Dead Nettle

Scientific Name: Lamium purpureum
Abundance: rare (in TX, uncommon elsewhere)
What: leaves, flowers
How: salad, smoothies, tea
Where: fields, disturbed areas, sunny, shade
When: winter, spring
Nutritional Value: vitamins, iron, antioxidants

Medicinal Summary:
Leaves - hemostatic; diuretic; sweat inducer (poultice, tisane)
Seeds - antioxidant (raw, ticture, tisane)

Leaf Arrangement: Opposite-alternating, with pairs of leaves emerging from the same level on the stem, but rotated 90 degrees around the stem compared to the leaves directly above and below.

Leaf Shape: Heart-shaped to ovate, typically 1 to 2 inches long.

Leaf Venation: Pinnate, with a central midvein and branching side veins.

Leaf Margin: Scalloped or serrated, with rounded teeth along the edges.

Leaf Color: Green, often with purplish tinges, especially on the upper leaves.

Flower Structure: Small, tubular flowers arranged in whorls at the leaf axils.

Flower Color: Purple to pink, with a two-lipped appearance typical of the mint family.

Fruit: Small, dry nutlets.

Seeds: Tiny, contained within the nutlets.

Stem: Square-shaped (a characteristic of the mint family), often with a reddish or purplish hue, ranging from 4 to 8 inches tall.

Hairs: Soft, fine hairs covering the leaves and stem, giving a fuzzy texture.

Height: Typically 4 to 8 inches tall, sometimes reaching up to 12 inches.

Cluster of Dead Nettle plants.


Dead Nettle.


Root to tip of a Dead Nettle plant.


Close-up of Dead Nettle head before flowers are fully formed.


Dead Nettle are in the mint family and so have the square hollow stems and alternating opposed leaves of this family.


Texas distribution, attributed to U. S. Department of Agriculture. The marked counties are guidelines only. Plants may appear in other counties, especially if used in landscaping.


North American distribution, attributed to U. S. Department of Agriculture.


I've only found one colony of Dead Nettles in Texas and as the USDA map indicates, it was up in East Texas. Dead Nettles look very similar to the very common Henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) but Dead Nettle leaves are pointed triangular whereas Henbit leaves are "kidney" shaped at first then mature to very rounded triangles. Dead Nettles leaves have a somewhat purple shade whereas Henbit leaves are green. Dead Nettle leaves are somewhat more hairy than Henbit leaves, especially along the edges. Both have purple, tubular flower appearing in clusters at the top of the plant.

Dead Nettles are usually found in fields, yards, and disturbed areas such as roadsides and abandoned lots. In East Texas look for them at the same time Henbit is appearing, usually late winter/early spring. They seem to prefer sunny areas but can also grow in shade.

The leaves of Dead Nettle are added raw to salads but can be cooked, too. They have a mild, almost bland flavor. Some people add them to springtime smoothies along with Chickweed and other spring weeds. I haven't tried it yet but I'd bet they ferment well.

Dead Nettle seeds supposedly have some strong antioxidants but they are small and it'd take a lot of plants to produce enough seeds to do any good. You're better off spreading the seeds around to increase the population of this funky, purplish plant.


Buy my book! Outdoor Adventure Guides Foraging covers 70 of North America's tastiest and easy to find wild edibles shown with the same big pictures as here on the Foraging Texas website.

Devil's Walking Stick

Scientific Name(s): Aralia spinosa
Abundance: rare
What: young shoots, young leaves
How: shoots cooked, leaves raw or cooked
Where: sunny fields
When: spring
Nutritional Value: vitamins, flavanoids, phytochemicals
Dangers: very thorny

Leaf Arrangement: Leaves are compound and alternate along the stem.

Leaf Shape: Each leaf consists of numerous leaflets. Individual leaflets are ovate to lanceolate, measuring approximately 6 to 12 inches in length.

Leaf Margin: Leaflet margins are serrated with coarse teeth.

Leaf Color: Foliage is typically green.

Flower Structure: Small, white flowers are arranged in large, compound umbels at the top of the plant.

Flower Color: Flowers are generally white and appear in late summer.

