Box Elder

Scientific Name: Acer negundo
Abundance: common
What: sap, seeds, young sprout, inner bark
How: sap is boiled to syrup; young sprouts raw or cooked; inner bark boiled; seeds are roasted
Where: lowland & moist areas; often along water; windbreaks
When: spring, summer, fall, winter
Nutritional Value: carbohydrates, protein, fiber
Dangers: none, though young seedlings may look like Poison Ivy

Medicinal Summary:
Inner Bark - vomit inducer

Leaf Arrangement: Leaves are opposite-alternating, meaning they are arranged in pairs along the stems but each pair is shifted 90 degrees from the pairs above and below it.

Leaf Shape: Leaves are compound, typically with three to seven leaflets, each leaflet measuring 2 to 4 inches in length.

Leaf Venation: The leaflets have prominent veins.

Leaf Margin: Leaflet margins are serrated, featuring small teeth.

Flower Structure: Box elder trees produce small, inconspicuous flowers in clusters, typically appearing in early spring.

Flower Color: Flowers are typically yellowish-green.

Seed: The seeds are paired, winged samaras, each measuring about 1 to 2 inches in length.

Bark: The bark is smooth and light gray on younger trees, becoming rougher with age, displaying furrows and ridges.

Height: Box elder trees can grow to be 30 to 50 feet tall.

Hairs: None on leaves or other surfaces.

Color of Seeds: The seeds, or samaras, start green when young and then mature to a light brown with a papery wing.

A young Box Elder tree.


Close-up of young Box Elder bark. When mature the ridges and furrows will be much larger and craggier.


Unripe Box Elder "helicopters". The seeds will be opposite the "fin". They'll be twice this size, dry, and tan when ripe.


Mature seeds.


Box Elder compound leaf (top). They have five leaflets.


Box Elder compound leaf (bottom). The top section may look tri-lobed in this picture but it is three separate leaflets.


The trunk of a Box Elder sapling. Note the rich, green color.


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.


A large part of my childhood was spent up among the branches of the giant Box Elder tree in our backyard. Well, it seemed like a giant tree when I was a kid. These amazingly fast-growing trees max out around 70 feet tall and 30 feet wide. The wood is weak and any big winds will cause branches to drop including those greater than one foot in diameter. Never park under a Box Elder in a storm! These damaged areas quickly lead to the inner heartwood rotting away, making it popular with assorted birds, mammals, and bugs. They do not handle the full Texas sun well, preferring to grow in the partial shade of other trees. They fairly common in East Texas, much less common in the Hill Country and North Texas, and rare to non-existent in West Texas

Box Elders have thick, coarse bark when mature and compound leaves. Both these features hide the fact that they are in the maple (Acer) family. Being maples, they can be tapped for sugary sap in the late winter. Complete directions for tapping maples for syrup can be found here: Making Maple Syrup & Sugar.

Come the warmth of spring, many Box Elder seedlings will sprout up. These are tasty treats to deer, rabbits, and humans! Get them when they are still tender and under eight inches tall. It will have a green, smooth bark and three-part leaves. Actually, the young seedlings look a bit like Poison Ivy to the untrained eye so make sure you know what you are eating. The first set of side leaves of Box Elder are symmetrical whereas Poison Ivy side leaves are asymmetrical with "thumbs" pointing away from the center leaf. The second set of Box Elder leaves will have asymmetrical "thumbs", similar to Poison Ivy.

The inner bark of these trees, like other maples, are edible and contain a fair amount of carbohydrates. Finely chop this inner bark then boil it. Be sure to drink the water to get all the calories. This boiled bark will be a bit sweeter than most other non-maple barks but a flavoring agent will help improve its taste. This inner bark is available all year long though its sugar-content will be highest in the later winter when the sap is flowing.

Box Elder seeds are, in my opinion, the best part of the tree. They grow in "helicopter" shells with two joined together at the stem. Come fall, the ripe shells will break apart and fall spinning to the ground. This fluttering motion will send them a small distance from the mother tree. Treat these seeds like pumpkin seeds except they must be freed from their helicopter shell before boiling them for ten minutes in salt water then salting and roasting them at 400F for 10-20 minutes. Cooking time depends on how crisp you want the final product.


