Yards, Gardens, Prairies, and Meadows

AMARANTH

Amaranth (Amaranthus spp.)

Identification: Amaranth, sometimes referred to as red root, is a hairy, stout weed with ovate to lance-shaped leaves on long stalks, and flowers in dense clusters on an elongated stem, bristly. Seeds typically black. Plant flowers in July and August, and seeds are available soon after.

Habitat: Roadsides, fields, waste ground east and west of the Mississippi River at lower elevations.

Food uses: Young shoots and leaves eaten raw or cooked. May be dried and reconstituted in hot water for winter food. Seeds used whole as cooked cereal. Seeds ground into flour and used to supplement flour for bread, muffins, etc. Seeds also added whole to bread, pancakes, and waffles. Pinole (atole) is a hot corn drink made with toasted amaranth seeds and roasted blue or white cornmeal. Spread cornmeal and amaranth seeds on a cookie sheet or aluminum foil. Toast in 425°F oven for 8–10 minutes. Add sugar and cinnamon, stir into hot milk, and simmer for 15 minutes. Native Americans ate leaves and seeds mixed with grease and cooked. Try a mixed-greens dish of young and tender amaranth leaves combined with mustard, plantain, dock, and nettle and cooked with bacon.

Medicinal uses: Native Americans used this plant mixed with green corn in sacred rituals. Leaves are astringent and used to stem profuse menstruation.

ASIATIC DAYFLOWER

Commelinaceae (Commelina communis)

Identification: Common weed in many gardens. Erect stems collapse on themselves as they grow (up to 3'). Deep-blue flowers, ½"–¾" wide, 2 rounded petals (like Mickey Mouse ears) with a small white petal behind the pair. Flower's ovary sheathed in 3 green sepals; 6 yellow-tipped stamens. Fleshy, oblong leaves, 3"–5" long, pointed tips. Leaves sheath stem.

Habitat: Found nationwide in gardens and on roadsides. Alien weed: originated in China.

Food uses: This free food comes up late every year. Young leaves and shoots can be added to salads. I get so many of these plants in my garden that I pull whole shoots, wash them, and add them to stir-fries. Entire flower is edible. As fruit matures, the seed capsule (tucked in the sepal sheath) is a crunchy treat. In late summer flowers keep coming. You can eat seedpods for a healthful dose of essential oils and phytosterols.

Medicinal uses: In China, leaf tea is used as a sore-throat gargle and for urinary tract infections, acute intestinal enteritis, and dysentery. Tea is also used to reduce fevers, as a detoxicant, and as a diuretic (to treat edema from joint swelling and pain from arthritis). Flowers contain isoflavones and phytosterols. Seeds contain fatty acids and essential and nonessential amino acids.

BURDOCK, GOBO BURDOCK

Compositae (Arctium lappa)

Identification: Biennial, first year's growth sprouts broad elephant earlike leaves (heart shaped) that grow directly from a deep taproot. Secondyear leaves are slightly smaller; mature plant is many branched and spreading to 7' or 8', although often much smaller. Flowers are crimson with inwardcurving bracts that eventually form the mature seed capsule, which is a burr. This is the plant that deposits burrs on your dog and your trousers. Break open the seed capsule, and plant the seeds.

Habitat: Found in the Northern Hemisphere, temperate zone. Found in gardens, along roadsides, and just about every place you walk your dog, providing an entertaining burr-pulling party. My favorite site is a lowland marsh with rich muck that produces outstanding specimens.

Food uses: Harvest roots in autumn or spring of the first year's growth. Root may be 20" or longer. Peel the root, wash, slice diagonally (julienne), and stir-fry, steam, or sauté. First year's leaves may be peeled, cooked, and eaten. Slivered roots taste great on pizza for texture and flavor. Second-year flower spikes cut and peeled—sauté or steam.

Medicinal uses: Historically used to treat immune system deficiency and skin conditions. Leaf infusion (tea) used for chronic skin problems. Root oil used the same way: Soak the chopped root in olive oil in the refrigerator for 1 month. Root as food considered antidiabetic, regulating blood sugar when lightly cooked. Root tea and eating the root reported to treat acne. Root polysaccharides said to lower blood sugar; polysaccharides require more steps in digestion, thus the release of glucose is slow and gradual. According to a Japanese study, the root is antimutagenic (anticancer) in animal studies.