Fruit (Berry-Like): The fruit is a small, dark purple to black berry, around 1/4 to 1/2 inches in diameter. Grow in umbel-like clusters. 

Bark: The bark is covered with sharp prickles, especially on younger stems.

Height: Devil's Walking Stick can grow to be 15 to 30 feet tall.

Hairs: Stems and leaves are generally smooth.

Thorns: Prickles form distinct rings around trunk and branches, unlike the randomly placed thorns of Prickly Ash/Toothach Tree.

Devil's Walking Stick trees are small, only growing about 30' tall.




Close-up of spines on young tree (found on trunk and branches). Note how the thorns grow in rings around the wood.




Leaves have a compound opposite layout.




Close-up of a single leaflet.


New leaves sprouting in late winter. This is a good time to harvest the new shoots for cooking.


Young leaves two months later, ready to be cooked.


Young leaves in the spring.




New growth is a lovely green color while the previous years' growth is gray.


In late summer Devil's Walking Stick trees produce tons of small, yellowish blooms.


Close-up of blooms.


Unripe fruit photographed in August in Houston. Ripe fruit is red but NOT edible.


Close-up of the unripe berries.


Texas distribution, attributed to U. S. Department of Agriculture. The marked counties are guidelines only. Plants may appear in other counties, especially if used in landscaping.


North American distribution, attributed to U. S. Department of Agriculture.


Throughout central, southern and eastern United States you may encounter the spiny/thorny Devil's Walking Stick tree in sunny fields, along woodland borders, or along the woodland paths. Some may mistake this tree for the Toothache Tree (Zanthoxylum species) but that tree's thorns are randomly placed and quite thick on mature Toothache Trees whereas the Devil's Walking Stick thorns remain small (though wicked sharp!) and form rings around the trunk and branches.

The new shoots and young leaves of the Devil's Walking Stick tree can be eaten in the spring before the spines on the leaf stems stiffen. The shoots make a good celery substitute when cooked. The young leaves can be eaten raw but the usual method of preparation is to finely chop the leaves then cook. The non-edible berries form in large clusters, starting out green in mid-summer and then turn red around September. Deer love eating any of the berries they can reach.


Buy my book! Outdoor Adventure Guides Foraging covers 70 of North America's tastiest and easy to find wild edibles shown with the same big pictures as here on the Foraging Texas website.

Giant Puffball Mushrooms

Scientific Name: Calvatia gigantea
Abundance: rare
What: white flesh
How: cooked
Where: woods, fields,
When: winter, spring
Nutritional Value: minor
Dangers: Always be 100% certain on your identification of mushrooms

COLLECTING MUSHROOM REQUIRES 100% CERTAINTY. WWW.FORAGINGTEXAS.COM ACCEPTS NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR IDENTIFICATION ERRORS BY ANY READERS.

Growth Form: Calvatia gigantea, also known as the giant puffball, large, irregular spheres which lacks a distinct stem and grows attached to the ground by a cord.

Cap Shape and Size: The fruitbody is large, irregular globe or ball-shaped, 8-12 inches or more across, and 5.5-10 inches or more high, changing from white to yellow or olive-brown with maturity.

Gills or Pores: No gills are present.

Stipe Characteristics: Not present, but sometimes attached to the ground by a cord; cord approximately 2.5 inches long & 0.8 inches wide.

Odor: Mild and not unpleasant.

Bruising: Does not bruise when scratched or pressed.

Spore Color: Olive brown.

Substrate and Habitat: Saprobic, growing in nutrient-rich areas such as roadside verges, deciduous forests, woodland edges, and meadows.

Other Characteristics: The interior of the mushroom is completely white when young. Interior turns a yellowish green as it matures due to formation of spores, starting at the center of the fruitbody. 

Giant Puffball in woodland clearing.


Underside of Giant Puffball. They have no gills, pores, or stem.


Cutting the above mushroom in half top to bottom, the yellowish interior reveals it's past time to eat it.


Another Giant Puffball. This one is lumpy and misshapen but still really big!


Cutting it open reveals the entire interior is a uniform, creamy white color so it's still good to eat!