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.

Cattails

Scientific name: Typha latifolia
Abundance: common
What: Tubers, shoots, male portion of flower, pollen
How: Tuber starch granules are removed by hand from fibers, young shoots cut from tubers, older stems can be peeled back to get soft, white edible pith, male (top) part of flower steamed before it become fluffy, pollen from male section is shaken into paper bag from flower and use as flour
Where: Shallow water
When: Tubers in winter, shoots in spring/summer, pollen and flowers in spring
Nutritional Value: Young shoots have low amounts of minerals. Pollen is high in protein. Tubers are high in calcium, iron, potassium, and carbohydrates.
Other uses: Fluff is good tinder and insulation, leaves can be woven into baskets and used to thatch huts.
Dangers: Fluff may cause skin irritation. Wash thoroughly before eating parts raw so as to avoid picking up any infectious, water-borne microbes.

Leaf Arrangement: Arranged in a basal rosette, with leaves emerging from the base underwater.

Leaf Shape: Linear blades, measuring 0.6 to 0.8 inches wide and ranging from 3 to 6 feet in length. Interior is made of hollow tubes running the long length of the leaf.

Leaf Venation: Features parallel venation with multiple veins running the length from base to tip.

Leaf Margin: Margins are entire, indicating they are smooth and uninterrupted along the edges.

Leaf Color: Displays vibrant green during the growing season, transitioning to brownish in the fall.

Flower Structure: Comprises a dense, cylindrical spike with male flowers at the top and female flowers below; spikes measure 4 to 8 inches in length and about 1 inch in diameter.

Flower Color: Male flowers exhibit a yellowish-brown hue, and female flowers are greenish-brown.

Fruit: Small, dry, one-seeded fruits (achenes) attached to a fluffy mass called a pappus..

Seed: Tiny, numerous, and attached to fluffy hairs for wind dispersal, each seed measures around 0.04 inches.

Stem: Stiff, erect, cylindrical, and capable of reaching 3 to 10 feet in height but generally doesn't rise much higher than the leaves. In late summer through winter the stem ends in the cattail "corndog".

Hairs: Absent on both leaves and stems.

Height: Can achieve an overall height of 4-6 feet above the top of the water.

Bullrushes/cattails






Close-up of cattail bases.


Cattail rhizome and new shoot at its tip.




Cattail tip, best cooked like asparagus.


Grilling up some cattail rhizome along with brats.


Peel off the outer, charred skin to chew up the starchy core.


A tender shoot.




Flowers (brown top is male portion, green part below male is female section)


Pollen coming from the male portion of the cattail flowerhead.


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.

This map is very incomplete.

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


Cattails are one of the most talked about wild foods to the point of even being called the "grocery store of the wild". Everything about them is edible at some point or another, usually when the particular part first appears.

Working through the seasons, in wintertime (as well as the rest of the year) the thick rhizomes
are roasted or baked then peeled. The white, stringy center mass is then chewed to get the cooked starch they contain. They have a Grahame cracker like flavor but spit out the stringy fibers once all the flavor is gone. The easiest way to cook these rhizomes is by tossing them on hot coals and occasionally flipping it until the outer surface begins to char and blacken.

In early spring the rhizome tips turn upwards and grow as new plants. These shoots are collected and treated like asparagus. I strongly recommend cooking the shoots to avoid getting sick due to water-borne microbes. The white, tubular shoots, before they open up into separate leaves are best. The white core is the best, peel off any green leaves to get to the yummy center.

In late spring the plants have matured enough to produce their flowers. These primitive plants produce separate male and female flowers with the male flowers lining the top portion of the stalk and the female flowers directly underneath. Clip off the male flowers and treat them like tiny ears of corn, being a good addition to food either raw or cooked.

Cattail pollen is produced in amazing quantities in late spring after the flowers mature. This pollen is a ready-to-use flour substitute and can be collected by shaking the flowers in a bag or other container to collect it.

