Introduction & Important Notes:
Never eat or use anything you can not identify.
- Eating the wrong plant can lead to illness or in rare circumstances, even death.
- FUN FACT: Half of all red berries are poisonous!
If you are going to eat foraged foods make sure to test out small amounts first!
- Make sure to use foraged foods in small quantities in case you of upset stomach or reactions.
Make sure the area you are foraging is safe. Be aware of environmental hazards in your foraging location such as:
- Wildlife, e.g. snakes etc.
- chemical hazards from
- old oil fields
- roadways
- lead paint around old buildings
- Areas subject to flooding from sewers.
Respect the land and the plant and use Leave no trace principles.
Do not destroy plants, or over forage (pick only what you need). Plants are food for wildlife and have other purposes in the environment.
Be Prepared: Familiarize yourself with the area you are going to be in when camping or hiking.
- Different regions have different plants!
- Bring field guides along with you for those areas.
- iNaturalist
- Seek
Know your Texas ecoregion. (or US ecoregion)
Here in the San Antonio and Austin area we share similar ecoregions!
- Edwards Plateau
- Post-Oak Savannah (Cross Timbers)
- Blackland Prairie
- South Texas Plains (Brush Country) – San Antonio only
Trees
Hackberry
Scientific name: Celtis spp. (occidentalis, laevigata)
Abundance: plentiful
What: berries
How: raw, dried, preserves
Where: moist, sunny areas, along fences
When: fall when berries are red, orange, or purple
Nutritional Value: calories, protein
- Oldest-know foraged food, going back over 500,000 years
- Found on every continent except Antarctica, every culture that arose around hackberry trees utilized them as one of their main sources of calories
- Now it is considered a “trash tree” and considered to be an annoyance.
- The edible berry and seed is rich in protein and fats,
- but seed is extremely hard. Trying to crush the seed with your teeth can easily result in a broken tooth.
- Crush up the berries in a mortar & pestle to make a sweet, energizing paste.
- The seeds can also be crushed/blended with water, left over night and then strained to make “hackberry milk” which is similar to “almond milk”.
- If you don’t have a way to crush the seeds then just eat the skin/flesh off then spit out the seed.
- These berries ripen in the fall but will often remain on the trees and edible well into spring.
Ethnobotanical Uses:
Native Americans used the hackberry as a source of food, for medicinal purposes, and for special ceremonies. The bark of the tree was boiled down and used medicinally to induce abortions, regulate menstrual cycles, and cure venereal diseases. The berries were often crushed and used to flavour foods, or mixed with corn and animal fats to make a thick porridge.
Wildlife:
The hackberry is a great tree to attract birds and other animals who love to feed off the fruits both in the tree and on the forest floor. In fact, the hackberry relies on animals to eat the fruits and disperse its seeds in order to reproduce. The fruits are not just for forest animals though. Humans can enjoy the small berries as well. Also serves as a larval food for the american snout butterfly!
Mesquite
Scientific name: Prosopis glandulosa
Abundance: plentiful
What: young leaves, seed pods, seeds
How: seed pods raw, cooked; mature beans pounded into flour, made into tofu or tea. Young leaves in salad or cooked like spinach
Where: arid fields
When: late summer, early fall
Nutritional Value: carbohydrates, protein, calcium
Other uses: excellent firewood
Dangers: up to 20% of mesquite pods are infected with very dangerous aflatoxin-producing fungus. Only pick pods that are still on the tree and have not been attacked by boring-beetles.
- Compound leaves consisting of many leaflets.
- Mesquite seeds/seed pods are rich in protein, minerals, and fructose.
- This fructose makes them an exceptionally good food source for diabetics as the body does not use insulin to break down the fructose.
- FLOUR! The hard, shucked beans can be dried for storage and ground into a calorie-rich flour as needed. Be warned though that these beans are extremely hard and require a very high-quality grain mill to crush them.
- Pods that have fallen to the ground or which have bore-holes in them have up to a 20% chance of being infected by a aflatoxin-producing fungus.
