in the fall that makes for a great firestarter. I've heard mixed things about if the roots are edible or not, I suspect they are but maybe not choice, i'll have to try it come summertime. I love it because they're so abundant you hardly ever have to worry about over harvesting.

I really enjoy eating the Devils Club buds in the spring, very energizing and tasty, goes great with eggs. You can also use the bark/roots as powerful medicine but i haven't played around with it too much, definitely a plant to be respected. I have a pain relieving salve that I bought from an indigenous lady up here that really helps with aches/pains from hiking/working.

Spruce tips are really yummy, great source of vit C during the few weeks they're available.

Cow Parnips are edible whole when they're tiny and you can trim/peel and cook the stalk to eat when they're more mature. Gotta be careful with this one though some, it will make you extremely photosensitive and should not be handled with bare skin, I've known people who have gotten rashes that will come back the next sunny season even without another exposure.

There's also a shitton of berries out and about, great to snack on when you're on the move.

I guess you can eat the inner bark of birch/spruce and certain lichens. Haven't tried either but I might just to see how it is. I heard it's a decent survival meal if you can bag a squirrel and make a lil stew. Definitely not choice eating but good to know just in case you gotta fill your belly.

Preacher · Feb 28, 2015

It's not really wild, but many people plant the Japanese Kousa Dogwood as an ornamental tree since it doesn't grow too tall. Very few people I've run into know the fruit is very edible and very good.

LawrenceofSuburbia · Feb 28, 2015

Plantain and Dandelion heads go great with rice, and are pretty nutritious. Plantain is also an excellent swelling/itch reducing salve. I personally love Sumac, but there is one poisonous variety you need to watch out for. Pine/Cedar tea is easy and excellent (or you could just chew the buds), as is anything you can do with Cattails.

Obviously berries of all kinds (there's one hop out spot up in northern Ontario that's a little grove abundant in blueberries. Probably one of my favorite places.)

Wild Asparagus is great assuming you trust the water near where it's growing. Rhubarb, though technically a non-native invasive plant so not really "wild", can spread pretty widely from any cultivated patch and tastes great imo.

Bears Head/Lions Mane and Chaga are the only fungi I mess with for now but the former is great, tastes exactly like crab and is very easily identifiable.

stryk3 · Feb 28, 2015

I also mainly fuck with chaga because it's so easy to identify and easy to work with, it's really blown up here in Alaska, makes me sad that it's become a commodity. Not much caloric value but you get a ton of nutrition out of it and could potentially sell/trade if you have extras.

I've found wild Lions Maine in Michigan and I will vouch that it does taste like crab, I threw it in an omlette with some pesto and it was prime. Supposedly it grows up in AK but i've never seen it. This local plant ID book has a story about some guy who found 50+ pounds of it growing and a couple of logs out in the bush.

I wanna get more into mushrooms but all my plant knowledge is from books/internet and I feel like i'd really want a live mentor for mushrooms. There's a forest fire from last year that I wanna check for morels if I get the chance during the season.

Foraging culture is really weird because people are so closed off and covetous of their spots until they really trust you. Like people will be really friendly till I start to ask what's a good reigon to look for so and so mushroom/plant and they instantly are closed off. I mean I totally get the sentiment because no one wants their spot to get blown up and it's really a shame when something becomes hot and gets over harvested but it's kinda annoying because it's something i'm really into and want to learn more about. Once people get to know you and trust you they're generally far more willing to point you in the right direction. I've been hitting up these people who forage shit to bring to the farmers market for nearly 2 years and only recently have they started to really be open with me and kick down knowledge of local plant/shroom lore.

BobbinGoblin · Mar 1, 2015

stryk3 said:
Spruce tips are really yummy, great source of vit C during the few weeks they're available.

Hell yeah! My friends pack jars with spruce tips and cover with vinegar to make them useful year-round. They also freeze them. So good baked into biscuits!
Also, I love lion's mane. Yum!

LawrenceofSuburbia said:
Pine/Cedar tea is easy and excellent (or you could just chew the buds), as is anything you can do with Cattails.

Have you ever made flour from cattails? I would like to try this one of these days. What else do you do with them? I have only used them for natural dyeing.
Rhubarb leaves are also useful in natural dyeing - the oxalic acid acts as a mordant for helping colors to stick.

LawrenceofSuburbia · Mar 1, 2015

I've never even thought to jar them, that's so smart. And cookies! Wow I gotta try that.

as for cattails, I haven't had the opportunity to use their flour yet but I have eaten the young shoots, core, and roots. They are absolutely full of starch, which is great nutrition wise.

you can also use the head for tinder/torches/bedding, and the stems/leaves for weaving. they're such a useful plant.

stryk3 said:
Foraging culture is really weird because people are so closed off and covetous of their spots until they really trust you. Like people will be really friendly till I start to ask what's a good reigon to look for so and so mushroom/plant and they instantly are closed off.

I know right, people get crazily protective of things like this. I sometimes, sorta, get it, but sometimes it's way too much. People need to chill.

drode · Mar 1, 2015

LawrenceofSuburbia said:
I personally love Sumac, but there is one poisonous variety you need to watch out for.

Except poison sumac definitely doesn't bear any real resemblance to Staghorn sumac. Leaves are different, doesn't produce fur on the bark, and definitely doesn't produce the same seeds.

LawrenceofSuburbia · Mar 1, 2015

the leaves and leave distribution are close enough that any casual forager could possibly get confused (say if they were looking for just the leaves for their tobacco additive/replacement use)

you're right tho, I just always feel any sort of dangers are worth mentioning

ottawafm · Apr 5, 2015

I like to forage for plants that I recognize instantly. One that comes to mind are called "ramps", or "wild onions". They can be found in open fields and regularly mowed areas.
Another is "dandelions". You can make a coffee-like drink from them. The roots can be roasted on the campfire till dark brown-black. Then ground and added to hot water.

Jaguwar · Apr 5, 2015

Mmmmm I love wild onions, my ex husband and I used to go find them every spring. The season isn't very long, but they're SO good and can be picked, too. I've heard the Quebec government has made it illegal to get them now because they've grown scarce.

AlwaysLost · Apr 23, 2017

Rubbing yarrow over your skin keeps the bugs away and you can rub burdock or sweet gum leaves on your skin to relieve the sting of nettles or even hornets.

Pine needle tea keeps the scurvy away.

AlwaysLost · Apr 23, 2017

AlmostAlwaysLost said:
Rubbing yarrow over your skin keeps the bugs away and you can rub burdock or sweet gum leaves on your skin to relieve the sting of nettles or even hornets.

Pine needle tea keeps the scurvy away.

Pokeberry compote is delicious just make sure those berries are fully cooked or they will kill you...

Wild Garlic but make sure it smells like garlic as death Camus likes to grow among the garlic.

Mulberries have no poisonous lookalikes nor does sorrel. Nor do wild strawberries. Too much sorrel is bad though so don't overdue it.

Acorns make really good flour just need to soak them in water for a half hour to help alleviate the tannens before grinding.

If you live in the south you can chow down on kudzu just don't eat the vines.

Deleted member 2626 · Apr 25, 2017

just started eating burdock last week. I dug a root and peeled it was about the size of two thumbs. boil the shit out of it but I had no bowel issues. new go to. also discovered by chance walking back to my land from town live forver-orphine ate the leaves in a stew with dandy leaves and crowns And lentils And rice. I now have a trowel in my pack from Grammy for foraging. Damn do I now finally love it and enjoy doing so

Which wild plants do you commonly use?

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