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Native edible plants of the Continental US

 
pollinator
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Sorry for the late hour, if this interrupts anyone. I'm usually up for my day job around now, anyway.

--Bladdenut (Staphylia Trifolia)
Possibly edible seeds. Grows throughout Eastern US.

--Inkberry Holly Tea (Ilex Glabra)
Really didn't think I would find another edible species beyond Yaupon. This one has a much wider range, also, though it's a smaller bush. It lives throughout Appalachia, from New York to Florida, & west. Though it's range clings to the Appalachian Mountains, mostly, it's actually a swamp plant, not a mountain plant, so I'm considering whether or not this plant should be native to where I live, or not. The larger Great Lakes region is not currently included as part of the plant's range, but I live right on the PA border, in a giant swamp on the edge of the Appalachian Plateau.

--Texas Persimmon (Diaspyros Texana)
I heard of this one a while ago & kept ignoring it, as I thought it was just another Persimmon variety, but these are smaller, black & grow on a bush. They might technically be more of a Sapote than a Persimmon, which are in the same family of fruits, but, since they're on this side of the border, the term Persimmon is used, I guess.

--Bayberry (Myrica Cerifera)
Southern US variety of Myrica Gale, or Bog Myrtle. Both leaves & berries used as spice. For everyone in between the ranges of Bog Myrtle & Southern Bayberry, there is apparently also a Northern Bayberry (Myrica Pensylvanica), but it seems to be critically endangered. I'm not sure if it's also edible, but I figure it should be, if you can find it.

--Shorebay Leaves (Persea Borbonia)
American Southeast plant. Can apparently use dried leaves as "condiment." Though, the plant was also used to induce vomiting & I don't know how, so further research is probably warranted. If it helps, the tree is directly related to the Avocado, hut the fruit does not appear to be edible.
 
pollinator
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Regarding edible species of Artemisia, the one that comes to mind (not listed above) is A. dracunculus, tarragon. It is native and grows wild here. It’s the same species as French tarragon (what you normally buy for culinary use), but that is a selected variety (sativa) so it doesn’t look or taste the same. Most native species of Artemisia are used medicinally and ceremonially in my tradition, though others are used for seasoning food besides tarragon.

Regarding Canadian yew and ground hemlock, I believe ground hemlock is just another common name for the same species (Taxus canadensis). I don’t think the little bit of flesh is worth separating from the seed to eat it, and Canadian yew is pretty rare here due to heavy deer browse (due to decimated wolf populations) and it’s losing habitat to climate change.

Did we talk about plantain (Plantago) yet? I haven’t tried it, but it was recommended to me to eat the top just after flowering, when fruit has just formed, sautéed like asparagus. I haven’t tried it. Of course, the non-native P. major is more common where I am, on disturbed ground, but the native P. rugellii is also abundant if less widespread, including in cleaner habitat.
 
D Tucholske
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A few new ones:

--Sourberry (Rhus Trilobata)
Great Plains & west to the coast. I think we missed this one because it's in the same genus as Sumac, but it's different enough that I thought I would include it. It's more of a scrubby bush & the fruit is more fleshy & can be eaten directly, though they are just as sour.

--Wild Parsley Root (Musineon Divaricatum)
Interestingly, eating the root raw is suggested. Grows on Great Plains & Rocky Mountains.

--American Licorice (Glycyrrhiza Glabra)
Widespread plant in US & Canada with edible root. Cooked, it tastes like sweet potatoes. Unfortunately, also contains a chemical which raises blood pressure, so not advisable for all people. Also had many medicinal uses.

--Northern Bedstraw (Galium Boreale)
Also fairly widespread edible. Rare in some parts of Eastern US.
 
D Tucholske
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I have one new one, albeit this one is a bit weird.

Wild Basil, Calamint (Clinopodium Vulgare)
A mint without mint flavor. Leaves can be used as spice, though definitely suggest cooking, as they are very unappetisingly hairy when raw, though the taste is pretty similar.