- However, undamaged pods still on the tree are unlikely to have this problem.
- Most adults are quite resistant to aflatoxin effects but small children can be at risk. Very large doses of aflatoxin can eventually cause liver cancer.
Ethnobotanical Uses:
- “Chauite” the hardened mesquite sap is eaten like a candy. Can be boiled to make a chauite tea. Used as a stomach and digestive system aid, calmes nerves, and helps with stress.
- Mesquite Bread from the seed pods by making into a paste or flower.
- Longbows and structures were made from the wood of the mesquite.
Pecan
Scientific name: Carya illinoinensis
Abundance: plentiful
What: nuts
How: raw, cooked
Where: pecan trees
When: fall
Nutritional Value: carbohydrates and protein
The only tree nut indigenous to North America! There’s not much to say about the pecan we all know and love! Eat the nuts for a tasty and nutritional treat!
Ethnobotanical Uses:
Native Americans would use them as food for a good part of the year, gathering them and saving them by making holes in the ground where they would bury them in large quantities. They would keep a supply with them in small leather sacks.
Used as currency among Native American peoples.
The bark and leaves are astringent. A decoction of the bark has been used to treat TB. The pulverized leaves have been rubbed on the skin to treat ringworm.
Cedar Elm
Scientific name Ulmus crassifolia
What: Seeds, inner bark
How: young seeds roasted or boiled; inner bark dried then ground to flour or used in tea
Where: woods
When: leaves in spring, inner bark in spring
Nutritional Value: Calories
- The seeds appear in the spring and look like little fried eggs! Collect the whole pod then roast them.
- Seeds can be ground into a flour or boiled like a porridge.
- The inner bark can be dried then ground into a powder that, when made into tea, has a soothing effect on any part of the body it touches, both internally and externally. The dried powder can also be used as a flour substitute.
- Only harvest the inner bark in an emergency. Only remove a thin vertical strip covering less than 10% of the tree’s circumference. Taking more will kill the tree
Juniper
Scientific Name(s): Juniperus ashei (Juniperus virginianaalso found in Texas)
Abundance: common
What: berries
How: berries as seasoning, infused, tinctured, or raw.
Where: landscaping, arid, woods, borders, fields
When: spring, summer, fall, winter
Nutritional Value: low
Dangers: do not ingest leaves or leaf products of Juniperus virginiana, which contain thujone.
Medicinal: Inner Wood – soothes skin inflammations; kills scabies (ointment- salve, herbal tea- tisane)
- First things first, junipers and cedars are the same thing.
- There are two types of cedar trees in Texas. The first, Juniperus ashei, is the small, multi-trunked Hill Country cedar sometimes referred to as Mountain Cedar which takes on a roundish shape.
- More to the east and northern parts of Texas you’ll find the Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) which has a single trunk and grows quite tall with a pyramidal shape. The trunks of both are covered with loosely peeling, fibrous bark. The inner wood of both is reddish in color and very aromatic. When used in campfires it’ll “pop” a lot and throw sparks.
- Juniper berries take several years to mature.
- CAN BE EATEN RAW: The berries, which are not true berries but rather a very strange cone-like a pine cone, can be nibbled raw but they have a very potent flavor.
- Best used in small quantities as a flavoring agent or seasoning.
Wildlife:
Ashe juniper “berries” are highly palatable to many species of birds and small mammals. The bark of Ashe juniper is very is used for nesting material by the rare golden-cheeked warbler.
Other Use:
Ashe juniper is used for fenceposts, crossties, poles and fuel.
Oaks
Scientific Name: Quercus spp.
Abundance: common
What: nuts
How: leach out tannins with lots of water then grind to flour, roast nuts then grind for coffee
Where: oaks (white, red, live, burr, post, pin, etc)
When: fall
Nutritional Value: protein, minerals, fats and carbohydrates
Other uses: tanning leather
Dangers: very bitter if not tannic acid isn’t leached
- The calorie-laden acorns of oaks have supplied fats, oils, and protein to mankind for thousands of years.
