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First of all, what is foraging?
It is defined as "To wander in search of food or provisions."
Sounds simple. But it's pretty darn complicated in modern society if you haven't grown up learning about foraging. And it interests me quite greatly. I've read a few wild plant foraging books, and many articles and website's information. I still feel like I've barely touched the surface. And my hands-on experience is still lacking. But I wanted to do some journals over foraging mostly because it's so fun for me to write and read about. I'll focus on the basics and I might share some of my own learning experiences with you guys since I'm still learning as I speak.
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Why forage?
There are practical reasons for wild plant foraging. It's a good skill to have. A skill based on knowledge just as much as instinct. It's useful for nutrition, taste, variety, thrift, emergency preparedness, convenience while camping or hiking, etc.
But the main idea for me is that foraging puts us in touch with nature. I love nature; I live near a swamp, woods, and creek that flows into a river about a half-hours hike away. I've gone camping at least once a year since I was little. I love hiking, fishing, bird-watching, and wild animals and insects in general. And of course you can probably tell I have an obsession with plants. :D
So I suppose you could say I've been foraging since before I knew what the word foraging was. But there's a difference between a little kid making flower-salads, mud-pies, chewing on grass, playing pretend medicinal herbalist... and a kid who knows how to actually put those same plants to their real uses. The last couple years have really opened up my eyes to the world of plant foraging. It feels good to have even a small knowledge of the growing green things that surround us everywhere, and how they can be beneficial to the human body.
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IMPORTANT STUFF CONCERNING SAFETY
Although foraging isn't as dangerous as many people think, it's still stupid to put a random plant into your mouth if you aren't 100% sure you know what it is. The tricks to becoming 100% sure are as follows:
- Use multiple resources.
- Ask/use as expert if available/possible.
- Be aware of any poisoness look-alikes.
- Take note of all of the plant's features (leaves, bark, stem, flowers, roots, fruits, thorns, etc.) I'll go more into detail on this later.
- Don't mentally force the plant to fit a description because you're impatient or excited.
- Find more of the same plants and become familiar with them before you even harvest.
- Double check. Triple check.
- Assess your confidence. Would you bet your life this plant is the one you're looking for?
The process sounds scary but it's really just common sense. And it's fun to practice! :)
I want to include this quote from Samuel Thayer (my favorite foraging author) to avoid skewed perceptions on edibility and toxicity of wild plants:
"The common notion is that you can eat an edible plant without harm, but if you ingest a poisonous plant you soon drop dead, or at least get rushed to the emergency room. This view is misleading ... Many edible plants are poisonous and many poisonous plants are edible: the two properties are not mutually exclusive. All of us eat poisonous substances on a regular basis ... every food and drink has the potential to harm you if you consume too much of it .. the proper question, then, is not if a substance can harm you but how much will it take to harm you."
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Some of the terms in plant foraging books can be really confusing, mostly because you'll never see them anywhere else. And most the the books just expect you to already know what most of them mean.
If you're like me you'll have to use a different resource with your resource. So I have decided to pile up a bunch of these intimidating foraging terms in one place. Don't be alarmed. It just takes time to become familiar with them. And it's better to know what they mean instead of just guessing or skipping over. They're in alphabetical order, so don't feel like you have to read through everything. Just look at the one(s) you want to look at.
I'll probably attempt to explain the larger catagories in another journal or two later on and provide a bunch of pictures for each thing, but for now I'm just slapping these in here for reference.
So here we go. Hold on tight. :)
Roots:
Adventitious – roots that form from other than the hypocotyl or from other roots. Roots forming on the stem are adventitious.
Aerial – roots growing in the air.
Crown – the place where the roots and stem meet, which may or may not be clearly visible.[2]
Fibrous – describes roots are thread-like and normally tough.
Fleshy – describes roots are relatively thick and soft, normally made up of storage tissue. Roots are typically long and thick but not thickly rounded in shape.
Haustorial – specialized roots that invade other plants and absorb nutrients from those plants.
Lignotuber – root tissue that allows plants to regenerate after fire or other damage.
Primary – roots that develops from the radicle of the embryo, normally the first root to emerge from the seed as it germinates.
Root Hairs – very small roots, often one cell wide, that do most of the water and nutrient absorption.
Secondary – roots forming off of the primary root, often called branch roots.
Taproot – a primary root that more or less enlarges and grows downward into the soil.
Tuberous – describes roots that are thick and soft, with storage tissue. Typically thick round in shape.
