PNW Edible Plants

Share your tips for safe hiking, surviving in the wild and managing hiking injuries!
Post Reply
User avatar
Koda
Posts: 3466
Joined: June 5th, 2009, 7:54 am

PNW Edible Plants

Post by Koda » December 1st, 2013, 11:30 pm

Disclaimer: Seems like a good idea on the surface, but proper identification should be taken seriously.

thought I would share a cool website I stumbled on that seems to be focused on edible plants in our region: http://northernbushcraft.com/plants/index.htm

I'm not really into this, its more of a curiosity... but the idea of being able to identify and eat at will is intriguing. Problem I have is the few times I browsed a book on the subject the book was too thick covering every single and often uncommon plant in alphabetical order vs. practical order being what I actually see in the woods round here. Hope that makes sense.... I'm looking for instant gratification from a total layman's POV. I didn't buy the books... but appreciate the Northernbushcraft.com website. Now I've had my handful of berries and a few chantrelles but I think it would be fun to memorize a few of the other plants that are less obvious....

What I am curious is how many of these plants are actually common (Gorge, Mt Hood, SW Washington...) and has anyone ever tried some of these plants and how tasty were they?
lightweight, cheap, strong... pick 2

User avatar
Born2BBrad
Posts: 1086
Joined: May 1st, 2011, 7:26 pm
Location: The Dalles

Re: PNW Edible Plants

Post by Born2BBrad » December 2nd, 2013, 8:19 am

Great link. I have a book of edible plants of the PNW, which also identifies the poisonous ones. However, it only includes non-color drawings, which is barely useful.

The Northern Bushcraft website has multiple color photos that help immensely with identification. That being said, I won't go out of my way to eat many of the plants listed. Too much effort with not enough reward.

I have eaten bracken fern fiddleheads at a fancy restaurant and it was no big deal. Miners lettuce tastes just like lettuce. Small leaves make it time consuming to pick.

I have thought about picking some stinging nettles (with gloves) to cook up, since I know where there are several large patches.
Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.
- Jean Luc Picard

Link to GPX tracks
Link to Trip Reports

User avatar
potato
Posts: 1211
Joined: October 10th, 2011, 9:16 pm
Location: my car
Contact:

Re: PNW Edible Plants

Post by potato » December 2nd, 2013, 11:14 am

I'd like to know which edible plants have the highest caloric reward for the amount of effort required to harvest. Roots and berries are probably better than lettuce-like plants
self observing universe (main blog)
Joe hikes (PCT blog)
Laws of Nature (bandcamp)

User avatar
Koda
Posts: 3466
Joined: June 5th, 2009, 7:54 am

Re: PNW Edible Plants

Post by Koda » December 2nd, 2013, 12:00 pm

potato wrote:I'd like to know which edible plants have the highest caloric reward for the amount of effort required to harvest. Roots and berries are probably better than lettuce-like plants
That’s actually a good way to look at it, my guess would be mushrooms and roots like Chantrells and Swamp Onions (both easily harvested and abundant). Too bad the website I linked does not include nutritional information.
lightweight, cheap, strong... pick 2

User avatar
kepPNW
Posts: 6411
Joined: June 21st, 2012, 9:55 am
Location: Salmon Creek

Re: PNW Edible Plants

Post by kepPNW » December 2nd, 2013, 12:15 pm

Koda wrote:
potato wrote:I'd like to know which edible plants have the highest caloric reward for the amount of effort required to harvest. Roots and berries are probably better than lettuce-like plants
That’s actually a good way to look at it, my guess would be mushrooms and roots like Chantrells and Swamp Onions (both easily harvested and abundant). Too bad the website I linked does not include nutritional information.
One way to get a quick feel for that might be to look at native diets. Even the Journals provide some insight -- L&C were absolutely unimpressed (and eventually repulsed) by the mainstays of roots, berries, and dried salmon. But that was what provided sustenance for centuries before them.
Karl
Back on the trail, again...

payslee

Re: PNW Edible Plants

Post by payslee » December 3rd, 2013, 4:05 pm

Most of those plants listed are relatively common in our hiking area, although a few, such as the Bistort are up at higher elevation.

As for calorie return on investment - mostly it'll be root crops rather than leaves or stems that have the most nutritional value (not counting fruits and berries, which don't seem to be included in this selection). On his list that'll include the Wapato (arrowhead), cattail, lily corms (including beargrass). He lists "clover" but the common roadside clovers that you see around are not the kind you want (unless you're a deer). Large-rooted native clovers are much more rare and you're unlikely to run across them except maybe in "restored" prairies.

In our area wetlands are probably the go-to place for non-berry food foraging. Wapato, cattail, scirpus, knotweed, Devils club, yellow pond lily (which you'll mostly find south of our area) and several of the others are all wet-footed plants.

Interestingly, he left out pine nuts (which if you like pesto you'll know are delicious) and acorns, which apparently take a lot of processing but were a go-to survival food, as was the inner bark of cedar trees.

Some caveats about this particular list:
* stay the hell away from Camas! In the spring, the difference is obvious between purple-flowered regular camas (a staple food) and white-flowered DEATH CAMAS (eat and die). In the fall, which is when you harvest the bulbs, they look identical.

*plants on the list such as dandelions, chicory, and several of the large knotweed species are agressive non-native species and land managers will frequently spray pesticides on them if they are found, for example, along a hiking trail or riverbank.

* Please abide by whatever the land-manager's rules for picking are, and in the case of slow-growing wildflower species, such as the mariposa and most of the other "lily" species listed here, please abide bynative plant society collection guidelines so that our local populations are not extirpated. In short - if you're digging up a plant by the roots, take no more than one out of 100. If there are less than 100, take 0. Eighty years ago there were more than 50 additional species of wildflower growing in Forest Park and close-in urban areas than are found today - the loss from parkland is attributed to historical recreational picking.

Have fun out there. And remember that if you're ever in a survival situation and have the energy and mobility required to forage and prepare food plants, you're way better off looking for the road :-)

Or build a soda-bottle fish trap. Those are fun and astonishingly effective.

-payslee

User avatar
Guy
Posts: 3333
Joined: May 10th, 2009, 4:42 pm
Location: The Foothills of Mt Hood
Contact:

Re: PNW Edible Plants

Post by Guy » December 3rd, 2013, 4:17 pm

have thought about picking some stinging nettles (with gloves) to cook up, since I know where there are several large patches.
Nettles are a very good food source rich in vitamins, iron & calcium among other things. During WWII especially they were a staple vegetable substitute in the UK.

If you develop a taste for them Brad you could then enter the World Nettle eating Championships :) ..
hiking log & photos.
Ad monte summa aut mors

User avatar
Roy
Posts: 2824
Joined: January 25th, 2010, 6:35 pm

Re: PNW Edible Plants

Post by Roy » December 3rd, 2013, 7:10 pm

We legalized one WA they say it bakes up well in brownies :lol:

I have no clue.
The downhill of the mind is harder than the uphill of the body. - Yuichiro Miura

User avatar
romann
Posts: 2417
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm
Location: Vancouver, WA

Re: PNW Edible Plants

Post by romann » December 15th, 2013, 2:20 pm

Roy wrote:We legalized one WA they say it bakes up well in brownies
LOL - and it also was in energy bars I regularly eat on trail, even before legalized in WA. Probably one of the reasons hiking feels so good :)

And +1 on stinging nettles - they taste very good in soup (thoroughly boiled, so they lose their stinging effect). Pick only young plants, flowering plants = too old.

Post Reply