- FLOUR! Acorns can be ground into a gluten-free, high-protein flour good for making flat breads and batter-style baked goods as well as to thicken stews and to make gravy.
- Acorn must have their tannic acid leached out before consumption.
- Tannic acid can be leached out by placing the shelled, crushed nuts in a mesh bag then submerging them in running or moving water for several days. Clean socks or pillow cases will work great for this.
- OR Soak them in warm water for a few hours, then pour off the water. Do a taste test. If the acorns are still too bitter, soak them in warm water for a few more hours.
- ROASTED! Roast the nuts to eat them raw, or for Coffee or flour
- Unfortunately, the fats and oils in acorns turn rancid fairly quickly. Fresh ground acorn flour will go bad in as little as four weeks if exposed to air and warm temperatures.
Galls
Galls: astringent, prevents and stops bleeding (hemostatic), antibacterial; antifungal
Galls occur on all types of trees and plants.
OAK: The oak gall wasp likes to lay its eggs under the tender bark of new oak twigs. Doing so somehow triggers the formation of a round oak gall. The oak tree doesn’t like this and starts pumping assorted chemicals into the gall to try and kill the wasp larva. The end result is a small, hard ball loaded with medicinal properties.
Ethnobotanical Uses:
- Galls were crushed and then used to make
- ointments,
- tinctures,
- medicated oils,
- and teas to fight infections inside and outside of the body.
- Boil crushed galls
- Drink for food poinsoning
- Stomach upset
- Place on wounds
- Antifungal
- Body Wash
- Cuts risk of fungal infections
- The crushed oak galls were also combined with iron salts in vinegar to create a very dark, non-fading ink.
- Appearance
- Brown
- Black mildew looking stuff is not good.
Ball Moss & Spanish Moss
- Same Family as Pinapple!
- Can be eaten! But is just a stomach filler
- Indicator of healthy plants
- Indicator of good air quality
- Can be used as soft filler for pillows and bedding.
- Medicinal uses: bacteria blocking!
- Pack wounds with it
- Keeps infections from spreading
SPANISH MOSS*:
- Might have chiggers
- Smoke it over a fire for a bit
Ethnobotanical Uses:
Various Native American tribes, including the Houma and the Seminole, have used Spanish moss for a variety of purposes. When the outer coating of the plant is cleaned away, tough, black, curly inner fibers are exposed. These strong fibers were useful in many ways. The fibers were woven into a coarse cloth that was used for bedding, floor mats, and horse blankets. The fibers could be twisted into cordage that was used as rope. The ropes were used to lash together the poles that composed the framework of housing. The dried fibers were used to remove scum in cooking. The process used to strip off the outer coating is still used today. It consists of placing bundles of the green moss into a shallow pond for six weeks, long enough for the outer coat to rot away.
Dry Spanish moss was used for fire arrows. The moss was wrapped around the base of the shaft, lit on fire and then shot from the bow. The moss was also an ingredient in the clay that was used to plaster the insides of houses.
Fresh Spanish moss was gathered, soaked in water and stuffed into dugout canoes to keep them from drying out and splitting. The Natchez tribe of Louisiana played a game that used fist-size balls that were stuffed with Spanish moss.
The plant was boiled to make tea for chills and fever. There is evidence that Spanish moss was used over 3,000 years ago to make fire-tempered pottery. Although the moss burned away during the firing, the distinctive pattern of the fibers is still evident in the clay pottery.
Spanish moss is still used today by many Native American tribes. For example, the Houma and the Koasati use Spanish moss in the construction and decoration of small dolls.
Wildlife:
Several species of bats including the Seminole bat roost in clumps of Spanish moss.
Yellow-throated warblers and northern parulas build their nests inside clumps of living Spanish moss. Several other species of birds gather the moss for nesting material.
There is at least one species of spider that only occurs in Spanish moss.
Livestock:
The plant is used as fodder for animals.
Other:
Spanish moss is used in flower arrangements and as decorations for handicrafts. It is said to be excellent mulch for the garden.