Warning: Avoid if pregnant or lactating.

Notes: The root, called gobo in Asian markets, sells for as much as $8 a pound. It's free if in your backyard, so put it there. Pull burrs off a dog or your trousers, crush burrs to release seeds, spread seeds on scuffed soil in November. Plant thickly, and then thin seedlings in May.

CHICORY

Compositae (Cichorium intybus)

An attractive garden flower with edible leaves, edible flowers, and a digestionstimulating root.

Identification: Biennial or perennial to 4'; stem is erect, with few branches. Lanceolate (lance-shaped) leaves in a basal whorl, as well as additional smaller upper leaves on stem. Blue flowers (rarely white or pink) with square-tipped rays, and a dandelionlike root. Plant blooms July through September.

Habitat: Conspicuous flowers along roadsides, disturbed areas, fields, meadows, waste ground nationwide.

Food uses: The root can be dried, roasted, mixed with coffee beans, then ground to yield Cajun coffee. The flower petals are slightly bitter and add a nice contrast when stirred into cottage cheese (let the blossoms infuse into the cheese overnight in the refrigerator). The slightly bitter flowers are a healthful addition to salads, jumpstarting the digestion process. Tasty flower, bitter root.

Medicinal uses: Root dried or fresh is decocted in water as a diuretic, dietetic, and laxative. Root tea stimulates digestion, improving peristalsis and absorption. Root decoction used externally to treat fever blisters. Cherokee used root infusion as a nervine—a tonic for the nerves. Homeopathic preparation used for gallbladder and liver complaints. Root decoction may reduce blood sugar. Root constituents are antibacterial in vitro. Animal studies show chicory extract slows heart rate.

Warning: A few sources suggest long-term excessive use of chicory may impair vision. This has not been scientifically proven.

CLOVER, RED

Fabaceae (Trifolium pratense)

Identification: Often 3 leaflets showing pale chevron; round flower head; rose-purple flower petals.

Habitat: Common roadside companion throughout the United States.

Food uses: Petals can be batter-fried or eaten raw in salads. Whole aerial parts of plant can be infused to make a bland but healthful tea.

Medicinal uses: Tea from flowers is flavonoid rich, providing antioxidant, anticancer protection. Skilled herbalists used this plant to treat cuts, burns, and liver ailments. Integral part of the Essiac anticancer formula consisting of burdock root, slippery elm bark, rhubarb root, watercress, sheep sorrel, blessed thistle, red clover, and kelp.

DANDELION

Compositae (Taraxacum officinale)

Identification: Basal whorl of toothed leaves. Yellow flower with numerous rays. Torn leaf and/or flower stem will exude white-colored latex.

Habitat: Common yard bounty. Found in temperate regions worldwide.

Food uses: No waste—eat flower, root, leaves, and crown. A vitamin-and mineral-rich salad green. Tear it into small pieces for salad, mix with thyme and fennel, nasturtiums, along with other salad ingredients. Thyme and fennel balance the bitterness of dandelions. Make a mineral-rich tea from the roots and leaves. Gently simmer chopped fresh roots for a stomach bitters. Cook fresh leaves early in season with olive oil, bacon, and lemon juice. As season progresses leaves become bitter: Pour copious amount of water on the late-summer plants—the morning harvest will be sweeter. Even when bitter, leaves are a healthy addition to stir-fry. Try with tofu. Cook in oyster oil, with cayenne, garlic, and beef strips. Simmer or sauté with leeks, kale, and turnip greens.

Medicinal uses: Dried leaves and autumn roots are infused or decocted as a livercleansing tonic, aiding digestion and cleansing the blood. It is a diuretic, traditionally used to treat PMS, having a mild laxative effect, and may relieve inflammation and congestion of gallbladder and liver. Native Americans applied steamed leaves externally (poultice) to stomachaches. Eating green leaves considered a tonic and blood purifier, root taken to increase lactation and as a mild laxative and for dyspepsia. The bitter taste of dandelion is an appetite stimulant and may be helpful in treating anorexia. Because the bitter dandelion root decoction raises HCL in stomach, it improves calcium breakdown and absorption, increasing bile production and therefore lowering capacity (1 bile molecule requires 2 cholesterol molecules from the liver).