The reason why this is odd is I have no idea whether to classify this as native to the US or not, & it appears neither does anyone else. From what I can gather, there was a North American variety that, at least, grew in southern Canada & a European variety which grew basically everywhere. Europeans brought theirs over, it may have crossbred with the native & gave it the ability to extend it's range, but no information seems to exist on what it's original range even was, so it's generally treated as a native in most places, here.
 
D Tucholske
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Ok, I found a series of PDFs detailing Ohio botany for several environments & listing off several plants. A few were present, but not native, some were different varieties of plants I already covered, or plants I named under weird names, but I did get several new hits:

--Carolina Buckthorn (Rhamnus Caroliniana)
Related to European Buckthorn, which is not edible, but this species allegedly is.

--Deerberry (Vaccinium Stamineum)
Edible, but unpalatably sour, like a lot of native fruits in North America. Obviously, deer seem to really like them.

--American Lovage (Ligusticum Canadense)
It's not well known, but there are several plants from different genuses in Europe which are all called Lovage. At least one is a Ligusticum. It was from Britain & it's leaves were eaten as a vegetable & often used as a treatment for scurvy. American Lovage has a technically edible root, though it has a bad texture & contains a chemical 50x sweeter than cane sugar. One use for the leaves suggests cooking them with Ramps.

--Mountain Rice (Oryxopsis)
Not actually rice, though it may be distantly related to Asian Rice, & not sure if Native Americans actually ate this. But, there are multiple species in Appalachia. People have noted that the plants grains make excellent flour & can also be eaten as a porridge when cooked in hot water, so I am a bit surprised that this plant wasn't once cultivated by Native Americans.

--Lake Cress (Rorippa Aquatics)
A native species of Watercress. Can technically be eaten raw, but cooking is always advised because the plants can harbor a dangerous parasitic bacteria which can cause serious illness when it grows in contaminated water. Cooking kills that.

--Creek Plum (Prints Rivularis)
Produces a bitter tasting fruit. Native peoples allegedly ate it, but I don't know how.

--------
Beyond that, there were a few interesting plants I found that are varieties of things I already covered.

--Moxie Plum Wintergreen (Gaultheria Hispidula)
This is a different native species of Wintergreen, which is also called Creeping Snowberry. The reason I want to bring it up is because it's actually a better option for fruit than American Wintergreen. It's fruit is larger & white. The only problem is that the plant is endangered, or straight extirpated from much of its range in the US, but it's still somewhat common in parts of Canada.

--Wild Savory (Calamintha Arkansana)
Although known as Savory & Calamint both, the species actually does have a mint flavor.

--Bristleberry
This is presumably either a different type of raspberry/ blackberry, or an entirely new type of plant in that same genre. Unfortunately, while there are several types of Bristleberry mentioned, they are apparently extremely rare, only existing in several small pocket environments & very poorly known. I was barely able to find mention or pictures of the plants (and it didn't help that there happens to be a video game called Bristle Berry Farms) & can't find anything on the fruit itself, assuming there is any.
 
Marisa Lee
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That's really interesting. I have not heard of most of those. We have a lot of mountain rice-grass here in the woods. It's really easy to spot it in the spring when little else is green out there, around the time ramps are up or even earlier, though I'm not sure when the seeds would be ripe for harvesting. It seems like it would be a lot of work to get enough to do anything with, but such is the case with some wild foods.

The creeping snowberry is interesting. I would try it for tea. It is a predominant ground cover species in the conifer swamp at the bottom of the hill I live on. I've been checking obsessively for flowers and fruits these past two years (three summers), to no avail. I even turn them over to see if the flowers are hiding under the leaves. The fruits are small, to my understanding, about the same size as wintergreen berries, and have little hairs on them. The leaves are super tiny. But it would be easy to collect enough plant material for tea, so maybe I will.

Earlier this week, as friend mentioned using the young leaves of big-leaf aster (Eurybia macrophylla) as greens, even though they are an odd texture. He says the flavor is really good, cooked or raw. I will have to try it next spring, as I have tons of these plants everywhere.