Spanish moss is grown commercially for use as packing material and as a replacement for horsehair in upholstery and mattress stuffing.
Campers, because of red bugs and chiggers do not recommend the plants for use as bedding. If you wish to use fresh Spanish moss you may get rid of these pests by boiling small portions of the plant in water or heating them in the microwave.
Lichen
Scientific name: That’s a bit complicated.
Abundance: plentiful
What: entire lichen
How: boil with sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) or hardwood ashes to neutralize acid, then either eat the resulting goo or add it to any stew, soup, or bread recipe.
Where: on trees, rocks, and ground everywhere in the world.
When: any time
Nutritional Value: carbohydrates, vitamin C, usnic acid
Dangers: neutralize lichen acids with hardwood ash to prevent stomachache
- Good indicator plant – clean soil
- Lichens are a symbiotic organism made up of a fungus combined with an algae and are found on just about every tree and most rocks.
- Bright colors used as source of traditional dyes.
- Most lichen are considered starvation foods and only eaten as a last resort.
- Must neutralize the acids or you’ll get stomach ache
- BOIL TO NEUTRALIZE ACID: The traditional method involves boiling the lichens in several changes of water with some ashes from hardwood or baking soda. The hardwood ashes produce lye (sodium hydroxide) which neutralizes acidic compounds in the lichen
- Use approximately 1-2 teaspoons of ashes or baking soda per two cups of chopped lichen.
- Filter out ashes and drink or add to other stew or food.
Of the thousands of different lichens, only two are not edible. They are BRIGHT YELLOW! These lichens are found from the Yukon down along the West Coast.
Plants
Passion Flower
Scientific name: Passiflora foetida
Abundance: common
What: flowers, ripe fruit, juice, leaves
How: raw, preserves, cold drink, tea
Where: sunny fields, yards, borders
When: late summer through fall until frost
Nutritional Value: Vitamin A & niacin
Medicinal:
- Leaves – sedative (tisane)
- Flowers – anti-anxiety (tisane)
- Tea made from the dried leaves and stem of the passion vine contains alkaloids with a sedative effect on humans.
- This tea can be purchased over the counter as a “sleepy time” in the United States.
Other common names: Corona De Cristo, Maypop
- Only eat ripe fruits – depending on the type of passion vine this could be a yellow or red color.
- Fruit is like a pomegranate. You can suck the meat of the seeds.
- Roasted seeds of these maypops are considered to be a wonderful snack in Puerto Rico.
Wildlife:
Passion Flower and vine is the only larval host of the Gulf Fritillary butterfly!
Turks Cap
Scientific name: Malvaviscus arboreus
Abundance: common
What: flowers, fruit, young leaves
How: Flowers and young leaves raw or cooked; flowers can make pink lemonade type drink; fruit can be made into tea or preserves.
Where: shady areas, often used in landscaping
When: Flowers can appear all year long if warm enough.
Nutritional Value: Flowers high in antioxidants; seeds are high in protein & starch; leaves high in minerals; fruit high in vitamin C
- Known as the Mexican Apple
- Young tender leaves can be used like spinach, in salads or cooked to soften their texture.
- Steam, sauté, boil or stir-fry
- Flowers can be eaten raw, and taste like honeysuckle.
- Flowers are loaded with nectar mid-morning and mid-afternoon.
- Flowers can also be dried to make tea
- The Fruit looks like an apple, and can be eaten raw or made into jelly or jam when red (ripe).
- While not edible the bark, both inner and outer, can be used to make cordage.
Ethnobotanical Uses:
Flowers of the plant were used to treat digestive inflammation and as a menstrual aid.
Horse Herb
Scientific name: Calyptocarpus vialis
Abundance: common
What: flowers, young leaves
How: Flowers and young leaves raw or cooked
Where: sun or shady areas, groundcover.
When: Can appear all year long if warm enough, dormant in colder winters.
- Also known as Straggler Daisy, Hierba Del Caballo, Lawnflower
- Young tender leaves can be used like spinach, in salads or cooked to soften their texture.