DAYLILY

Liliaceae (Hemerocallis fulva)

Identification: Yellow, tuberous roots; long, narrow, lance-like leaves; orange lily flower. Found along roadsides; transplant to clean soil away from auto pollution.

Habitat: Throughout the United States. Shade and sun tolerant; excellent garden transplant.

Food uses: Onion-tasting flowers are flavonoid rich. Daylily petals teased apart from the whole flower and tossed in with salad greens. Flowers (without pistils and stamens) and unopened buds can be stir-fried or batter-dipped and cooked tempura-style. Try the sautéed flowers wrapped in wontons, steamed. Wrap buds and flowers in a wonton, dip in soy and mustard—delicious. Buds can also be steamed, boiled, or deep-fried, and then served with butter or cheese sauce. Firm root tubers harvested all year. Add raw to salads or cook like a potato.

Note: I eat just the flower petals, not the reproductive organs, as the stamen, pistils, anthers, and filaments are bitter.

Medicinal uses: Daylily buds contain more protein and vitamin C than green beans and asparagus. Traditional people used the extract of the herb to treat cancer. There is evidence that extracts of daylily roots and crowns are pain relievers, a diuretic, and an antidote to arsenic poisoning. Daylily flowers are known to possess antioxidant properties and cyclooxygenase (COX) inhibitory; inhibition of COX can provide relief from the symptoms of inflammation and pain.

Warning: Use plant only when in bloom. Early growth resembles poisonous iris shoots (see Appendix A: Poisonous Plants); daylily's yellowish tubers are distinctive.

EVENING PRIMROSE

Onagraceae (Oenothera biennis)

Identification: Biennial that grows to 3' or more with fleshy turnip-like root. First-year plant is a basal rosette of leaves, second year is erect plant, conspicuous in the fall with its large seed-filled fruit capsules. Oblong lance-shaped leaves, pointed and finely dentate. Fragrant bugle-shaped yellow flowers are 1" long and grow from the leaf axils. Flowers open in evening and have 4 petals, 4 sepals, and 8 stamens. Fruit is linear-oblong, 4 sided, downy, about ½"–1" in length, producing seeds that are dark gray to black with sharp edges. Western varieties have white-, yellow-, or pinkcolored flowers.

Habitat: Found in gardens, along roadsides, on waste ground, fields, and prairies up and down and across North America. More than 20 species inhabit the western states.

Food uses: The root is edible (biennial plant: first-year root best, in the fall or early spring of second year). New leaves of first or second year are edible in salads and stir-fry. The leaves are tough and need to be cooked. Seeds poured from seed capsule (seed capsule looks like small, dried okra pod). Immature seed capsules may be cooked like okra but don't taste like okra—nothing like okra, not worth the trouble. But primrose seeds are available on cross-country ski trips throughout the winter. I pour them from the capsule and eat out of hand.

Medicinal uses: Seed oil is used to treat essential fatty acid deficiency and to lower cholesterol. Cholesterol-lowering effect proved successful in a double-blind crossover study conducted in 1996. Native Americans used warm root poultice to treat piles. Roots chewed to increase strength and endurance. Whole plant bruised, soaked, and used as a poultice on bruises and sores. Seed extract said to dilate coronary arteries and clear arterial obstruction.

GOATSBEARD OYSTER PLANT, YELLOW

Asteraceae (Tragopogon dubius)

Identification: Looks like a large dandelion; grows 2'–4' tall, with a smooth stem with yellow flower head. Stem hollow just below flower head, yellow rayed flower, 2½" in diameter, bladelike leaves; entire plant grows to 3', typically less.

Habitat: Dry areas, fields, open fringes of woods, fence lines, meadows, and burnouts. Found nationwide from east to west, north into Ontario and south to Texas.

Food uses: Young leaves boiled or sautéed. I have eaten flower petals, but do so judiciously, as I appear to be the only author who does.

Medicinal uses: Native Americans made a cold infusion of whole plant to treat animal bites and used latex sap as a milk substitute. Latex will dry and may be chewed; cathartic.

