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Pine Nuts are delicious but not easy to
get. Find or knock down fresh green pine cones. Tear up the
edges and extract the seeds. Roast them or fry them. |
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Miners Lettuce. Distinctive round
leaves with stems from the center. Perfect campers salad. Sweet
and crunchy when eaten raw. |
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Redbud produces bright pink flowers in
spring & summer before leaves come out. These flowers are sweet
and crunchy eaten raw or mixed with Miners Lettuce make a great trail salad.
This shrub is 8' to 15' high and very easy to spot in the woods. |
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Wild Mustard leaves are edible. Pick
small upper leaves and boil with salt or bacon bits. Found in lower
elevations only. In the mountains avoid plants with yellow flowers. |
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Wild Grape is a vine growing up trees in
low elevation woods. Large leaves make a soothing poultice.
Eat grapes raw, dry or boil for juice. |
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Arrowhead grows in shallow ponds.
Harvest tubers under the mud. Clean them and roast them over a fire.
Then peel and eat. |
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Gooseberries have a very spiny coat
of needle-like thorns. They are hard to get to but have a delicious red
jelly center. The bears eat these whole with the thorns. This
is strongly discouraged! |
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Nettles leaves are edible. Pick small,
tender leaves and boil them with salt or bacon bits. Stems, when
crushed, yeild strong, thread-like fibers used by indians for tieing things
and fishing line. Pick carefully, stinging hairs are painful! |
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Acorns come in many shapes and sizes.
All have an edible nut-like center. When ground up and washed
many times a tasty dough can be fried or baked like a pancake. |
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Watercress is usually found in running
water. Wash it well and eat it raw. Plant is 4" to 6" long
with opposite dark green leaves. |
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Shepherds Purse has a very distinctive
1/8" seed. Both leaves and seeds can be eaten raw. Leaves are
good when boiled with salt. Seeds can also be roasted and saved for
later. |
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Indian Soap Root is a fun plant but not
edible. When dug up the fiber covered bulb underground has a
useful covering of fine brown fibers. When removed and dried, it
makes a good brush for washing or sweeping. Low elevations. |
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Blackberries will usually be found at lower
elevations. Eat berries fresh or dry them in the sun for later.
Boil the leaves to make a tea with lots of vitamin C. |
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Bracken Fern. 1' to 4' high in open
woods or meadows. Harvest the "fiddleheads", curled new leaf ends,
and boil, stir fry, or add to any dish. |
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Curly Dock has very wavy or "curly" leaf
margins. They are dark green and rich in vitamins. Pick the
leaves and boil them with some bacon bits or just salt. |
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Wild Grasses are usually edible but not
very nourashing. Seeds can be gathered and boiled to make a cereal.
Add some sugar and dried fruit. Be careful of allergies, eat a small
amount and wait for 2 hours. |
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Currants are small & delicious red berries if you find them before
the bears do. These are small shrubs 1' to 2' high, usually under
trees. Note: all edible berry leaves are the same shape - they vary
only in size. Study it! |
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Cattail grows in water. Root stocks
can be dried or roasted and eaten. Small roots can be boiled or eaten
raw as a vegetable. A Poultice of roots helps stop bleeding.
Leaves make good strong baskets. |
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Manzanita has edible pink flowers at the
end of each branch that become edible blue berries. The abundance
of this bush makes it a major food source. Eat flowers
raw. Berries are eaten raw or boiled to make a good drink.
Plant is 8' to 10' tall in the Valley but only 1' to 3' in the Sierra. |