- Steam, sauté, boil or stir-fry
- Flowers can be eaten raw
- Considered famine food.
Wildlife:
Horseherb is a good shade tolerant ground cover with small yellow flowers that attract and feed smaller moths and butterflies. Acts as a resting place for pollinators in between spans of other large pollinator plants.
Prickly Pear Cactus
Scientific name: Opunita lindheimeri
Abundance: plentiful
What: fruit (tunas), pads (nopalito), flowers, juice, seeds
How: peeled pads can be pickled, fried, made into jerky; fruit can be raw or blended into a smoothy/icee drink; juice from strained fruit can be drunk, made into ice cream, mixed drinks, preserves; seeds are eaten raw or roasted.
Where: sunny fields
When: fruit-late summer, pads-all year though younger pads taste better.
Nutritional Value: vitamin C, some minerals and omega-3 fatty acid
Dangers: The spines and tiny, fine hairs are very irritating and can even be fatal if lodged in the throat. Burn off the spines/hairs to remove.
Medicinal:
Flowers – wound healer; strengthen capillaries; diuretic; controls release of sugars into the bloodstream (poultice, tisane)
Pad Pulp – speeds healing of contusions, sprains, and reduces bruises & swelling; soothes minor burns; soothes gastrointestinal inflammations (poultice, tisane)
- Before doing anything with the pads or fruit you must remove their tiny, almost invisible needles called glochids.
- The pads can be peeled then sliced and cooked like green beans though much slimier.
- The fruits are usually mashed, boiled, and then strained through a fine mesh such as cheesecloth to release their delicious juice.
- Peel the fruit then mash it up in a saucepan. Add just enough water so as to cover the pulp then boil for about ten minutes. Let the resulting juice cool a little then filter out the pulp and seeds through cheesecloth or other fine filter.
- This juice can be drunk straight, made into jelly or wine, or slightly sweetened (it’s already quite sweet) then boiled down to make a syrup.
- Cochineal is a scale insect that feeds on cactus.
- Natives would use this insect to dye clothing red and would farm the insect in plantations in Myan times.
- Spanish settlers began exporting
- Dye was said to be worth more than its weight in gold.
NOTE: we may see an upcoming battle with an invasive species of moth Cactoblastis cactorum or the Cactus moth. This moth is invasive from South America.
If you see any signs of the Cactus moth on prickly pear cactus – “Egg Sticks”, Moth Larvae, or Adult Moths like those pictured above, please notify the Texas Department of Agriculture by calling 512-463-7660 or emailing PlantQuality@TexasAgriculture.gov.
Currently, the best method of contorl is by manual removal of the “egg sticks”.
More about the cactus moth and how to identify it:
Chile Pequin / Chiltepin
Scientific Name(s): Capsium annuum
Abundance: uncommon
What: fruit
How: raw, dried, roasted
Where: borders
When: summer, fall
Nutritional Value: assorted beneficial chemicals
Dangers: HOT!!!
Medicinal: Fruit – antifungal; increases blood circulation, soothes muscle and nerve pain (tincture, infused vinegar, liniment, salve)
Chile pequin bushes are medium-sized, averaging about two feet high and three feet across.
Growing chile pequins from seeds isn’t easy as they evolved to pass through a bird’s stomach where the acid weakens the seed’s tough coat.
If you’re from South and Central Texas you might have grown up picking these from your yard and adding them into your salsa for spice!
Dandelion
Scientific name: Taraxacum officinale
Abundance: common
What: leaves, flowers, roots
How: young leaves in salad or boiled; flowers are used in wine; roots are roasted to make a coffee substitute or boiled for twenty-thirty minutes before eating
Where: yards, sunny
When: spring, early summer
Nutritional Value: Vitamins A, B, thiamine, riboflavin, minerals, and protein
Medicinal: Flower – wound healer (salve, infused oil)
Root/Leaves – diuretic; antibacterial; laxative; sedative; appetite stimulant (poultice, tisane, tincture)
- True Dandelion rarely grows in big paddocks, as does the False Dandelion.
