Oh, what a nice discussion, thanks for starting one. Well, let us see. As any average Lithuanian, of course I eat forest berries when it is season and when find them and, naturally, never pass a good mushroom. I do sometimes collect Urtica dioica, but only early in spring, later I dislike its earthy smell. In early spring I also collect very young shoots of Pteridium aquilinum. Tastes like slightly bitter Asparagus. Oxalis and Rumex acetosa are favourites,too, also very young leaves of Tilia cordata. But my favourites from childhood years are bases of shoots of Scirpus sylvaticus. When I see a nice, fat plant, I cannot resist even now. Middle leaves of Acorus calamus are also lovely,but not so easy to reach. Fruits of Acorus are also nice to snack on.
So, looking for forage-related projects, I stumbled upon https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/edible-flora-worldwide and have volunteered to administer it along with its founder. I will try and add plants appearing on this thread. If you join the project, your research grade observations of edible plants will get a nice badge, as for example this one:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/45676212
Cool, thanks for sharing!
There are also these groups for edible plants and mushrooms of North America:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/wild-edible-plants-of-north-america
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/wild-edible-mushrooms-of-north-america
A decent number of my observations get included, I’m not sure what part of the Eastern White Pines I observe are meant to be eaten for example…
The “candlesticks” new growth cook up like asparagus. The needles can be made into a tea–high in vitamin C.
Cool!
I like eating the Austromyrtus berries, the Banksia flowers, Paperbark flowers, Xanthorrhoea flowers, Syzygium fruits, native Rubus species fruit, Bracken fern rhizomes, the rhizomes of that sedge that has those flowers that resemble hot-dogs, Native spinach, Pigface fruit, Pandanus seeds and small quantites of the orange flesh/pulp (the flesh/pulp kind of tastes like off mango fruit).
I don’t really eat alot of shrooms. Only field mushrooms.
Also the “weeds” that I like to eat are chickweed, tropical chickweed and Passiflora foetida (Stinking passion flower) and of course, the cultivated passion fruit if I find any in the bush.
I will nibble on madrone berries, miner’s lettuce, pickleweed (salty), or sour grass. Actually, I when was a kid, we all ate quantities of sour grass. Of course, black berries.
From the wild it’s of course shrooms of many kinds, berries: Vaccinium myrtillus, V. uliginosum, V. vitis-idaea, V. oxycoccos, Rubus idaeus, any Fragaria sp. and Ribes sp. and for some reason love Empetrum nigrum. Sorbus sp. berries are hard to eat for me but some people love them. Clover flowers taste good because of nectar.
The hotdog-shaped flower, I guess you mean Typha, they are already on the group. Native Australian spinach I found ‘Tetragonia tetragonioides’, is that the one?
great, added Salicornia depressa and pacifica as well. I found this article about them: https://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/article/Native-pickleweed-offers-a-taste-of-the-wild-3298080.php
Yep, those are the ones.
@castieler Such a nice article you found about all what we can do with pickleweed! Thanks!
“I found this article about them: [https://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/article/Native-pickleweed-offers-a-taste-of-the-wild-3298080.php ]”
It needs prickly pears (from this thread), greenbriars, and agaritas added, just to start. Aside from contacting the project admins, is there anything else we should do to get them added?
Well, you could also volunteer to administer the proyect along with us, and then you can enter them yourself. You can also contact me in private and I will add them.
I have added the ones you suggested, thanks!
During my childhood, workers in the Soviet space center in the spring collected “green cakes” of young leaves of such wild rhubarb.
They were added to soup, etc.
One thing though…
I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I don’t think I could give a project the time and attention it deserves.
By the way, it only lists one species of Prickly Pear, but as far as I am aware the entire genus Optunia is edible. I know I’ve eaten flowers from Opuntia engelmannii
I agree an entire genus can be edible. Also I heard that all the members of the Mustard Family Brassicaceae are edible.
Agreeing here as well.
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