One plant I've been seeing in bloom lately is bugleweed (various Lycopus species), which can produce little edible tubers, though not all species do. It likes shorelines. I haven't eaten it.
 
Marisa Lee
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(not that I wouldn't eat the fruits of creeping snowberry - I would! I just never see any, and I have been watching for them diligently.)
 
D Tucholske
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Thanks. The pics I saw made the fruit look bigger, but it's good to have an opinion from someone who has actually seen the plant.

Unfortunately, I have to strike something from the list. It looks like Yellow Pond Lily Root is not actually edible, unless it was being used as a survival food.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=px5CNyvGZoQ

One of the commenters said that they had success by boiling the roots in milk & cooking them in honey, but I don't think the Native Americans who were allegedly observed eating the root had access to milk. I don't know if anyone really wants to try that. The Chinese also apparently only use the plant for traditional medicine, not food. All I can imagine is that either the person/ people who recorded that got confused between Pond Lily & Lotus roots, or something that looks vaguely similar to the Pond Lily Root, like Jerusalem Artichoke, or something.
 
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Edit: posted in error, not sure how to delete. Sorry.
 
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A few to add....The dock family, curly dock aka yellow dock, bitter dock, and burdock...leaves and roots are edible....burdock can be a pain and invasive but yellow dock is a great green similar to spinach/collards. Seeds can be ground for a non-glutinous flour.  Hickory and walnut, nuts are edible...woody parts can be boiled to make a salt substitute.  Shagbark hickory makes a great syrup.  Henbit & chickweed make nice additions to a salad, along with spiderwort flowers and yucca flowers.

Mushrooms...chanterelles, hen of the woods, chicken of the woods, lions mane, all delicious sauted.  Oyster mushrooms are kinda musky but great in asian dishes.  Chaga makes a delicious syrup.  Morels are choice but they dont grow this far south.   If we keep having winters like this past one that might change.

Violets, chickasaw plums, and pawpaws grow wild in Alabama, I hope to taste pawpaws this year.
 
Cl Robinson
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Oh and wild ramps...which also dont grow this far south.
 
Marisa Lee
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I came across another one yesterday that I had forgotten about - clearweed (Pilea pumila). It's related to stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) and can be used the same way, as food and medicine. It also looks very similar to nettle but doesn't have stinging hairs and doesn't get so tall.
 
D Tucholske
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You're fine, Isaiah. In a couple of those cases, I think you just got confused with similarly named plants in your area, which are edible. Like, in the south, there is a plant called Brook Lettuce, which you can eat.

So, so far we've managed to assemble a list of approximately 134 native edible plant types in the Great Lakes Region, with 13 invasive edibles & another 75 from across the rest of the Continental US & Alaska, unless I'm miscounting.

I did start a personal list of edible mushrooms. I'm not really a mushroom person, so this is mostly out of morbid curiosity, but some that you didn't mention are:

--American Wood Ear Fungus
--Amethyst Deceivers (can absorb environmental toxins & become dangerous)
--Scaber Stalks
--Brain Mushroom (extremely dangerous unless very specific cooking precautions are in place, meaning it's illegal to sell as food in US, just like Sweet flag & Achee. Literally, you can't even cook it unless you keep your cooking space properly ventilated, or you will gas yourself.)
--Clustered Coral
--Garlic Mushroom (very small & insubstantial, but may have been used as a spice for strong flavor.)
--Indigo Milk Cap
--Puffball (only when young, before spores are produced)
--Ravenel's Stinkhorn (only in "egg" stage. Afterwards, becomes too disgusting.)
--Shaggy Mane
--Slippery Jack

I'll leave off a few that where I never bothered to specify, but made notes that there were multiple edible species, or mixed safe/ unsafe species.
 
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Additions for the coastal PNW area:

Our snowberry is not edible by humans from what I understand! Please leave it for birds!! (edit: the common snowberry in the west is not edible, but as the helpful commentor below says there are multiple plants called snowberry in different families!)

Oregon grape berries are sour and best mixed with other berries if not used in preserves. Goes well with that late season salal.