HEAL ALL, SELFHEAL

Lamiaceae (Prunella vulgaris)

Identification: Blue to violet bract of flowers clustered in a whorl at the end of the square stem. Stem, when young, is erect and may fall and creep. Plants are typically 6"–10" in height. Leaves ovate to lance shaped, margins are dentate to entire, and opposite.

Habitat: Found on waste ground, lawns, fields, and margins of woods nationwide.

Food uses: Sauté small leaves with stinging nettle and add to soups. Aerial parts made into an infusion with mint leaves and a twist of lime.

Medicinal uses: Documented use by the Chinese for more than 2,200 years, selfheal used for liver complaints and improving the function of the liver. The whole plant used in infusion to stimulate the liver and gallbladder and promote healing—considered alterative, and capable of changing the course of a chronic disease.

HOPS

Cannabaceae (Humulus lupulus)

Identification: A perennial climbing vine with pencil-thick stems that do not turn woody. The plant climbs through shrubs. Leaves are opposite, 3–5 lobed, and serrated. Male flowers are small, inconspicuous, and yellowish green. Female flowers have numerous florets, and a fruit cone grows from the flowers. Cone may be yellowish to gray depending on whether it is fresh or dried. The scales of the cone contain the bitter drug used in beer and digestive teas.

Habitat: It has escaped from cultivation and is found in marshes, meadows, and the edges of woods. Cultivated stands can be seen in Washington State, east of Seattle in the Yakima Valley, and in Idaho along the Canadian border.

Food uses: The fruit cone (gray to yellow) used in the production of beer; gives it a bitter flavor. The more hops, the greater the bitterness, as in Pilsner Urquell and popular IPA brews. Also used as a sedative tea. Cone-like flowers are placed in pillows to improve sleep.

Warning: Contact with pollen has caused allergic reactions.

Medicinal uses: Infusion of the flower or seed cone is emollient, sedative, and a bitter digestive stimulant. Native Americans used it in sweat lodges by soaking leaves and throwing the flowers on hot rocks. Basque shepherds use the cones in infusion as a calming sedative and digestive. They drink the tea to settle jittered nerves and stimulate digestive juices to hasten peristalsis and catharsis. Pioneers and Native Americans also used the tea to treat fevers from acute infections. Research suggests that the flower tea may impart estrogenic effect. Although subsequent research has not shown this effect, it is a phytoestrogen.

Notes: According to a few sources, smoking hops like marijuana may provide a mild sedative effect; the 2 species are related. To make a sleep aid, add about 1 teaspoon of dried flowers to a 6-ounce cup of hot water, just off the boil. Cover and let cool to lukewarm, then drink.

JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE, SUN CHOKE

Asteraceae (Helianthus tuberosus)

Identification: Yellow sunflower; broad ovate, rough leaves, lower leaves opposite, upper leaves alternate; hairy stem; tuberous root.

Habitat: Throughout the United States, along roadsides, gardens, fields.

Food uses: Tuber peeled, sliced, and eaten raw, and has taste similar to water chestnut. Also microwave, bake, or boil like a potato. This plant is worth looking for. I like it as a base for a tortilla española (frittata). Spread them on the bottom of an iron skillet, pour over 6 whipped eggs, add other wild plants (chopped), sharp cheese (grated); cook at 375°F for 15 minutes, serve.

Note: Add tubers to your garden and they'll provide a substantial food source that continues to reproduce year after year. Harvest tubers in fall and spring.

Medicinal uses: Tea made from flowers and leaves is a traditional treatment for arthritis. Inulin-rich tuber is slow to release sugars, making it a good food for diabetics.

LAMB'S QUARTER, PIGWEED, GOOSEFOOT

Chenopodiaceae (Chenopodium album)

Identification: To 5' in height, with light-green (grayish green) leaves with powderlike substance beneath, coarsely toothed, with a goosefoot or diamond shape. Small green flowers are in clusters, growing from top third of plant and many of the branches. Seeds are gray colored.

Habitat: Across the nation in meadows, along roadsides, gardens, waste ground, edges of cultivated fields.

