Native edible plants of the Continental US

I found a few more, but was holding off until I felt a I had enough to warrant another post & kind of forgot about it. Discovered a while back that the east has a native gooseberry, after all- Eastern Prickly, aka Dogberry.

Also:

Canadian Honewort (Eastern US/ Canada)
Trout Lily Bulb (Eastern US)
Virginia Waterleaf (Eastern US)
Water Parsnip (Eastern US- very easy to confuse with invasive Poison Hemlock if looking at flower. Pay more attention to differences in shape of leaves & root instead)
Chinkapin Nuts (Pacific NW)
Epazote (American south, possibly)
Mayhaw (American SE)
Oyster leaf (northern Atlantic coast)
Prairie Parsley (survival food only)
Redroot Seeds ( American SW- only use is additive to make Pinolé)
Thyme Leaved Spurge ( American south, Great Plains)
Wild Parsley Root (Rocky Mins, Great Plains)

With mushrooms, I want to add:
Truffles- American Imaia, Michigan & Pecan
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If a more complete list all in one place helps, (other names for same plant after /, other species in () )we have:

Nuts/ Seeds:
Acorn, American Lotus, Beech, Blow Wife, Bodark/ Osage Orange/ Monkeybrain, Buckeye, California Poppy, Chestnut, Chia, Chinkapin Nuts, Hazelnut/ Filbert, Hickory Nut, Pecan, Pine nut, Quinoa/ Goosefoot, Sunflower, Virginia Sweetspire, Walnut (Butternut)

Spice:
American Lovage, Bergamot, Bayberry (Bog Myrtle), Calamint/ Wild Basil (Wild Savory), Eastern Redbud, Eastern Sweetshrub/ Carolina Allspice, Ginger, Goldenrod, Hyssop, Indian Potato, Juniper Berry, Maple Syrup/ Sugar, Mint (Whorled Mountain, Downy Wood, American, etc), Prairie Tea, Prickly Ash Pepper, Rock Cress, Sage, Saltbush, Sassafras/ Filé, Spicebush berries, Spikenard, Sweet Anise, Tarragon/ Wormwood, Toothwort, Virginia Pepperweed, Wintergreen/ Teaberry/ Checkerberry, Violet petals, Wild Tansymustard, Yampah/ Wild Dill

Vegetable:
American Licorice, American Lotus, Bamboo, Basswood Leaves, Bearberry/ Kinnikinnick/ Manzanita, Biscuit Root/ Kouse, Bitterroot, Black Nightshade, Black Tree Lichen, Brook Lettuce, Buckbean, Buffalo Gourd, Bur Cucumber, Cabbage Palm Heart, Camas, Canadian Honewort, Cattail, Clearweed (Stinging Nettle), Common Milkweed, Cow Parsnip, Creamcup Leaves, Creeping Cucumber, Dandelion, Eastern Redbud, False Solomon's Seal, Fern Fiddleheads (Lady, Cinnamon), German Rampion/ Primrose, Ginger, Greenbriar, Groundcone, Groundplum, Harbinger of Spring Root, Indian Breadroot, Indian Cucumber Root, Indian Potato/ Potato Bean/ Hopniss/ Groundnut, Jack in the Pulpit Root, Jerusalem Artichoke/ Sunchoke, Lake Cress, Lily Root, Marsh Marigold, Miner's Lettuce, Ocotillo, Okra, Oyster leaf, Pine tips, Pokeweed, Prickly Pear Cactus, Pea, Prairie Parsley, Prairie Potato, Purplestem Angelica, Saltbush, Samphire Greens, Seaweed/ Dulse, Shooting Star Root, Shorebay leaf, Skunk Cabbage, Solomon's Seal, Spikenard,  Sweetflag, Sweetvetch Root, Thyme-leaved Spurge, Tinpsila, Tockwogh/ Tuckahoe, Triplet Lily Root, Tule, Virginian Dwarf Plantain, Virginia Waterleaf, Wapato/ Duck Potato, Water Horehound/ American Bugleweed/ Gypsywort, Water Parsnip, White Alder Catkins, White Avens, White Chervil, Winter dress/ Yellowrocket, Wood Sorrel, Wild Beans (Wild Kidney, Wild Trailing, Rattlebox, Mesquite), Wild Chili Peppers, Wild Onion (Meadow Garlic, Ramps, Nodding), Wild Sweet Potato/ Morning Glory Root, Yampah, Yucca

