CO DO [5<OU~164036 J CQ CO OSMANIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 5B^ CallN - Accession No. fVAAE. 4. Author Title This book should be returned on or before the date last marked below. EDIBLE WILD PLANTS THK MACMILLAN COMPANY NfcAV YORK CHICAGO DALLAS ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO LONDON MANILA IN CANADA BllETT-MACMILLAN LTD. GALF, OV1AO1O EDIBLE WILD PLANTS by Oliver Perry Medsger Professor of Nature Education, Emeritus The Pennsylvania State College WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY Ernest Thompson Seton Illustrated with Eighty Pen and Ink Drawings and Nineteen Photographs N E W YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Copyright, 1939, by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY All rights reserved no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in magazine or newspaper. Set up and plated. Published March, 1939 Twelfth Printing, 1962 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO MY WIFE JENNIE ARNOLD MEDSGER MY COMPANION THROUGH THE YEARS, THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED INTRODUCTION BY ERNEST THOMPSON SETON MORE than once I have been called to write the introduction to a book treating on some aspect of nature that was much in the line of my own interests; and usually had no difficulty in penning the few pages that were called for. But the introduction to a book by Oliver P. Medsger proved a wholly different undertaking. Why this should be the case will be better understood when I describe my first meeting with this man of the woods. It was at Woodland, New York, in the camp of Harry Little (Sagamore), that my good luck sent me out on a forest walk with Medsger; and every yard of our trip was made delightful by some bit of information about the myriad forms of wild life around us forms with which I had been superficially acquainted all my life, but which I never really knew, because I had no exact names, no knowledge of their virtues. It reminded me of an incident in my early life in the West. A prairie-born girl was asked by her mother what her dream of heaven would be. The child's whole life had been in the home circle on the Plains; so she said simply: "Heaven is a place with a big shady tree, and an angel sitting under it, who never says, T don't know/ when asked a question." In my own childhood and youth, I suffered beyond expression from the knowledge-hunger, from the impossibility of learning about the abounding wild life around me. And now, when it seemed almost too late, I had found a competent guide. I know now why his Indian name is "Nibowaka," the "Wise Woodman." "This man has opened and read the book of nature," I said. "And, more than that, he loves it, for his knowledge embodies not only the names and qualities of the plants and trees, but also the poetical ideas about them, and pleasant little rhymes and fancies that fix the bird or flower in memory and give it the romantic glamour so vital to the lover of the woods." vii Introduction viii That walk was one of many in the years that followed ; and the joy of the first was not exceptional. The qualities of his talk were the same a mingling of science and art, encyclopedic information and romantic joy in the woodland world of beauty. Thus you see why I was possessed of a sense of being over- whelmed when confronted with the responsibility of writing this introduction. As a matter of fact, I made many attempts during the last year, and cast each aside in turn. But the book is in press, I must keep faith with the printer. If an introduction is meant to be an adequate proclamation to the world of a new arrival among its books of worth, then I must put this also in the fire and give up the attempt. But I am in hopes that it will serve, if only to announce to all the heart-hungry forest folk that here is the book I longed for so much in my youth here is the angel of the prairie girl. I know it will serve the coming wood-wanderers as it would have served me. It will be the book I dreamed of the key to the woods. FOREWORD MORE than thirty years ago, I was with Dr. Harvey M. Hall when he made his botanical survey of San Jacinto Mountain, Cali- fornia. An intelligent Indian joined us for a few days and acted as guide. He was much interested in the plants used by the American Indians, especially those used for food. After I came East, for several years we exchanged specimens and seeds. I sent the Indian nuts of nearly all the edible nut-bearing species in northeastern United States, also acorns, seeds of edible berries, and those of other wild fruits. These he planted along canyons and in moist situations where he thought they might grow. From that time on I have collected data on edible plants from books, published reports, papers, from the experiences of people, and wherever information on the subject could be obtained. When pos- sible, I observed the trees or plants first hand, often experimenting or testing out their edible qualities. This manual does not include all the edible plants in this coun- try. A few were omitted intentionally because of their rarity or limited range, others because their edible qualities were not well known or defined. The reader will probably recall other species not mentioned here simply because we have not learned that they could be eaten. I hope at least that this publication will be found useful and serve as a basis for future investigations on the edible plants of the United States. In certain large groups, such as the blackberries, the blueberries or huckleberries, and the serviceberries, I have described only a few important species and referred to the others as having similar edible qualities, or being used for the same or similar purposes. If anyone doubts that wild vegetable foods were important to the pioneers or to the American Indians, let him read the Journals of Lewis and Clark in their expedition across the continent, 1804- 1806, or that of Henry Schoolcraft among the Indians of the Northwest a few years later. Many books have been written on our American game animals, but I cannot recall a single volume devoted exclusively to the wild vegetable foods of the United States, giving descriptions of the plants and telling how they are used. Havard wrote a bulletin or report on the food plants of the iz Foreword x American Indians, which is brief and quite incomplete. Dr. Charles F. Saunders, in his Useful Wild Plants mentions very few edible species of the Northeast. Dr. Edward L. Sturtevant in his Notes on Edible Plants refers to species in this country and abroad, but he rarely describes them. Many of my naturalist friends have expressed the thought that their interest in botany and in nature, generally, was first aroused when they were boys on excursions to the fields and woods, in search of wild fruits and nuts. The experience is akin to hunting and fishing. Who could pluck the ripe May Apple without becom- ing interested in the plant that produced it, or sample the spicy Partridge berries without making note of where and how the plants grew and when the fruit ripened ? The more important edible wild plants are described here, but at the end of each chapter there is a list of others not so well known; or, at least, their edible qualities have not been so well tested. Some of these probably should have been given more atten- tion. In general I have followed the International System of Nomen- clature, but where so many references have been consulted, mistakes in scientific names are sure to occur. Synonyms are given where it seems necessary. In this volume are described species from nearly all of the chief orders of flowering plants, covering the entire United States and Canada, as well as a few lower forms of plant life. A key includ- ing such a wide range of vegetation would necessarily be very complicated too long and complex for the average reader, and of little use to a botanist. In place of a key, we have substituted a "finding index" which gives the names of plants, both common and scientific, with the range, season, and a few of the most pronounced characteristics. We hope this index will prove of some value, es- pecially in determining those plants mentioned but not described near the end of each chapter. For further technical descriptions of these plants, the reader should consult a good manual of botany covering his particular region. I wish to thank all those who have aided me in the preparation of this volume, either by giving definite information or by sending specimens, and I especially wish to thank George A. King, natural- ist and artist, for his valuable suggestions and for the care with the also which he has prepared drawings ; my wife, Jennie Arnold Medsger, who helped to test the edible qualities of many of the plants described here. xi Foreword The author is pleased to acknowledge his indebtedness to various works of reference and their publishers: Bailey's Standard Cyclo- pedia of Horticulture and Camping and Woodcraft, by Horace the Kephart (published by Macmillan Company) ; Britton and Brown's Illustrated Flora of the United States and Canada, and Our Native Trees, by Harriet Keeler (Charles Scribner's Sons) ; Gray's New Manual of Botany (American Book Company) ; Flora of the Southeastern United States, by J.