Yesterday, Bear and I took a wild edible plants class from Mark Suter of primitivetexas.com. Here is a breakdown of some notes I took.

Use this info at your own risk. Please be sure to positively identify any plant before consumption. Please make sure to wash all plants, particularly those that grow near water, before consumption.

Horsetail This is a shrub normally found near water. The young chutes are edible and when bundled together in a sort of hand broom, it makes an effective pot scrubber.

Goldenrod: Dead stalks are good for hand drill spindles

Agave: excellent for cordage, but the sap is caustic to the skin. Dry before processing.

Mexican plum: recognize by the woolly underside of the leaf and whitish, horizontal streaks on the trunk. This produces dark red, edible fruits.

Rusty blackhaw: dry berries for two weeks to produce raisins.

Mexican buckeye: toxic lookalike to the evergreen sumac. Seeds are good for marbles and slingshot ammo.

Cottonwood: Water indicator. The boiled buds are edible. The wood is good for handdrill sets. It produces fluff that is useful for tinder. The fibrous inner bark also produces good tinder.

Sumac: The red berries produce an excellent drink. Try to get them in late summer or early fall before heavy rains wash out their acidity. Soak them in cold water for 5 minutes and strain out the stems and seeds and enjoy with or without sweetener. The wood is also excellent for bowdrill sets. BEWARE of poison sumac which is found only in a few counties near the Louisiana border. This produces white berries and contains urushiol, the compound in poison ivy responsible for blisters.

Texas sage: Not a true sage and doesn't smell like it. A tea of it is supposed to be good for stomach ache. YMMV.

Cattail: Grows near water. In spring, produces an edible chute (make sure to clean) which tastes like salted cucumber. The green flower is also edible. Soak the seed heads in tallow to produce a candle. The pollen can be used as flour. The rhizome is edible. Pound it in a bucket to release the starch. The slime found in the stalk is a topical antiseptic.

Pickerel weed: The young leaves are edible.

Dollar weed: Often found in water. Edible.

Wild iris: toxic lookalike to the cattail. The leaves are flat against one another and fan-shaped.

Chili pequin: Cultivar for jalapenos. Very spicy. Only the fruit is edible. The rest is poisonous.

Beargrass: Useful for cordage. Often found on rocky slopes. Poisonous.

Yucca: The survivalist's WalMart. The leaves are useful for cordage. Dry before processing. The stalk is edible after boiling in two changes of water. The white, bell-shaped flowers are edible raw. On the stiff-leafed Spanish dagger, the banana-shaped fruits are edible. Dry and soak in lime juice. It's excellent. The root, dug up and pounded can be used for soap. The dead stalk makes a good fire spindle.

Prickly pear: Fruit and young pads are edible. The flowers are edible after boiling in two changes of water. The inside of the pads is like aloe. The pads can be formed into a pouch for boiling water. Watch out for the spines. Burn or scrape them off.

Sotol: Looks like yucca, but has spines along the leaves. The dead stalk is excellent for hand and bow drill sets. The root can be baked in a hot rock oven for 2 or 3 days to produce an artichoke-like vegetable.

Ash juniper: The bane of my existence in January. Rub bark with a stick while on the tree to fluff it for tinder. The sap can be used for fire lighting or to make pitch. The bark can be used for a toothbrush. The green leaves make a good smudge fire for keeping away bugs. The wood makes good tool handles.

Blue condalia: Edible blue berries. Found in high, dry areas.

Persimmon: Identify by smooth white bark. Produces edible fruit in mid summer. Best eaten fresh.

Lantana: Ripe fruit is edible. The rest is poisonous.

Agarita: Three holly-like leaflets. Produces a juicy, edible red fruit which can be available any time of year.

Chickweed: Edible raw. Has opposite leaves and white flowers in spring.

Dayflower: Has blue flowers with two petals. Best is spring.

Yaupon: Leaves can be roasted to make a caffeinated drink. Only native North American plant to produce caffeine. The berries produce it in toxic amounts.