- The true Dandelion is a plant that does not do well without plenty of water and protection from hot conditions so tends to grow in the garden,
- The medicinal Dandelion has soft, hairless leaves which are often used for salad greens, with a rosette arrangement of leaves which have toothed edges and a spear shaped tip.
- The yellow daisy like flower is produced on a single stem which turns into a ball of white fluff when it goes to seed which blow away easily in the wind or if disturbed.
- The plant contains a milky sap in the roots and stems. This sap can used topically in the treatment of warts.
- The plant has a strong bitter flavor. This bitterness can be tamed via several different methods. The easiest is just to boil the leaves in several changes of water to extract the bitter compounds.
- The yellow flowers can be used to make tea, or dress up a salad. Remove the extremely bitter, green bracts from the base of the flower though.
Yucca
Scientific name: Yucca spp.
Abundance: common
What: young flowers; flower stalks on both thick and thin-leaf yuccas before flowers appear; edible fruit of thick-leaf yucca (Yucca treculeana).
How: New flowers raw or cooked, flower stalks raw or cooked, fruit baked or roasted, stems raw or cooked
Where: Sunny areas
When: Flowers just after bloom, flower stalks before flowers appear, fruits when ripe, March through end of summer.
Nutritional Value: carbohydrates, minerals
Other uses: Soap from stem and root, fibers/cordage from leaves, laxative properties, fish poison (saponins) from root.
Dangers: Only flowers, flower stalk, and fruit are edible, the rest of the plant is very poisonous.
- Yucca flowers. They are best within the first few days or opening but after that they can turn bitter.
- Taste one before harvesting a lot.
- The individual flower buds taste like cauliflower.
- The flower stalk is sweet-tasting before it produces flower pods/flowers. Roast or pickle it before the pods appear.
- As the flower pods mature the stalk becomes tasteless and tough.
- After the flowers have past the ripe fruit of the thick-leaf yucca (Yucca treculeana) can be roasted and eaten like eggplant.
- The fibers of the yucca leaf are very strong and have been twisted into cordage for thousands of years.
- It is best to soak the leaves in water for a week or more to rot (aka retting) away the non-fibrous portion of the leaf which would otherwise weaken the cordage.
- NATURAL SOAP: Yucca root contains a very high concentration of chemicals called “saponins” which are a natural soap.
- FISHING: Native Americans used to put mashed yucca root in a woven bag, which was then dropped into a small pond or stream which had been dammed. The saponins enter into the bloodstream of the fish through their gills, stupefying them. They float to the surface where than can be easily caught. If quickly placed in clean, un-poisoned water the fish may revive and not suffer permanent damage.
Wild Sunflowers
Scientific name: Helianthus annuus
Abundance: plentiful
What: young flowers, seeds
How: seeds can be eaten raw, ground into flour, roasted, or crushed for sunflower oil, the shells can be roasted then used as a coffee substitute; young flowers are boiled
Where: Sunny areas, ditches, abandoned yards
When: Seeds ripen in late summer, early fall
Nutritional Value: carbohydrates, protein and oil
The young flowers, when green and before they’ve opened are quite good when boiled until tender then served with butter.
Wildlife:
The mature seeds are an excellent source of high-calorie oil which birds and other animals love. Humans can eat them, too but they are very small and are hard to get before animals do.
Ethnobotanical Uses:
The plant has been cultivated in Central North America since pre-Columbian times. Yellow dye obtained from the flowers and a black or dull blue dye from the seeds, were once important in Native American basketry and weaving.
Native Americans also ground the seeds for flour and used its oil for cooking and dressing hair.
It was believed, in the 19th century, that plants growing near a home would protect from malaria. Seeds from cultivated strains are now used for cooking oil and livestock feed in the United States and Eurasia.
Other Resources
Books
Pocket Guides
Websites and Social Media
@blackforager
Merriwether's Foraging Texas
John Slattery