During the summer months you are limited to cattail rhizomes as described earlier. Occasionally you may find a young, out-of-season, edible shoot. At this time the tops develop their fluffy seedbeds. This fluff, when dry, makes a good tinder for starting fires. It can be used as an insulation but it actually has tiny needles which will irritate your skin. A protective layer of fabric needs to be between you and the insulating fluff otherwise you'll develop a rash.

In the fall when all the above-water portions of the cattails turn brown the rhizomes will be at their thickest and most starch-filled growth. They'll remain this way until the stored starch is required to build new plant matter in the spring.


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.

Coral Bean

Scientific Name(s): Erythrina herbacea
Abundance: uncommon
What: flowers & young leaves
How: cooked flowers and leaves; tea from young leaves
Where: open fields and woodland clearings with sandy soil
When: spring.  
Nutritional Value: antioxidants
Dangers: plant must be cooked to remove toxins, do NOT eat the seeds or older, mature leaves.

Leaf Arrangement: Leaves are alternate along the stem.

Leaf Shape: Compound leaves with three leaflets, each leaflet measuring approximately 3 to 6 inches in length.

Leaf Color: Foliage is typically green.

Flower Structure: Coral bean produces showy, tubular flowers arranged in clusters. Individual flowers are around 1.5 to 2 inches long.

Flower Color: Flowers are typically bright red, coral pink, or occasionally white.

Fruit (Seed): The fruit is a pod, green when young and maturing to reddish-brown, and around 4 to 6 inches long. Mature seeds are bright red.

Bark: The bark is typically smooth and gray.

Height: Coral bean plants can reach heights of 6 to 10 feet.

Hairs: The plant may have sparse hairs on the stems and leaves.

Thorns: Some varieties may have thorns on the branches.

Growth Form: Coral bean has a shrub-like or small tree growth form.

A young Coral Bean flowering in the spring woods.


Coral Bean flowers in spring.


Close-up of flowers.


Coral Bean leaves, already too big to cook and eat.




Coral Bean "beans", which are NOT edible.




Dried seed pods from the previous year.




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.


The bright red, tubular flowers of the coral bean bush make a distinctive addition to the Gulf Coast region spring colors. This leggy bush, if not subjected to a killing frost, can grow into a small, wide-crowned tree which is sometimes used in landscaping. Normally it is found as a clusters of bushes about four feet tall in open clearings of woods and occasionally in fields. It does best in sandy, well-drained soils such as those along rivers and stream but due to their preference for dry feet, they'll be back quite a way from the water's edge. If the winter was mild enough you are likely to find flowers, fresh green seedpods and old cracked-open seedpods on the same plant. The spade-shaped, compound leaves grown in groups of three and have the neat feature of always being turned toward the sun, a process which is called "phototropism".

The only edible part of this plant are the red flowers and youngest leaves. Both parts must be boiled for 15 minutes to render them safe to eat. Cooking does shrink them the flowers and leaves down quite a bit so you'll want to harvest a lot...but never more than 10% of the flowers and new leaves so to insure the plant stays healthy and can reproduce. Stick to eating leaves 1.0-1.5 inches long, or smaller. The young leaves can also be boiled for a tea which some native tribes considered to be a general health tonic.

The red beans can not be made safe to eat as they contain a poison similar to curare. In Mexico these seeds are used to poison pest animals such as rats.

Hummingbirds love the sweet nectar found in the flowers and are immune to the coral bean toxins. While foragers and hummingbirds may like this shrub, many other land-owners find it to be a somewhat invasive nuisance. The plant produces many seeds which can cause it to quickly spread over an area, rendering it unfit for cattle or other domesticated animals.


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.

Dodder

Scientific Name(s): Cuscuta species
Abundance: common
What: stem/vine; seeds
How: stem cooked, seeds roasted
Where: sunny fields, borders
When: spring, summer, fall
Nutritional Value: contains carotenoids
Dangers: WARNING: RECENT RESEARCH INDICATES CERTAIN COMPOUNDS IN DODDER CAN CAUSE DAMAGE OVER TIME. I NO LONGER RECCOMEND EATING THIS PLANT!!