Fruit:
Alligator Apple, American Olive, Beautyberry, Black Cherry (Sand Cherry), Black Huckleberry, Black Raspberry (Red Raspberry, Blackberry, Salmonberry, Cloudberry), Blueberry (Western Huckleberry, Sparkleberry), Buffaloberry, Bunchberry, Carolina Buckthorn, Chokeberry/ Aronia, Chokecherry (Pincherry), Cocoplum, Crabapple, Cranberry (Lingonberry), Creek Plum, Crowberry (Rock berry), Currants, Deerberry, Dewberry, Elderberry, Gaylussacia/ Eastern Black Huckleberry, Fairybell Berry, Figs, Goji berry/ Wolf Berry, Gooseberry, Gopher Apple, Hackberry/ Sugarberry, Haw, Hogpeanut (actually not sure what to classify it as), Honeyberry/ Fly Honeysuckle, Magnolia Fruit, Mayapple, Mayhaw, Maypop, Mesae-Verde Cactus Fruit, Mulberry, Oregon Grape, Osoberry, Papaw/ Hillbilly Mango, Partridge berry, Pigeon Plum, Plum, Prickly Pear Cactus, Red Huckleberry, Rowan Berry, Saguaro Cactus Fruit, Salal, Saw Palmetto Berry, Sea Grape, Serviceberry/ Juneberry/ Saskatoon, Sourberry, Strawberry, Strawberry Blite, Texas Persimmon, Tupelo fruit, Viburnum Berry/ Highbush Cranberry/ Mooseberry (American Cranberrybush, Blackhaw, Nannyberry), Virginian Groundcherry, Virginia Persimmon, Wintergreen/ Teaberry/ Checkerberry

Grain:
Buckwheat, Little Barley Pampas Grass, Mountain Rice, Wild Rice

Beverage:
Appalachian Tea/ Inkberry (Yaupon Holly), Bergamot, Bog Rosemary, California Laurel, Eastern Red Columbine, Eastern Redbud, Florida Pennyroyal, Goldenrod, Grape, Honey Locust (Black Locust), Hops, Hoptree/ Wafer Ash, Indian Potato, Kentucky Coffeetree, Leatherleaf Tea, Pine tea/ Nettle beer, Pacific Madrone/ Madrona, Prairie Tea, Senna tea, Sourwood tea, Spicebush tea, Sumac, Wild Rose Rosehips, Yarrow, Yerba Buena

Nothing new, but one quick correction.

Buffalo Gourd is not the wild ancestor of domesticated squash/ pumpkins in the Eastern US & it's highly possible that no species is or ever was considered edible.

The actual wild plant in question is Cucurbita Pepo Ozarkana, which was only identified a few years ago & grows naturally in the general area around where the Ohio, Mississippi & Missouri Rivers converge.

Someone brought up a new tree with edible fruit that I'm just going to arbitrarily call Torreya Nuts.

There are two North American species- one on the west coast (Torreya California) & one in extreme SE US (Torreya Taxifolia). They are sometimes called Nutmeg trees, albeit I haven't seen a given reason & they are not related to the actual plant we get nutmeg from, but as a sort of conifer. Both species are in a pretty bad place, with the west coast species being highly threatened & on the verge of being added to the endangered species list. The east coast species is already there & are only known to still exist in a tiny little pocket of northwestern Florida, according to Wikipedia.

OK, at one point I brought up the plant American Olive (Cartrema Americana) & confusion as to whether this plant was edible or not. I think I may have uncovered the solution.

We have a somewhat rare species of tree Native to the south & much of the Mississippi River Valley, plus down through Texas & into Mexico called the Gum Bully Tree (Sideroxylon Lanuginosum), among other names. The fruit is edible, but only in small quantities. People are known to often call the fruit of related species "olives." They are edible, though don't taste good, (the foreign species I found a video on, at least, foetidissima), though have a high sugar content & seem to ferment really well.

So, probably don't attempt to eat the fruit of American Olive.

Navajo Spinach (cleome serrulata)
Great Plains & Southwest
Edible leaves

Turk's Cap Mallow (Malvaviscus Arboreus)
Deep south states, from Texas east.
Edible leaves & flowers. Berries technically Edible, but more often used to make syrups & teas, like rosehips.