Food uses: Add lamb's quarter leaves to salads, stir-fry, and steamed wontons with quinoa, carrots, burdock root. Roll wontons in quinoa seeds before steaming. Seeds may be ground and used in baking recipes. The herb flavors corn and fish dishes and Mexican foods. Add seeds to pancakes and waffles, bread, pizza dough. Also great as a cooked cereal and best when part of a multigrain cereal. Cook it like rice.

Medicinal uses: Lamb's quarter tea used for stomachache, scurvy, diarrhea. Also poultice over wounds and bites. In Mexico, cooked leaves and seed heads are believed to keep the digestive system clean and healthy. Cree used leaves for arthritis, rheumatism—washing joints and limbs with the decoction. Inuit people believe the leaves, when cooked with beans, dispel gas. Iroquois used a cold infusion of the plant to treat diarrhea. Leaves are high in vitamin C content (used to treat scurvy), and when eaten with seeds, the essential amino acid content is complete.

MILKWEED, COMMON MILKWEED

Asclepiadaceae (Asclepias syriaca)

Identification: Perennial to 4' with a single stem, leaves opposite, large, elliptical to 8" in length. Pink flowers in drooping clusters grow from leaf axils. Seedpod is striking, Arabian slipper–like.

Habitat: Edges of cornfields, waste ground, roadsides, railroad rights-of-way, meadows, dune lands, desert, gardens. Various species found nationwide.

Food uses: Native Americans prepared Asclepias syriaca like asparagus before milky sap appears (cooked in 2 changes of water). Flower buds are prepared like cooked broccoli when harvested before they open. Flowers buds and seedpods are prepared as follows: Boil water, pour over seedpods, let water and pods steep for 5 minutes, then pour off water. Repeat, pour a second boil of water over once-steeped pods, pour off water, and then stir-fry in olive oil or butter. Many people use 3 water baths over pods—recommended for first encounters. Flowers may be dried and stored for winter use in soups, stew. Keep in mind I have only eaten A. syriaca. Other species may be toxic. Do not experiment unless guided by an expert.

Warning: Plant parts contain a cardiac glycoside that must be denatured by repetitive cooking. First-time users, eat a very small bite of the plant to see if you have a reaction. Many people eat the plant, so it is contained here, but not without warning.

Medicinal uses: Native Americans pounded or split the roots to expose their flesh for drying. Dried roots in decoction have a mild cardiac-stimulating effect—without the toxic effects of digitalis. Be warned: This should be practiced with medical supervision because A. syriaca contains toxic cardiac glycosides and requires careful preparation before use. Native Americans believed the plant was a lactagogue because of the milky white sap, per the Doctrine of Signatures, or “like treats like.” Latex from leaves rubbed on warts and applied over insect stings, bites, and spider envenomations. According to Duke and Foster in Peterson's Field Guide to Medicinal Plants (p. 154), the plant is considered “dangerous and contraceptive”—respect this, and use the plant judiciously.

Warning: Root decoction emetic; may stimulate the heart; some people may experience allergic reactions to the milky sap.

PLANTAIN

Plantaginaceae (Plantago lanceolata; P. major; P. maritima)

Identification: Several varieties are found across the United States. The difference is in the leaves: P. major's leaves are broad and ovate, and P. lanceolata's leaves are narrow and lance shaped. Plantago maritima's leaves are narrower, almost linear, and it is found along the West Coast, often submerged during high tide. The green flowers of all 3 are born on terminal spikes.

Habitat: Discover these common plants on open ground, wasteland, edges of fields and roads, and lawns nationwide. Plantago maritima, as mentioned, is found in the upper tidal zone.

Food uses: In the spring I pluck whole leaves from my garden and yard, chop them into salads, or sauté them with wild leeks, nettles, dandelions, and watercress. Cut summer and autumn leaves from the tough midleaf vein (rib) before adding to salads. Seeds added to baked goods to improve fiber load.

