Survival Manual: Edible and Medicinal Plants (part 3)
Description: This plant has tiny leaves arranged alternately. Its stem creeps along the ground. Its fruits are red berries.
Habitat and Distribution: It only grows in open, sunny, wet areas in the colder regions of the Northern Hemisphere.
Edible Parts: The berries are very tart when eaten raw. Cook in a small amount of water and add sugar, if available, to make a jelly.
Other Uses: Cranberries may act as a diuretic. They are useful for treating urinary tract infections.
Description: This is a dwarf evergreen shrub with short needlelike leaves. It has small, shiny, black berries that remain on the bush throughout the winter.
Habitat and Distribution: Look for this plant in tundra throughout arctic regions of North America and Eurasia.
Edible Parts: The fruits are edible fresh or can be dried for later use.
Description: This is a very dominant and easily detected tree because it extends above the other trees. Its height ranges from 45 to 60 meters (149 to 198 feet). It has leaves only at the top and is bare 11 months out of the year. It has rings on its bark that extend to the top to make it easily recognizable. Its bark is reddish or gray in color. Its roots are light reddish-brown or yellowish-brown.
Habitat and Distribution: The cuipo tree is located primarily in Central American tropical rain forests in mountainous areas.
Edible Parts: To get water from this tree, cut a piece of the root and clean the dirt and bark off one end, keeping the root horizontal. Put the clean end to your mouth or canteen and raise the other. The water from this tree tastes like potato water.
Other Uses: Use young saplings and the branches' inner bark to make rope.
Description: Dandelion leaves have a jagged edge, grow close to the ground, and are seldom more than 20 centimeters (8 inches) long. The flowers are bright yellow. There are several dandelion species.
Habitat and Distribution: Dandelions grow in open, sunny locations throughout the Northern Hemisphere.
Edible Parts: All parts are edible. Eat the leaves raw or cooked. Boil the roots as a vegetable. Roots roasted and ground are a good coffee substitute. Dandelions are high in vitamins A and C and in calcium.
Other Uses: Use the white juice in the flower stems as glue.
Description: The date palm is a tall, unbranched tree with a crown of huge, compound leaves. Its fruit is yellow when ripe.
Habitat and Distribution: This tree grows in arid semitropical regions. It is native to North Africa and the Middle East but has been planted in the arid semitropics in other parts of the world.
Edible Parts: Its fruit is edible fresh but is very bitter if eaten before it is ripe. You can dry the fruits in the sun and preserve them for a long time.
Other Uses: The trunks provide valuable building material in desert regions where few other treelike plants are found. The leaves are durable, and you can use them for thatching and as weaving material. The base of the leaves resembles coarse cloth that you can use for scrubbing and cleaning.
Description: This plant has unspotted, tawny blossoms that open for 1 day only. It has long, swordlike, green basal leaves. Its root is a mass of swollen and elongated tubers.
Habitat and Distribution: Daylilies are found worldwide in tropic and temperate zones. They are grown as a vegetable in the Orient and as an ornamental plant elsewhere.
Edible Parts: The young green leaves are edible raw or cooked. Tubers are also edible raw or cooked. You can eat its flowers raw, but they taste better cooked. You can also fry the flowers for storage.
CAUTION
Eating excessive amounts of raw flowers may cause diarrhea.
Description: The duchesnea is a small plant that has runners and three-parted leaves. Its flowers are yellow and its fruit resembles a strawberry.
Habitat and Distribution: It is native to southern Asia but is a common weed in warmer temperate regions. Look for it in lawns, gardens, and along roads.
Edible Parts: Its fruit is edible. Eat it fresh.
Description: Elderberry is a many-stemmed shrub with opposite, compound leaves. It grows to a height of 6 meters (20 feet). Its flowers are fragrant, white, and borne in large flat-topped clusters up to 30 centimeters (12 inches) across. Its berrylike fruits are dark blue or black when ripe.
Habitat and Distribution: This plant is found in open, usually wet areas at the margins of marshes, rivers, ditches, and lakes. It grows throughout much of eastern North America.
Edible Parts: The flowers and fruits are edible. You can make a drink by soaking the flower heads for 8 hours, discarding the flowers, and drinking the liquid.
CAUTION
All other parts of the plant are poisonous and dangerous if eaten.
Description: This plant grows up to 1.8 meters (6 feet) tall. It has large, showy, pink flowers and lance-shaped leaves. Its relative, the dwarf fireweed (_Epilobium latifolium_), grows 30 to 60 centimeters (12 to 24 inches) tall.
Habitat and Distribution: Tall fireweed is found in open woods, on hillsides, on stream banks, and near seashores in arctic regions. It is especially abundant in burned-over areas. Dwarf fireweed is found along streams, sandbars, and lakeshores and on alpine and arctic slopes.
Edible Parts: The leaves, stems, and flowers are edible in the spring but become tough in summer. You can split open the stems of old plants and eat the pith raw.
Description: Fishtail palms are large trees, at least 18 meters (60 feet) tall. Their leaves are unlike those of any other palm; the leaflets are irregular and toothed on the upper margins. All other palms have either fan-shaped or featherlike leaves. Its massive flowering shoot is borne at the top of the tree and hangs downward.