This is what it should look like inside if you're going to eat it.


Check out this monster!


An old Giant Puffball, already going to spore stage.


Tearing open the old Giant Puffball. It released a big cloud of spores.


Walking across a field or woods you spot what looks like a somewhat deflated soccer ball...or a bleached human skull laying in the grass and leaf litter. Touching it reveals a rubbery surface over a spongy interior. You've just found a Giant Puffball! These are pretty rare in Texas, being only found in a few counties in central Texas. They prefer cool weather so look in winter and early spring.

Texas has plenty of smaller puffballs such as Vascellum curtisii, Scleroderma texense, Gymnopilus spectabilis, Lycoperdon pyriforme, and others but none of these get much bigger than a lime and most are smaller than that. Giant Puffball (Calvatia gigantea) is in a humongous size class all its own.

When collecting a Giant Puffball to eat you must always cut it in half top to bottom to make sure:
A. It's creamy white all the way through. No sign of yellow or brown which indicate it's already making spores which will make you ill.
B. There are no immature gills or an outline of a traditional mushroom hidden in the mushroom. Seeing either indicates you do NOT have an edible puffball but rather a young, deadly Amanita or other dangerous mushroom that looks like a puffball but matures into a normal "toadstool" shape.

This looked like a puffball but cutting it in half revealed immature gills as described above in B. This is NOT a puffball mushroom!!


When cooking Giant Puffballs think of them as a chunk of tofu-like matter. The favored way of preparing them is cut them into 1/2" thick slices, batter them with milk, salt, & flour, then fry them in hot oil until golden brown. You can also thinly-slice them followed by sautéing them in butter and some garlic. Good Lord, y'all have no idea how hungry I get when working on this blog!


Buy my book! Idiots Guide Foraging covers 70 of North America's tastiest and easy to find wild edibles shown with the same big pictures as here on the Foraging Texas website.

Buy my book! Outdoor Adventure Guides Foraging covers 70 of North America's tastiest and easy to find wild edibles shown with the same big pictures as here on the Foraging Texas website.

Ginkgo

Scientific Name(s): Ginkgo biloba
Abundance: rare
What: leaves, nuts
How: leaves raw, tea; seed/nut roasted
Where: woods, landscaping
When: leaves in spring, summer, fall; nut in summer
Nutritional Value: leaves are medicinal, nuts have calories
Dangers: the fruit STINKS and contains assorted, somewhat dangerous chemicals. Do not let the raw fruit pulp come in contact with bare flesh, mouth, or eyes.

Medicinal Summary
Leaves - improves blood circulation; improves memory; may reduce dementia (eaten, tisane)

Leaf Arrangement: Leaves are unique, fan-shaped, and arranged alternately along the stem.

Leaf Shape: Ginkgo leaves have a distinctive fan shape, typically measuring 2 to 3 inches in length. Often displaying a cleft in the middle.

Leaf Margin: Leaves have a lobed or bilobed margin.

Leaf Color: Foliage is bright green in the summer, turning golden yellow in the fall.

Flower Structure: Ginkgo trees are dioecious, meaning there are separate male and female trees. Male flowers are small, catkin-like structures.

Flower Color: Flowers are small (1/8") cones growing on 1"-2" spikes, being either green or yellow.

Fruit (Seed): The fruit is a large, fleshy seed surrounded by a foul-smelling outer layer. The seed is about 1 inch in diameter. They onlt form on female trees and ripen in the fall.

Bark: Bark is typically light gray and smooth on young trees, becoming rougher and more deeply furrowed with age.

Height: Ginkgo trees can grow to be 50 to 80 feet tall.

Hairs: Leaves and stems are generally smooth, without noticeable hairs.

Branching Pattern: Ginkgo trees have an open, spreading growth form with distinct branches.

Ginkgo leaves.


Close-up of Ginkgo leaf.


Ginkgo trunk.


Young Ginkgo tree.


Unripe Ginkgo fruit (female trees, only).


Close-up of Ginkgo fruit. When yellow/orange, soft, wrinkly, and falling from the tree it's ripe.


