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Edible Plants In The Woods (vitamins, nutrients, and or edible ways (The…
Edible Plants In The Woods
vitamins, nutrients, and or edible ways
The roots of a bull thistle are edible when cooked. They taste somewhat of a Jerusalem artichoke. The young stems can be cooked and used as vegetables. Also the young leaves can be soaked in salt water overnight and then cooked and eaten.
Fireweed is a good source of vitamin A and B. Also, the young shoots of the fireweed make a good substitute for asparagus.
Prickly-pear cactus's can be eaten hole, but you have to carefully remove the spines. The prickly pear tastes like cucumbers and is sometimes boiled into some soups which get thicker.
CAUTION! The prickly pear cactus has minutely barbed glochids (hairs) that are easily dislodged when the plant is touched and they then become stuck to the skin where they are difficult to see and remove. They can cause considerable discomfort.
The roots of the yellow sweet clover was consumed as food by the Kalmuks. The young shoots can be cooked and used as asparagus. Young leaves can be eaten in salads and the leaves and seedpods can be cooked as vegetables.
The bluebell bellflower contains lots of vitamins C, and the leaves of this flower are edible raw or cooked.
Leaves and seed pods from white sweetclover can be cooked as a 'bean soup'. The pea-like seeds have been used as a seasoning for bean and split-pea soups. Young shoots, raw or cooked, can be added to salads or used as a potherb. Only fresh shoots should be used since the dried leaves can be toxic. This is due to the presence of coumarin, the substance that gives some dried plants the smell of new mown hay. The flowers of the plant, raw or cooked, tastes like vanilla and can be used as flavoring.
Color and name
Fire weed- smooth erect reddish stem. The leaves have a circular vein pattern that does no discontinue at the end of the leaf.
Plains prickly-pear cactus- Grayish-yellow and are in small clumps. They are covered in tawny spine-like bristles. They each have 5-11 strait spines If not at all.
Bull thistle- Pink to purple and rarely white, and very spiny
Yellow sweet clover- yellow and the leaves are divided into 3 leaflets. The leaflets are 1.5-3 cm long, with small, sharp teeth almost to the base.
Bluebell Bellflower- The calyx lobes are 4-12 mm long, usually entire.
White sweet clover- is an erect annual or biennial from strong taproot, often growing in colonies. The stem is freely branched above, hairless or with sparse, fine, flat, stiff, very short hairs.
Where is it?
Bull thistle can be found in pastures, fields, and roadsides
Prickly pear cactus's can be found in dry areas, from the plains into the foothills and lower mountains.
Fireweed can be found on highways,railroads, and on old burns.
The yellow sweet clover can be found on disturbed or cultivated ground, and along roadsides.
n a wide variety of habitats, plains to subalpine, in most parts of MT. Circumboreal, but not at high latitudes, extending s. in the mountains to TX, n. Mexico, and n. CA. Easily cultivated, but apt to become somewhat weedy.
Disturbed or cultivated ground, along roadsides, in most parts of MT. Introduced from Europe, and widely distributed as a weed.
Uses
The herb of the fireweed is used as an antiseptic. The fibery hairs on the seed can be used as tinder.
The roots of bull thistle have been used as a poultice for sore jaws. A hot infusion of the whole plant has been used as a herbal steam for treating rheumatic joints. Also the down makes an excellent tinder that is easily lit by a spark from a flint.
A poultice of the flesh ( inside of the prickly pear ) of the prickly pear has been used to treat skin sores, infections, wounds and back aches.
The yellow sweet clover can be dried and smell like freshly mown hay which can be stuffed in things like pillows or clothing as insect repellent. The plant can be used as green manure, enriching the soil with nitrogen as well as providing organic matter.
The Cree indians chewed the root of the bluebell bellflower in the treatment of heart and lung problems. An infusion of the roots has been used as ear drops for a sore ear by the Chippewa Indians. The Thompson Indians used a decoction of the plant to be drunk or used as a wash in the treatment of sore eyes.
The dried flowering white sweet clover has also been used in ointments for external ulcers.