Medicinal uses: Strip off flowering heads between thumb and forefinger into hot water to form mucilaginous drink for treating constipation. Crushed plant applied to dermatitis to treat poison ivy. Native Americans chewed the leaves, mixing in saliva and defensin (antibiotic in our mouths) to provide an antiseptic and immunestimulating poultice to be applied to wounds, scrapes, cuts, and bruises. It is styptic, stopping blood flow. Tea is diuretic, decongestant, expectorant, and may be helpful in diarrhea, dysentery, irritable bowel syndrome, laryngitis, and urinary tract bleeding. Acubin in plantain increases uric acid excretion by kidneys and may be helpful in treating gout. P. lanceolata extract from the fresh plant may fight colds (4 grams of herb to 1 cup boiling water), may alleviate symptoms of bronchitis and cough, and may reduce fever. It is German Commission E–approved for treating inflammation of pharynx and mouth, and for skin inflammations. Typically, a dose is 3–6 grams of the fresh whole herb (aerial parts when in bloom) added to a cup of water just off the boil. Let cool, then drink; taken 3 or 4 times a day.

POKEWEED, POKE SALAD

Phytolaccaceae (Phytolacca americana)

Identification: A smooth-skinned plant with purple stems when mature, to 10' tall but more typically 5'. Stems are hollow and usually marked with grooves. The root is long and thick. Leaves are ovate-lanceolate, alternate, 5"–10" in length, with entire margins. When rubbed, leaves provide a musty indicative scent. Flowers are on racemes, with a calyx but no corolla. Berries are purplish to black when ripe.

Habitat: From the Missouri River east to the coast and south to the Gulf. Found on waste ground, fields, roadsides, gardens.

Food uses: The young shoots of this plant are edible in the spring. Leaves are boiled in 2 changes of water. Avoid poke once the stem and leaf petioles have turned purple. The lectin content rises as the plant matures. Cooking destroys some of the lectins, and digestive juices get others. Your window of opportunity is short. This is an excellent tasting green. If you are not certain, you can find these greens canned and commercially available.

Medicinal uses: Native Americans traditionally used the root poultice over rheumatoid joints. Berries made into tea for rheumatic conditions. Berry tea is also used to treat dysentery. Infusion of root used for eczema, ulcerated wounds, and to reduce swelling. Dried and powdered roots spread over cuts and sores. Plant used as a proven laxative and emetic. A leaf decoction mixed with other plants taken as a blood purifier and stimulant. Infusion of root and branches used in sweat lodges to produce steam, considered antirheumatic. Root pounded and mixed with grease and applied to bunions.

PURSLANE

Portulacaceae (Portulaca oleracea)

Identification: Spreading succulent that sprawls through garden with thick, fleshy, shiny ovate leaves. Stems are many branched, supporting small inconspicuous flowers.

Habitat: Gardens and waste ground, even cracks in the sidewalk, from coast to coast. Volunteers sprout from composted manure.

Food uses: Purslane is a common garden plant, an alien creeper with ovate leaves, thick and succulent—eaten right off the ground, put in salads, and chopped into soup. The payoff is omega-3 essential fatty acids. Native Americans ate the leaves as a raw or cooked vegetable. It was also boiled in soups and with meats. Try it chopped in salads or in salad dressing, even turkey stuffing. Native Americans ate purslane raw with meat and green chiles. Can be dried and reconstituted as a winter food. Cow manure (store bought) put on the garden invariably produces purslane.

Medicinal uses: Crush plant and apply as a poultice or skin lotion. Whole plant in decoction is used to treat worms. Juice used to treat earaches. Juice of whole plant considered a tonic. Used in the past as an antidote to unspecified herbal toxins. Infusion of leaf stems used to stem diarrhea. Mashed plant used as a poultice over burns and bruises. Decoction of whole plant considered an antiseptic wash and was eaten as a traditional remedy to treat stomachache. Essential fatty acids may help prevent inflammatory conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis.

SPIDERWORT, WIDOW'S TEARS, SPIDER PLANT

Commelinaceae (Tradescantia virginiana, T. occidentalis, T. pinetorum)

Identification: Leaves are long, tough, swordlike, smooth, with entire margins. Numerous leaves grow from the base (no stem). Flowers are orchidlike, in drooping terminal clusters, deep blue; open in the morning and closed by afternoon. The plant blooms continuously throughout summer. There are at least 4 species in North America.

Habitat: In my garden and along railroad rights-of-way, roadsides, fields, and prairies from coast to coast.

Food uses: Tender shoots of spring eaten raw or cooked. Flowers are edible throughout year; pick in morning before they wilt. Try them in salads, stir-fry, or right off the plant. Flowers dipped in egg white and coated with powdered sugar. Flowers are mucilaginous.