Pickerelweed (pontederia lanceolata)
Eastern swamps
Stalks edible raw or cooked

Tobacco root (valeriana edulis)
Most of Great Plains region
Actually a once very commonly eaten root by natives across the Great Plains, from western Ohio, all the way to the Rockies. Had a strong, disagreeable scent when cooked. Unsure if the name tobacco root is because of smell or possible use as a kinnikinnick. Not really tobacco, but a species of valerian.

American sea rocket (cakile edentula)
Eastern Sand & Beach areas of North America
Technically Edible in small quantities when cooked. Not preferable.

Devil's claw (proboscidea louisianica)
Unknown range, but probably around US-Mexico border region
Young fruits can be pickled & Native people allegedly ate the seeds, though the plant had numerous uses, including in making a black dye.

I didn't see Miner's Lettuce (Montia perfoliata) in the list for California and the Pacific coast. While many of the plants mentioned are unpalatable except as survival fare, Miner's Lettuce is delicious, mild, and juicy. It is in fact offered by several seed companies for growing as salad. https://www.quailseeds.com/store/p2/Miner%27s_Lettuce_%28Claytonia%29.html

You may want to draw a little firmer line between edible and medicinal plants. I guess medicinal herbs are somewhat edible, in that you ingest them. And there are certainly a lot of medicinal foods--burdock comes to mind. But most medicinals  are taken in small quantities to work a change in the body, and some of those changes can be pretty serious if used at the wrong time, in larger quantities, or too often. California Poppy is a strong sedative for example. It is not technically an opiate, but it has the same effect, I can tell you from experience that it will knock you right out. The active dose is much smaller than a  portion of food, so it's hard to imagine a situation where eating it for food would have any point.

Even more worrisome is the inclusion of Andromeda, bog rosemary. This may be one of those situations where the common name is creating a dangerous situation; while most sources list Andromeda sp as having the common name Bog Rosemary, it is possible that there is some confusion there. Andromeda is truly poisonous, and has no flavor or scent to recommend it as a tea. Why advise people to make tea out of a plant known to be seriously poisonous?  Where I live, sun tea can reach temperatures near boiling, so that is not much of a safeguard.
However, Bog rosemary almost always grows in close proximity to Labrador tea (Ledum sp), which is a first-rate tea plant.  It is easy to imagine someone calling Ledum Bog Rosemary--it grows in bogs like the Andromeda, but has a strong spicy odor not unlike true rosemary, while Andromeda has none. However, mixing them up is a potentially bad mistake.
In Alaska, children are taught from an early age how to tell them apart, so they can gather Labrador tea for the family.  The leaves of both Bog Rosemary and Labrador Tea are simple oblongs with a waxy texture and edges that are rolled under. However, Bog Rosemary is white underneath with no odor. Labrador Tea can be told by  it's strong, spicy smell and rusty fur on the underside of the leaves. It makes a wonderful tea, which is widely popular in the north due to its great flavor, and is safe to ingest. (Ledum should not, however, be tinctured, as alcohol extracts some undesirable compounds that are not water-soluble. Some sources recommend against long boiling as well.) I wonder if Ledum is what your source had in mind  in the first place......

Good to know. It's not something I've tried myself, as we don't have any around here. Another plant called Leatherleaf is supposed to work the same way. One of the two, the source was from a Native person & I can no longer remember which one. Frankly, it wouldn't be the first time I've had to back up or rescind something.

I'm pretty sure someone did put Miner's Lettuce on here. I think I must have forgot it in that last big list I compiled on this page.

We are preparing to start a new thread which will have an updatable list at the first post to make it easier to understand where we are with things.

Interesting thing is, while crafting the page, I discovered a few more edible plants which were hiding behind similar common names, so those will be on the new thread, once its up.

Some comments on the west coast list on the first post:

California Poppy - not edible, but medicinal. Personally one of my favorite medicinal plants for anxiety, but tastes like old musty gym socks and not edible.

Goji berry (Lycium) is native to Asia, not north America.

Sage - the garden sage is native to Europe, not north America. There are MANY plants with the common name of sage, in several genera. Many are medicinal, some have limited edible potential, some are poisonous, so do your research.

Snowberry - the west coast species (Symphoricarpos) is not edible. I haven't heard of it being particularly poisonous, but some of the native tribes call it "ghost berry" because it is only fit for ghosts to eat.