Dodder covering plants along Spring creek.


Close-ups of dodder vines.






Close-up of dodder vine tip.


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.


Dodder vines are a fascinating example of plant parasitism. They contain only minimal amounts of chlorophyl and survive by sucking all their necessary nutrients from host plants. Chemical receptors on the dodder vine allow it to "smell" he presence of preferred host plants, causing the dodder to grow towards it's host like a slow, orange plant vampire.

In light of dodder's orange color it should not be surprising that it contains B-carotene and other carotenoids. This makes it a good nibble for your eyes...though ingesting it via the mouth is the better method. Trying to eat something with you eyes usually ends badly.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. I've been working too hard lately.

While dodder vines are rich in carotenoids, there is little in literature about eating these it. Steaming it like a carrot would probably be best but I haven't tried that yet. Studies confirm that the darker orange the stem/vine the higher the B-carotene concentration. In the fall the seeds were collected, roasted, and pounded into a flour by Native Americans

Dodder seeds supposedly have medicinal properties according to Chinese and Japanese herbal lore. Seeds from the Asian dodder Cuscuta japonica are used as an anti-aging drug, reversing many of the common weaknesses brought on in old age, especially for men. Western medicines have not confirmed any of these effects.

Link to scientific paper about dodder carotenoids.

Because dodder absorbs many chemicals from its host plants, it itself can become toxic. Only eat dodder harvested from plants you can positively identify as safe to eat!


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.

Dollarweed

Scientific name: Hydrocotyle spp.
Abundance: plentiful
What: leaves, stems
How: raw
Where: yards, marshes, water
When: spring, summer, fall
Nutritional Value: some minerals
Dangers: Thoroughly wash plants collected from water to remove any harmful bacteria.

Leaf Arrangement: Leaves emerge singly on long petioles from creeping stems.

Leaf Shape: The leaves are round and peltate, meaning the leaf stalk attaches to the center of the leaf blade. They typically measure 1 to 2 inches in diameter.

Leaf Venation: Venation is obicular, radiating out from the central point where the petiole attaches.

Leaf Margin: The leaf margins are scalloped or toothed.

Leaf Color: Leaves are a bright, glossy green, sometimes with a slightly lighter color in the center.

Flower Structure: Small, umbrella-like clusters of tiny flowers rise on slender stalks from the leaf axils.

Flower Color: The flowers are generally white or pale green.

Fruit: Produces a small, flat fruit, not typically noticeable.

Seed: The seeds are contained within the small fruits, are minute in size.

Stem: Stems are slender, creeping, underground, and rooted at the leaf nodes.

Hairs: There are no significant hairs on the leaves or stems.

Height: The foliage and flowers typically rise a few inches above the ground, with the creeping stems spreading widely along the ground surface.

Dollarweeds domineering wood sorrel, pony's foot, and young cleavers.


A yard taken over by dollarweeds.


Dollarweeds in the woods.


Dollarweeds along the shore of a pond.


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.


Dollarweed is a common yard weed that drives many people nuts. The single, round leaf with a centered stem seems to explore across otherwise perfect lawns. Mowing them down or picking them leaves the roots behind which will quickly produce a new crop of green disks. These weeds vex homeowners in all but the very hottest and coldest times of the year, becoming most prevalent in the spring and fall.

Dollarweeds the size of quarters or smaller and my favorites, tasting somewhat like cucumber peels. I prefer the younger, more tender, nickel-sized "circles" over larger ones. The larger ones have a dry, slightly bitter/chalky taste. Luckily, Dollarweeds of all sizes can be fermented like cabbage to make "dollarweed-kraut" or a yard-based version of kimchee. Just pick the circles, leave the stingy, tough stems behind.

Dollar weed on left, edible Pony's Foot on right.


Some people get confused between dollarweed and pony's foot (Dichondra carolinensis). The leaf of dollarweed is a complete circle whereas pony's foot is cleft, giving it the shape of a horse's hoof.


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.