Habitat and Distribution: The fishtail palm is native to the tropics of India, Assam, and Myanmar. Several related species also exist in Southeast Asia and the Philippines. These palms are found in open hill country and jungle areas.
Edible Parts: The chief food in this palm is the starch stored in large quantities in its trunk. The juice from the fishtail palm is very nourishing and you have to drink it shortly after getting it from the palm flower shoot. Boil the juice down to get a rich sugar syrup. Use the same method as for the sugar palm to get the juice. The palm cabbage may be eaten raw or cooked.
Description: This weedy grass is readily recognized by the narrow, cylindrical head containing long hairs. Its grains are small, less than 6 millimeters (1/4 inch) long. The dense heads of grain often droop when ripe.
Habitat and Distribution: Look for foxtail grasses in open, sunny areas, along roads, and at the margins of fields. Some species occur in wet, marshy areas. Species of _Setaria are found throughout the United States, Europe, western Asia, and tropical Africa. In some parts of the world, foxtail grasses are grown as a food crop.
Edible Parts: The grains are edible raw but are very hard and sometimes bitter. Boiling removes some of the bitterness and makes them easier to eat.
Description: The goa bean is a climbing plant that may cover small shrubs and trees. Its bean pods are 22 centimeters (9 inches) long, its leaves 15 centimeters (6 inches) long, and its flowers are bright blue. The mature pods are 4-angled, with jagged wings on the pods.
Habitat and Distribution: This plant grows in tropical Africa, Asia, the East Indies, the Philippines, and Taiwan. This member of the bean (legume) family serves to illustrate a kind of edible bean common in the tropics of the Old World. Wild edible beans of this sort are most frequently found in clearings and around abandoned garden sites. They are more rare in forested areas.
Edible Parts: You can eat the young pods like string beans. The mature seeds are a valuable source of protein after parching or roasting them over hot coals. You can germinate the seeds (as you can many kinds of beans) in damp moss and eat the resultant sprouts. The thickened roots are edible raw. They are slightly sweet, with the firmness of an apple. You can also eat the young leaves as a vegetable, raw or steamed.
Description: Hackberry trees have smooth, gray bark that often has corky warts or ridges. The tree may reach 39 meters (129 feet) in height. Hackberry trees have long-pointed leaves that grow in two rows. This tree bears small, round berries that can be eaten when they are ripe and fall from the tree. The wood of the hackberry is yellowish.
Habitat and Distribution: This plant is widespread in the United States, especially in and near ponds.
Edible Parts: Its berries are edible when they are ripe and fall from the tree.
Description: Hazelnuts grow on bushes 1.8 to 3.6 meters (6 to 12 feet) high. One species in Turkey and another in China are large trees. The nut itself grows in a very bristly husk that conspicuously contracts above the nut into a long neck. The different species vary in this respect as to size and shape.
Habitat and Distribution: Hazelnuts are found over wide areas in the United States, especially the eastern half of the country and along the Pacific coast. These nuts are also found in Europe where they are known as filberts. The hazelnut is common in Asia, especially in eastern Asia from the Himalayas to China and Japan. The hazelnut usually grows in the dense thickets along stream banks and open places. They are not plants of the dense forest.
Edible Parts: Hazelnuts ripen in the autumn, when you can crack them open and eat the kernel. The dried nut is extremely delicious. The nut's high oil content makes it a good survival food. When they are unripe, you can crack them open and eat the fresh kernel.
Description: This tree grows from 4.5 to 14 meters (15 to 46 feet) tall. Its leaves have a fernlike appearance. Its flowers and long, pendulous fruits grow on the ends of the branches. Its fruit (pod) looks like a giant bean. Its 25- to 60-centimeter-long pods are triangular in cross section, with strong ribs. Its roots have a pungent odor.
Habitat and Distribution: This tree is found in the rain forests and semievergreen seasonal forests of the tropical regions. It is widespread in India, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Central America. Look for it in abandoned fields and gardens and at the edges of forests.
Edible Parts: The leaves are edible raw or cooked, depending on their hardness. Cut the young seedpods into short lengths and cook them like string beans or fry them. You can get oil for frying by boiling the young fruits of palms and skimming the oil off the surface of the water. You can eat the flowers as part of a salad. You can chew fresh, young seedpods to eat the pulpy and soft seeds. The roots may be ground as a substitute for seasoning similar to horseradish.
Description: This moss grows only a few inches high. Its color may be gray, white, or even reddish.
Habitat and Distribution: Look for it in open areas. It is found only in the arctic.
Edible Parts: All parts of the Iceland moss are edible. During the winter or dry season, it is dry and crunchy but softens when soaked. Boil the moss to remove the bitterness. After boiling, eat by itself or add to milk or grains as a thickening agent. Dried plants store well.
Description: All Claytonia species are somewhat fleshy plants only a few centimeters tall, with showy flowers about 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) across.
Habitat and Distribution: Some species are found in rich forests, where they are conspicuous before the leaves develop. Western species are found throughout most of the northern United States and in Canada.
Edible Parts: The tubers are edible but you should boil them before eating.