The first post also mentioned ginger. Culinary ginger (Zingiber) is not native to the US, and it's too tender to grow in most of the US. However, there are several species of wild ginger, Asarum spp. that are edible. It's not recommended to eat it as freely as culinary ginger, however.

Some other posts mentioned:

German rampion - the more common name for this is evening primrose (Oenothera biennis). Rampion is also the common name of an invasive Campanula introduced from Europe, Campanula rapunculoides. This is also edible but not native.

Tarragon - the garden tarragon is a sweet tasting cultivar of Artemisia dracunculus that originated in Siberia. The species grows circumboreally and seems to be generally considered native to north America, however there is some debate as to whether it was an early introduction. The wild NA species is bitter, not the same taste as the garden variety.

As many of the posts in this thread demonstrate, it is important to use scientific names because many unrelated plants can share a common name. Especially when discussing wild edible plants, where there is the danger of misidentification and poisoning.

I have personally eaten these plants native to my area:
Bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum) - flowers and sap
Several Allium sp - whole plant
Juneberry (Amelanchier alnifolia)
Lady Fern (Athyrium filix-femina) - fiddleheads
Licorice Fern (Polypodium glycyrrhizin) - roots
Balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata)
Oregon grape (several Mahonia sp) - baby leaves, flowers, berries
Blackcap, trailing blackberry, thimbleberry, salmonberry, cloudberry, raspberry (various Rubus sp) - berries, plus young shoots of thimbleberry and salmonberry
Camas (Camassia quamash) - roots
Riceroot (Fritillaria camschatcensis) - roots
Yampah (Perideridia gairdneri) - roots
Hazelnut (Corylus cornuta)
Elderberry (several Sambucus sp.) - the red berries are very bitter and not palatable, but otherwise all flowers and berries. The green parts of the plants are poisonous.
Highbush cranberry (Viburnum Edible) - berries
Stonecrop (several Sedum sp) - leaves
Salal (Gaultheria shallon) - leaves and berries
Blueberries and huckleberries (various Vaccinium sp) - all leaves and fruit, red huckleberries are my favorite!
Currant and gooseberries (various Ribes sp)
Yerba Buena (Satureja douglasii) - leaves
Fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium) - young stems
Wild strawberries (several Fragaria sp)
Osoberry (Oemlaria cerasiformis) - berries
Wild roses (several Rosa sp) - hips
Nettle (Urtica dioica) - young leaves
Wild ginger (Asarum caudatum) - roots
Miners lettuce (several Claytonia sp)

There are non native species of Rubus, Rosa, Acer, Allium, Sambucus, Viburnum, Sedum, so research the species. Some are very weedy.

One last note, just because a species is native to one side of the continent, doesn't mean it's native to the other side. Black locust is non native and very invasive here. It would never have crossed the Rockies without human help, and there aren't the same ecological checks to it's growth here (native pests etc).

Yeah, we caught a couple of those already, though we do actually have species of lycium native to North America & they are also edible- mostly from around the southwest, northern Mexico even one species is native to South Carolina. It's just the common names we tend to use- Silverberry, wolf berry & Christmas berry are also names for other unrelated plants too. Though, to my knowledge, the Chinese goji are the best quality.

I'll have to look into a couple that you mentioned- balsamroot & riceroot. Thanks for bringing them up. We also are trying to migrate all of this over to a new thread that has a chart on top. It's live on the forum, but it's not finished yet.

For ease of reference here is a link to that new thread with a chart on top.

https://permies.com/wiki/179765/Native-edible-plants-North-America

Varies species of Native wild Rye grasses have edible grains for making bread, sprouting, or just cooking the grains you just have to watch out for ergot.

What's happening! D you forgot to add Virginia and pitch pines which are native to your Ohio, as well as some rhodendrons and azeleas. You ever saw an American chestnut tree before? There's a rare magnolia tree in your state called the bigleaf and whether you've seen it. I've got some unique trees found in my Illinois including bald cypress, shortleaf pine, red pine, American chestnut, water hickory, tamarack and American mountain ash. There's also rhodenrons and azeleas in the La Rue hills area of the Shawnee forest. Here in the Chicago area, I have jack pine, black gum, redbud,  sassafras, flowering dogwood and paper birch. Universal list you got!

Yeah, I'm still not too familiar with what you can do with witch pines. I do know that we have a Native Azalea, but it's associated with mountains, so I was unsure if they would grow where I am.