Wild edibles

Plants that grow wild across much of North America and can be eaten once they are known for certain. Some are weeds most people pull without a thought: dandelion, with a page each for the flowers and the greens, field garlic in the lawn, and Japanese knotweed along streams and roadsides. Others take work. Acorns have to be leached of their tannins before they make flour, milkweed is cooked before it is eaten, and cattail offers something useful in nearly every season. There is a cold drink made from the red berry clusters of sumac, a page on the parts of a pine tree people have eaten, and one on the daylily. An early piece argues that four groups, grasses, oaks, pines and cattails, are worth learning before any others.

The foraging pages name the poisonous plants that can be mistaken for their subjects, such as dogbane beside young milkweed and death camas among wild onion and garlic. Eat nothing that has not been identified beyond doubt, and ask a county extension office or an experienced local forager when unsure. If someone may have eaten a toxic plant, call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222.