Manzanita berries (as well as bearberry, there are multiple other species of manzanita) are edible but I would leave them for the bears, they are dry and not tasty. (edit: maybe some types are good to eat? or other people here have a broader palate than I...)


The following are plants that I have personally tried:

Beach Pea, Lathyrus japonicus - an good tasting pea that grows in decent sized patches on and near beaches. Everlasting pea is also edible but not quite as tasty, it fruits later in the year. Make sure not to eat large quantities regularly, relying on wild peas or vetch for a large portion of your diet will kill you slowly. (probably how Chris McCandless died)

Broadleaf Dock, Rumex obtusifolius - naturalized old world weed. Grows just about anywhere but tastiest in the shade and in good soil. I ate a lot of this plant from logging roads in northern CA. Throw it in ramen, beans, or anything else that could use a sour potherb. I wouldn't eat it raw.

Candyflower (Siberian Miner's Lettuce, as well as Miner's Lettuce. not much difference) - excellent snacking herb, I've only eaten it raw. Grows in the forest of southern OR and northern CA wherever it can find a little sun. One of the best and most common wild greens in my opinion.

Hedge Bindweed - per a suggestion in another post on this site, I fried up a big handful of the hedge bindweed taking over various corners of my yard. Very nice cooking green, not bitter, far better than false dandelion. Make sure you identify it correctly, by flowers should be the easiest way but it does closely resemble other bindweeds that may not be edible.

Purple Dead Nettle (aka red dead nettle) - if you don't mind a fuzzy texture, this is a great snacking herb during the spring! I just eat the tops wherever I see them. Naturalized old world species, grows in meadows and lawns.

Salal - this is probably the most important berry in my region, the only other plant that even comes close is huckleberry. Grows from the Northern California coast to I'm not sure how far north, but extremely common in coastal Oregon. Berries are delicious reaching their full flavor when they begin to look overripe or even dehydrated on the plant.

Sedge - all sedge seeds are edible to my knowledge. I've begun experimenting with slough sedge, my first attempt cooking left it tough to chew but the flavor was very good! Hopefully it is possible to soften to the point where it is easy to eat a bowl, but either way this is a great food in my opinion. Slough sedge is fairly common in southern OR coast, it should be possible to gather decent amounts if you can find a non-polluted area where it grows.

Three Cornered Leek, Allium triquetrum - an naturalized / invasive old world onion. This is the species of choice for wild onion in coastal OR. At the right time of spring you can see these everywhere around yards and unmanaged spaces near towns. You can eat the whole plant, I prefer the immature flower buds for texture and ease of collection. You can also find their bulbs in the ground but unless you know exactly where a patch is I wouldn't recommend trying to identify in their dormant season. Remember that if it doesn't smell like onion, it's not Allium and possibly poisonous.

Tree Mallow - the variegated type is naturalized in southern OR and northern CA, mostly around people's yards. Edible seeds without a strong flavor, mostly good for a few mouthfuls as a snack unless you happen to have a lot of big ones near you.

Tule (Bulrush) - very common, wonderful rhizomes, easy to gather, the youngest rhizome can be eaten fresh and older rhizome pounded and dried for flour. Unfortunately I haven't been able to experiment very much with this plant, because it is a wetland plant that will soak up any pollution in the area. I would eat it from my patch near the highway if I absolutely had to, or after the blessed day that the road closes forever.

Another edit: I haven't personally tried it, but the edible part of Yellow Pond Lily is said to be the seeds after allowing the fruit to rot in water for several weeks. They are said to be quite good popped, I meant to get some but I think I missed the season this year...

 
Marisa Lee
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Re: snowberry, you may be thinking of Symphoricarpos, a shrub/bush with pink flowers and (later on) white berries, known as wolfberry or snowberry. It’s in the honeysuckle family. The edible snowberry being discussed here, Gaultheria hispidula, is related to salal and wintergreen. It is often called creeping snowberry, because the plant sprawls over the ground. It’s in the heath/blueberry family.
 
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