Medicinal uses: Root tea was used as a laxative and for female kidney disorders and stomach problems. Crushed and smashed aerial parts of plant used as a poultice over insect bites, stings, and to bind wounds. Aerial infusion is also used to treat stomachache. Native Americans and pioneers used the crushed plant as a poultice to treat cancer. T. occidentalis tea used as a diuretic, and infused plant said to be an aphrodisiac.

Mixteca tribe of Mexico bound Hernan Cortez's thigh wound with this plant and is credited for saving his life. As a garden perennial, this plant gives and gives and gives.

THISTLE, BULL

Onagraceae (Cirsium vulgare)

Identification: Thorny biennial; ¾" purple flower with numerous rays rises from spiny bract. Barbed, deeply cut leaves of the first year's growth eaten after the spines are stripped away with a knife—wear gloves when harvesting roots and leaves.

Habitat: Coast to coast in northern-tier states, mountainsides, streamsides, waste ground, roadsides, dry, well-drained areas.

Food uses: Use a knife to strip thorny armor away from leaves. Eat raw or cooked; flavor similar to celery. Harvest leaves in the spring and fall. In summer flower petals sprinkled over salads. Roots can be boiled, sliced, and stir-fried. Some folks steam outer green bract around flower heads and eat it like an artichoke.

Medicinal uses: The Chinese use thistle teas and decoctions to treat appendicitis, internal bleeding, and inflammations.

WILD GARLIC

Liliaceae (Allium sativum)

Identification: Long, narrow, pencillike leaf stalk; flower head bears small green plantlets that drop off and propagate.

Habitat: Throughout the United States in fields, vacant lots, railroad sides, and other disturbed land.

Food uses: Always cook wild garlic and wild onions to cleave inulin molecules to a digestible sugar. Inulin is a polysaccharide, a stored-energy source typically found in roots and tubers and not easily digested. Taste a few bulbs in the spring, then eat the florets all summer.

Medicinal uses: Wild garlic, chives, and onions may reduce blood pressure, lower cholesterol, lower blood sugar, and protect you from acute infections such as a cold or the flu.

WILD ONIONS, CHIVES

Liliaceae (Allium spp.)

Identification: Like wild garlic, onions and chives come early. Chives are some of the first flowers of spring, and they shoot up as tender rounded stems to 18" tall. Garlic leaves are flattened; chives and onions are round.

Habitat: Disturbed ground, roadsides, fringes of lawns, fields, and meadows nationwide.

Food uses: Wild onion, field onions, wild chives, wild garlic, and wild leeks have edible flowers and edible bulbs. It is a good idea to cook the wild onion bulbs, as the inulin content is difficult for some people to digest. Cooking will break down this polysaccharide to a more manageable chain. After flowers bloom on these Allium species, a little bulblet, which is very edible, forms on the flower head. Pickle or stir-fry with vegetables and pork.

Medicinal uses: Like the cultivars onions, garlic, and leeks, wild alliums are infection fighters and may lower blood pressure. Sulfur compounds in alliums protect from acute infections like colds and flu. Like wild garlic, chives and onions reduce blood pressure, lower cholesterol, and stabilize or lower blood sugar.

WINTER CRESS AND BLACK MUSTARD

Black mustar

Brassicaceae (Barbarea vulgaris, Brassica nigra)

Identification: Both herbs are peppery tasting and have yellow flowers, with black mustard being preferred. Both have 4-petaled flowers, with black mustard flowers to ½" and winter cress to ⅓". Lower leaves of both plants divided into 5 segments (lobes), on winter cress with 4 lateral lobes and 1 terminal lobe; upper leaves on winter cress clasp stem, whereas upper leaves on black mustard are lance shaped and toothed and not lobed.

Habitat: Fields, pastures, roadsides, and wetland edges nationwide.

Food uses: Eat the flowers and leaves. Allow a few flowers to go to seed for next year's crop. Greens come early, in March and April. Flowers are best early: April for winter cress, June for black mustard. Black mustard is a pleasant addition to salad and cooked greens.

Medicinal uses: Plants have isothiocyanates hydrolyzed to sulforaphane in the mouth to provide protection from cancer.