Beautyberry: Produces clusters of purple berries. Use the leaves for insect repellant.

Ground cherry: Little yellow flowers that hang down. Fruit surrounded by papery coating. Berry is yellow, purple or orange when ripe. Ripe berries edible, rest poisonous.

Cowitch vine: poisonous lookalike to wild grapes. Fruit has only one seed.

Virginia creeper: see above.

Mesquite: pulp of seed pod sweet and edible. Seeds can be milled into flower. The wood is good for tool handles and firewood.

Western soapberry: The berries can be used for soap, even when they are old and dead.

Giant ragweed: Good for poison ivy remedy. Can also help stop bleeding.

Bamboo: chutes edible and delicious (all grass chutes are edible). Wood is useful for firesaws, containers, building shelters, etc.

Common elder: Berries and flowers are edible. It is easy to hollow out.

Wild grapes: Lobed, heart-shaped leaves which are cupped and have woolly undersides. Vine can be used as an emergency source of water, but it kills the vine. Good for cordage.

Dandelion: the flowers are the best part.

Pecans: Found from fall to spring.

Pine: Tea made from needles high in Vit. C. Inner bark is edible. The young needles are edible in spring. Get cones in summer before they open. Keep them in a paper bag by the fire to cause them to open and release their nuts. Boil the rootlets for starchy emergency food (doesn't taste good)

Green briar: Has thorns and tendrils unlike poisonous lookalike. Young leaves and chutes are edible.

Rain lilly: Poisonous wild onion lookalike. Doesn't smell like onion.

Black willow: Water indicator. Good for fire sets. Twigs and inner bark contain active ingredient in aspirin.



Bear, feel free to revise and extend these comments.

Rob

I'm not going to add anything just yet. I lost all the photos I took while we were there so I'm going to try to go back this weekend and get better photos, with the actual camera and I will add those and anything else I think of here. Thank you Rob for putting all that up here for us to learn from.

Nice info thanks

Awesome , thanks guys

Ok about to head over to the area we were at to photograph as many of the plants as I can remember where they were at. I'm bringing the family with me so I can start teaching my son and my wife about some of them too. Plus she is really wanting to get out of the house and walk for awhile. I'll post the photos tonight if I can, if not I will have to do it during the week.

Alright guys, sorry for the delay I have been a little busy this week with the new position at work and the baby and not to mention the Mother-in-Law in town. But I have some of them done and posted for you to look at. Hope you enjoy. I'm pretty sure I have all the right images with the correct name. I will be trying to link them on Redrob's post so you will be able to click on them under each of the ones he posted.

http://s138.photobucket.com/albums/q263/Spiritbearshaman/Wild%20Edible%20Class/

#63 and #64 in your slide show are the Virginia creeper. I think the two that follow are the cowitch.

FWIW,
Rob

I guess I never noticed this post before.
Very good stuff fellas.
Its good to see that this forum is making a difference by bring people together.

Great notes.

I will add from my own experience that Giant Ragweed & Prickly Lettuce both can make for good hand drill spindles. G. Ragweed works well as a bow drill spindle and hearth, although it's kinda stinky to burn.

i spent a great deal of time tracking down the first unknown a year or so ago (it makes up more than 1/2 my back yard). The common name for it is "Horse Herb"
Awesome pictures, glad you took them! definitely bookmarking this because the crude drawings and notes i took were sad at best haha.

You are talking about this one correct.


Since you did the research already what are the uses for it if you wouldn't mind sharing? LOL.

[quote="Bear"]You are talking about this one correct.

yup.
most of what i found was people talking about how it had overtaken their lawn and they didn't know if they should remove it or what. My backyard is made of horse herb because we never made an attempt to stop it from taking over, but i really like it. When you have a bunch of them together, they make a pretty full green color, never really showing the dirt beneath the leaves (like typical grass might). It's super low maintenance & some times will have those pretty yellow flowers sprinkled throughout.

as far as uses... it's not edible. i use it for bow drill handhold lube. If you were needing water you could use it in a solar still or a plastic bag plant system thing probably. hehe