Edible Wild Plants

"Plants are great survival food;
they don't run away from you."

Much has been written about the gradual method of trying unknown plants; first you rub some on a sensitive area of skin, then you put some in your mouth and spit it out, then you try a pea-sized morsel, etc.; gradually introducing yourself to larger quantities over a period of time. THIS METHOD IS FAULTY, DON'T USE IT. If you were to use it on a plant like poison hemlock, you would be dead. There are no two ways about it- know what you are eating BEFORE you eat it.

When you are identifying a plant, make sure you have good color photographs to go by, AS WELL AS significant identifying characteristics. You may look at a drawing of wild carrot and think the plant in your hand is what you want to eat, but the purple spots on the stem are an identifying characteristic that it is poison hemlock.

!!BE SURE ABOUT THE PLANT YOU ARE ABOUT TO CONSUME!!

A word about picking plants: Only harvest plants from areas where there is plenty of the representative species. You do not want to dig up the dozen Wild Hyacinths in a meadow if they are the only ones and leave none growing there. Make sure these precious plants survive as well, and be properly appreciative of the food you take from the wilds.

One other thing you might want to consider is that food is way down on the list of necessities when you are trying to survive in the wild. Sure, its nice to have something to munch on to keep up your energy level, but most of us carry around a layer or two of fat that will keep us going for awhile. You can go without food for 30 or more days. Jesus went over 40 days when he was in the wilderness. You can only go without WATER for 3 days, however, and if water is in short supply you are better off abstaining from food entirely. It takes water to digest food.

That said, I'll introduce you to a few wild California foods I've eaten:

Wild Hyacinth, Blue Dicks, or Brodiaea,
Dichelostemma multiflorum I had a rough time digging for these. I had a folding shovel, but the bulbs were 4 inches down in hard dirt. I got a blister and didn't think they were worth the effort until I tried them. I boiled them, but they can be eaten raw or roasted beside coals of a fire.

Ithuriel's Spear,
Triteleia laxa Here is another delicious bulb closely related to the Wild Hyacinth. This is Ithuriel's Spear, and it is more common than the Wild Hyacinth, but they are frequently found growing together. They like to be out in the full sun. The bigger the blossoms are, the bigger the bulb.

The Yellow Mariposa Lily,
Calochortus luteus
may have yellow or white blossoms. I feel like a Digger Indian. It is mid-May here in California and starting to warm towards a summer feeling. Flowers are everywhere, as are the ticks. These bulbs are edible raw or cooked, but they're not the greatest. You can eat the petals, which are tasty, but not the green sepals. Even the young green shoots can be a potherb, but all the lillies I saw had little or no shoots.

Curly Dock,
Rumex crispus. This is curly dock, and it is found widely in disturbed areas and beside roads. The small leaves coming out new have a kind of membrane on them. They cook up nicely.

Sticky Monkeyflower,
Mimulus aurantiacus This one is easy; when you find a plant in bloom eat all the golden yellow flowers. Yuck, not too tasty, but if I need the nutrition its not going to kill me. Indians also crushed the leaves and applied them to wounds.

This one was blooming in mid-May. Surprisingly, I couldn't find this one in the plant database, but that may be because its a California native.

Speaking of the plant database, you can search for a plant by common name, click on the scientific name it gives you and it will give you very good data; then go to web references at the bottom of the page and the link for Images from the Calphoto database,will give you great pictures.

Soap Plant,
Chlorogalum pomeridianum Another mainly California plant is the Soap Plant, or Amole. The basal rosette of wavy leaves of this plant is quite distinctive. In late summer, after the leaves may have all died and been broken off, the bulb can sometimes be located by the brown "hairs" sticking out of the ground. This was an important plant to California Native Americans.

The bulb of this plant has fibrous outer leaves and contains Saponin. Saponin is what gives the bulb its "soapiness" and, indeed, it lathers up quite well. The bulb can be dried and ground into soap flakes. The pounded bulbs were mixed with water by Indians and used as a hair wash in the treatment of dandruff, to prevent lice, and also to treat skin irritations including that caused by poison oak.

The fiberous leaves around the bulb can also be used for mattress stuffing. One Indian man in Round Valley, after his death, was found to have 50 pounds of this fiber in his cabin.

Saponin is mildly poisonous to humans, but very toxic to fish, and Indians have been known to mash large quantities of the bulb to kill fish in pools in streams.

The main use for this plant, however, is for food, because cooking destroys the Saponins in the bulb. I have boiled the bulbs, throwing away the water, and eaten them. The bigger bulbs were sweeter; they were not at all objectionable, and had no soapy taste. Bulbs can also be roasted by the fire with the fibrous leaves peeled off after they cool. The sap that bubbles out of the top of the roasting bulbs was used as a glue by the Indians.

The bulb of the soap plant has very fibrous outer layers.

deer love these fruits, ripe in November

roasted nuts taste something like peanuts, I gathered these in April and May
California Bay Tree, or Bay Laurel,
Umbellularia californica

This tree is another instance where what you see in a book may be a matter of someone not having direct knowledge and putting misinformation into print. I've seen the Bay Tree listed as poisonous, yet it is a very useful tree with edible fruit, nuts, and leaves.

Seed - cooked. It can be roasted and eaten or can be ground into a powder that is used with cereal flours in making bread. The bitter quality in the seed is dispensed by parching the seed- (put it close enough to the coals until it catches flame, and the volitile oil burns off, then flick it out quickly.) Fruit - raw or cooked, reportedly, the Indians would bite off the lower half of the raw ripe fruit. The leaves are used as a condiment in cooked foods. They are a bayleaf substitute but with a much stronger flavour. Used for flavouring soups, stews, sausage, etc. A coffee substitute is obtained from the root bark- I haven't tried this one yet, (but I will.)

Douglas Fir
Pseudotsuga menzeseii This tree grows in the Pacific Northwest. If you want some great tea in the spring, pick a handfull of the new, lighter green, growth on the ends of the branches of Douglas Firs. Steep in hot water and you will have a tasty tea that you would swear even had some sweetness to it.

Yarrow,
Achillea millefolium Yarrow has medicinal uses. This herb is harvested in the summer when in flower and can be dried for later use. An aromatic tea is made from the flowers and leaves. In addition, Yarrow has a high reputation and is widely employed in herbal medicine, administered both internally and externally. It is used in the treatment of a very wide range of disorders but is particularly valuable for treating wounds, stopping the flow of blood, treating colds, fevers, kidney diseases, menstrual pain.

Edible Wild Plants

"Plants are great survival food; they don't run away from you."

"Plants are great survival food;
they don't run away from you."