Ginkgo fruit (ripening in the fall).

By Famartin (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Ginko nuts after removing outer fruit (female trees only).


Ginko trees, native to Asia, are now common landscaping plants. Due to the mess and smell of the ripe nut outer coating, usually only male forms of the tree are used. Ginkgo are ancient trees dating back 270 million years and is considered a "living fossil" and a single tree can live 1,000 years. Individual ginkgo trees are either male or female, with only the female producing fruit. The fruit ripens in the summer as approximately grape-sized yellow fruit. This fruit pulp smells really bad, something like a cross between dog poop and vomit. This pulp is discard because the real treasure is the large seed it contains. Wear rubber gloves when digging the seed out of the ginkgo fruit or else your hands will stink for days. Scrub any pulp off the seeds with plenty of running water. The seeds/nuts are then roasted as the unroasted seeds are still somewhat toxic.

Ginkgo leaves have a long history of being used to treat issues with blood circulation, memory, and dementia. The easiest way to use them is to chew a leaf into a pulp and then suck on this pulp for 10-20 minutes. Tea can also be made from the leaves.


Buy my book! Outdoor Adventure Guides Foraging covers 70 of North America's tastiest and easy to find wild edibles shown with the same big pictures as here on the Foraging Texas website.

Glasswort

Scientific Name(s): Salicornia bigelovii
Abundance: rare
What: whole plant; oil extracted from seeds
How: raw
Where: coastal beaches
When: spring, summer, fall, winter
Nutritional Value: salt, assorted vitamins, calories from seed oil
Dangers: raw seeds contain toxic saponins and should not be eaten whole.

Leaf Arrangement: Leaves are reduced to small scales and appear to be absent, with the stem appearing jointed.

Leaf Shape: The leaves are scale-like, closely appressed to the stem, and not distinct from the stem segments, resulting in a tubular appearance.

Leaf Venation: There is no distinct venation due to the reduced size and form of the leaves.

Leaf Margin: Margins are not discernible in the scale-like leaves.

Leaf Color: The color of the stem and scale-like leaves ranges from green to reddish-green, depending on environmental conditions.

Flower Structure: Flowers are tiny, often going unnoticed, and embedded in the stem at the joints. They are arranged in groups of three in each segment.

Flower Color: The flowers are inconspicuous, blending with the color of the stem.

Fruit: The fruit is a small, one-seeded capsule.

Seed: The seed is small, enclosed within the capsule.

Stem: The stem is succulent, jointed, and appears segmented, giving an elongted bead-like appearance.

Hairs: There are no hairs on the stem or scale-like leaves.

Height: The plant typically grows to a height of about 4 to 12 inches, often sprawling or forming dense mats.

Glasswort along the beach.






Closer view.


Another view. As Glasswort ages it turns reddish in color.


Old, dried-up glasswort looks like small stalagmites.


Texas distribution, attributed to U. S. Department of Agriculture. The marked counties are guidelines only. Plants may appear in other counties, especially if used in landscaping.


North American distribution, attributed to U. S. Department of Agriculture.


Looking like some alien lifeform, Glasswort adds an interesting appearance to coastal beaches. Some say it's name comes from the sound it makes when stepped upon as it cracks like breaking glass. However, the burned ashes of Glasswort were used as a flux in glassmaking, lowering the temperature needed to melt sand into glass so I think that's where the name came from. Glasswort has the amazing ability to grow even when watered with salty sea water.

The young, tender tips of Glasswort are eaten raw in salads or even just as a snack on the beach. As the plant matures these stems turn reddish and woody. Boiling the pinkish woody stems may give you a bit of tender, edible outer sheath with a more inedible woody core.

The seeds contain a coating of toxic saponins and can not be eaten raw or cooked. However, the oil pressed from these seeds is quite edible, tasty, and useful as a cooking oil.

The ashes left after burning Glasswort are high in mineral content including salt and are used to flavor foods.


Buy my book! Outdoor Adventure Guides Foraging covers 70 of North America's tastiest and easy to find wild edibles shown with the same big pictures as here on the Foraging Texas website.