Leaf Blade Shapes:
Acicular (acicularis): Slender and pointed, needle-like
Acuminate (acuminata): Tapering to a long point
Aristate (aristata): Ending in a stiff, bristle-like point
Bipinnate (bipinnata): Each leaflet also pinnate
Cordate (cordata): Heart-shaped, stem attaches to cleft
Cuneate (cuneata): Triangular, stem attaches to point
Deltoid (deltoidea): Triangular, stem attaches to side
Digitate (digitata): Divided into finger-like lobes
Elliptic (elliptica): Oval, with a short or no point
Falcate (falcata): sickle-shaped
Flabellate (flabellata): Semi-circular, or fan-like
Hastate (hastata): shaped like a spear point, with flaring pointed lobes at the base
Lance-shaped, lanceolate (lanceolata): Long, wider in the middle
Linear (linearis): Long and very narrow
Lobed (lobata): With several points
Obcordate (obcordata): Heart-shaped, stem attaches to tapering point
Oblanceolate (oblanceolata): Top wider than bottom
Oblong (oblongus): Having an elongated form with slightly parallel sides
Obovate (obovata): Teardrop-shaped, stem attaches to tapering point
Obtuse (obtusus): With a blunt tip
Orbicular (orbicularis): Circular
Ovate (ovata): Oval, egg-shaped, with a tapering point
Palmate (palmata): Divided into many lobes
Pedate (pedata): Palmate, with cleft lobes
Peltate (peltata): Rounded, stem underneath
Perfoliate (perfoliata): Stem through the leaves
Pinnate (pinnata): Two rows of leaflets
odd-pinnate : pinnate with a terminal leaflet
paripinnate, even-pinnate : pinnate lacking a terminal leaflet
Pinnatisect (pinnatifida): Cut, but not to the midrib (it would be pinnate then)
Reniform (reniformis): Kidney-shaped
Rhomboid (rhomboidalis): Diamond-shaped
Round (rotundifolia): Circular
Sagittate (sagittata): Arrowhead-shaped
Spatulate, spathulate (spathulata): Spoon-shaped
Spear-shaped (hastata): Pointed, with barbs
Subulate (subulata): Awl-shaped with a tapering point
Sword-shaped (ensiformis): Long, thin, pointed
Trifoliate, ternate (or trifoliolate) (trifoliata): Divided into three leaflets
Tripinnate (tripinnata): Pinnately compound in which each leaflet is itself bipinnate
Truncate (truncata): With a squared off end
Unifoliate (unifoliata): with a single leaf
Inflorenscence:
(An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. The fruiting stage of an inflorescence is known as an infructescence. A flower that is not part of an inflorescence is called a solitary flower.)
Capitulum – the flowers are arranged into a head composed of many separate unstalked flowers, the single flowers are called florets and are packed close together. The typical arrangement of flowers in the Asteraceae.
Compound Umbel – is an umbel where each stalk of the main umbel produces another smaller umbel of flowers.
Corymb – a grouping of flowers where all the flowers are at the same level, the flower stalks of different lengths forming a flat-topped flower cluster.
Cyme – is a cluster of flowers were the end of each growing point produces a flower. New growth comes from side shoots and the oldest and first flowers to bloom are at the top.
Single – one flower per stem or the flowers are greatly spread-apart as to appear they do not arise from the same branch.
Spike – when flowers arising from the main stem are without individual flower stalks. The flowers attach directly to the stem.
Solitary – same as single, with one flower per stem.
Raceme – is a flower spike with flowers that have stalks of equal length. The stem tip continues to grow and produce more flowers with the bottom flowers open first and blooming progresses up the stem.
Panicle – is a raceme with branches and each branch having a smaller raceme of flowers. The terminal bud of each branch continues to grow, producing more side shoots and flowers.
Pedicel – stem holding a one flower in an inflorescences.
Peduncle – stem holding an inflorescences, or a single flower.
Umbel – were the flower head has all the flower stalks rising from the same point of the same length, the flower head is rounded like an umbrella or almost circular.
Verticillaster – a whorled collection of flowers around the stem, the flowers produced in rings at intervals up the stem. As the stem tip continues to grow more whorls of flowers are produced.
Verticil – flowers arranged in whorls at the nodes.
Inflorescence Bracts:
Ebracteate inflorescences: No bracts in the inflorescence.
Bracteate inflorescences: The bracts in the inflorescence are very specialised, sometimes reduced to small scales, divided or dissected.
Leafy inflorescences: Though often reduced in size, the bracts are unspecialised and look like the typical leaves of the plant, so that the term flowering stem is usually applied instead of inflorescence. This use is not technically correct, as, despite their 'normal' appearance, these leaves are considered, in fact, bracts, so that 'leafy inflorescence' is preferable.
Leafy-bracted inflorescences: Intermediate between bracteate and leafy inflorescence.
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Another important detail about wild edible plants is that usually only some part(s) of the plant are edible. Although sometimes the entire thing can be eaten, it's more uncommon. This is true of commercialized plants as well. For example, raspberries are edible but their thorns certainly aren't. You can eat a pineapple but you probably wouldn't want to eat the outside portion of the fruit. Potatoes are the underground part of the potato plant; we don't even consume the top. See what I mean?
Be sure to keep this in mind when foraging. :)
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I feel bad not having any pictures in this journal so here are some common/popular edible wild plants! :D
Dandelion:
Cattail:
Stinging Nettle:
Red Clover:
Fiddlehead Ferns:
Wild Carrot (Queen Anne's Lace):
Butternut:
Wild Rose:
Prickly Pear Cactus:
Wapato (Arrowhead or "Duck Potatoes"):
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Citation
The Forager's Harvest by Samuel Thayer
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/foraging
http://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/education/glossary.html
http://www.discoverplants.com/plant-terminology.php
http://wc.pima.edu/Bfiero/tucsonecology/plants/plants_terms.htm
http://www.florabymax.net/FLORAbyMAX/PlantTerms.pdf
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IV. Bee Balm (Plant Profile)
III. Leaf Terminology
II. Flower Terminology
I. General Terminology