Native edible plants of North America

some clarifications:

Chrysolepis chrysophylla is a western species, common name chinkapin, but in the east, chinkapin is the common name for the smallest Castanea species, Castanea pumila. both edible.

for Typhus/cattails, pollen and young flowerheads are popular edible uses

would love to see sochan/Rudbeckia laciniata on the list, wild greens.

feeling a little apprehensive about editing the table myself at the moment.

Yeah, there's still a bit of work to be done on what's already here, too. I'll be slowly getting to it over the next couple of weeks, if it even takes me that long. Thanks for the input.

A fairly comprehensive list of food plants in North America was compiled and published in 1936. It contains 1,112 species. Some of the latin names have changed in the past century, but a quick search should turn up the current classification.

Here's a link to the publication: https://bit.ly/FoodPlantsNorthAmercianIndians

Is it meant to be North America or the continental U.S.?

I made some notes/additions on the plants I'm familiar with. Do you want those in a post here on the thread, or as a PM?

I originally had it at Continental US & Alaska, which means Canada is automatically included as well. Never bothered with Latin America or the Caribbean.

Anything anyone wants to throw up on here is helpful. Myself &/ or the moderators will do our best to include it.

Some additional notes:

(Basswood, Linden)
Flowers used in tea

(Myrica Gale; Pensylvanica; Caroliniensis)
Myrica gale dried fruits used as a spice/seasoning, leaves used in tea; in addition to bog myrtle we more commonly call it sweetgale (not bayberry)

(Bergamots)
I would add bee balm as a common name for Monarda didyma & fistulosa; used for tea, seasoning, edible flowers

(Bunchberry)
Bunchberry might not taste that great, but at least is perfectly safe and doesn’t taste bad (unlike many on this list that require specific processing to be safe and/or palatable). Helps set preserves of sweeter fruits with lower pectin.

(Chokeberry, Aronia)
A couple other species as well

(Chokecherry/ Pincherry, Fire Cherry)
I would separate these species. P. pensylvanica is pretty sweet, so the description here doesn’t apply. (Also, P. virginiana isn’t so much bitter as it is astringent, and that timeline on astringency-ripeness is going to vary by location and just year-to-year)

(clearweed/ Stinging Nettle)
Drying (as for tea) neutralizes the spines as well. Could add Laportea canadensis, wood nettle, unless that is listed separately already. I would put under Nettle for common name rather than Clearweed, or make two separate entries, one for nettle, one for clearweed, since clearweed doesn't have spines and can be eaten raw.

(Common Milkweed)
And flower buds

(Cow Parsnip)
And shoots and leaf shoots and dried seeds

(Cranberry)
Also V. oxycoccos (often called small cranberry)

(Eastern Red Cedar)
Also common juniper, Juniperus communis - it's a bush, rather than a tree, but produces the edible juniper berries you'd collect from J. virginiana . . . easier to harvest when they're closer to the ground

(Eastern Red Columbine)
Edible flower

(False Solomon’s Seal, Treacleberry)
Also roots and young leaves; very easy to grow, shade tolerant

(Fireweed)
Flowers, leaves, immature fruit used for tea; shoots and young leaves also edible

(Goldenrod)
Shoots as a spring veggie, mature leaves dried for tea

(Greenbriar)
This is worth breaking out into different Smilax species as the descriptions and food uses vary

(Pine (Eastern Hemlock))
I'd create separate entries for pine/Pinus, spruce/Picea, fir/Abies, hemlock/Tsuga . . . their descriptions and uses differ (but seem conflated within this one entry).

(Violet)
And leaves

(Wild Rose)
And petals

I was updating my scouring rush and field horsetail sale thread and saw this North American edible plants thread pop up next to it in the recent thread list. Would you consider adding Scouring Rush Horsetail (equisetum hyemale) and Field Horsetail (equisetum arvense) to this list? I have included a bit of background information about them in the sale thread.

I didn't know those were edible. We have a Whole bunch of scouring rush by where I live. I've tried chewing on one for medicinal purposes & they don't really taste good.

But, yeah, I'll try to get everything on here. I've been trying to work on it during my lunch break at work, so I can devote time to other chores when I'm off.

D Tucholske wrote:I didn't know those were edible. We have a Whole bunch of scouring rush by where I live. I've tried chewing on one for medicinal purposes & they don't really taste good.

But, yeah, I'll try to get everything on here. I've been trying to work on it during my lunch break at work, so I can devote time to other chores when I'm off.

The tender young shoots are edible, while the older plants are considered medicinal.

I thought I read it's the fertile shoots/stems that are edible (but vegetative shoots/stems are not). I was just reading that somewhere, maybe on permies?

Mark William wrote:

D Tucholske wrote:I didn't know those were edible. We have a Whole bunch of scouring rush by where I live. I've tried chewing on one for medicinal purposes & they don't really taste good.

But, yeah, I'll try to get everything on here. I've been trying to work on it during my lunch break at work, so I can devote time to other chores when I'm off.

The tender young shoots are edible, while the older plants are considered medicinal.

One I skipped over before because I needed to look it up - hyssop. The genus Hyssopus isn’t native to the continental U.S. But we have some native Agastache species with common names like anise hyssop, giant hyssop.

(Some Agastache species are native to other places and may be considered invasive in some places, like Korean hyssop.)