Tree Mallow in Santiago del Teide, Tenerife. Photo by Steve Andrews
The tree mallow is a very tall species of mallow,
hence its name, and is often found growing on cliffs and at the tops of
beaches. It has attractive pinkish-purple flowers and blooms in summer.
Known to botanists as Malva arborea or Lavatera
arborea the tree mallow is a biennial or short-lived perennial. It can grow to
as much as 3 metres in height and forms a very thick stem like a small trunk. It
is a handsome plant that stands out in its natural habitat.
The seeds are tiny nutlets and are edible and known
in Jersey as “petit pains” or little breads. The leaves and flowers can also be
eaten The leaves have a lot of mucilage and this is good for combating inflammation.
In herbal medicine the tree mallow´s leaves are
steeped in hot water and used to make a poultice for treating sprains. Like
other mallow species the tree mallow has a lot of mucilage in its leaves.
The tree mallow is listed in the book Food For Free
which is Richard Mabey´s classic guide for foragers. It is a wild flower to
look out for when on a coastal walk.
The tree mallow grows on coasts in the UK but is
also found in Europe and the Mediterranean, as well as Libya, Algeria and the
Canary Islands. It is resistant to salty spray from the sea and is often found
on the coasts of islands.
The tree mallow makes an attractive garden plant and
will grow happily away from the sea. It will self-seed and is easy to maintain
year after year.
The fennel (Foeniculum
vulgare) is a common medicinal and culinary herb often found growing wild
by the sea. It is a tall plant with umbels of yellowish flowers and produces
finely divided feathery foliage that is very aromatic and smells like anise.
Fennel is native to the Mediterranean, parts of Europe
and the UK but is found in many other parts of the world, including America,
Canada and Australia. It is a perennial plant and likes to grow in grassy areas
and on waste-ground near the sea and is often to be found when foraging in
coastal areas. It is very common in the north of Tenerife in the Canary Islands
and can be found on the other islands.
Fennel is included and recommended in Richard
Mabey’s Food For Free, which is an excellent book on edible plants that can
be found while foraging and that has been republished over and over and is now
in its fortieth year after its first publication.
The aniseed aroma that fennel produces is a very good
way to identify this herb which is in the Apiaceae or parsley family, a group
of plants that also has several very poisonous species such as the hemlock.
Fennel, from Koehler's Medicinal-plants (1887) in Public Domain
Fennel seeds are good in curries and other spicy
dishes and can be used to make fennel tea. In Spanish the herb is known as
hinojo and teabags are commonly sold in grocery stores and supermarkets under
this name.
Fresh fennel leaves can be eaten in salad, used as a
garnish or made into sauces which are very good with oily fish. Fennel is
actually very good for indigestion so using it in your cooking makes a lot of
sense.
There is a variety of fennel known as Florence fennel
or finnochio that has a bulb at the base and this is popular as a vegetable to
be eaten raw or cooked.
In herbal medicine fennel is recommended for digestive
problems and is said to improve the vision. It is also said to be an aid to
slimming.
Fennel can be grown easily in the herb garden and will
produce large clumps. There is a bronze fennel too with attractively coloured
foliage.
Rock Samphire growing at Swanbridge, South Wales. Photo by Steve Andrews
The rock samphire, samphire or sea fennel is a
commonly found edible plant that grows in rocks at the top of beaches, growing
amongst the shingle and on cliffs. It is found in the UK and along coasts of
parts of Europe and the Mediterranean area, as well as on the Canary Islands.
Known to botanists as Crithmum maritimum, the rock
samphire is in the Apiaceae or parsley family. It has succulent divided leaves
and umbels of greenish-yellow flowers. It is aromatic if bruised and has quite a
strong smell and taste. The herbalist Nicholas
Culpeper described rock samphire as having a “pleasant, hot and spicy
taste.”
Richard Mabey gives some recipes for rock samphire in his classic book
for foragers entitled Food For
Free. This book has proved so popular that it has been republished over and over and is now in its fortieth year.
Rock Samphire in Portugal Photo by Steve Andrews
Rock samphire can be found all year round and can be
eaten sparingly raw in salads, pickled in vinegar or cooked as a green
vegetable. It was once so popular that it was mentioned by Shakespeare who describing
the dangerous practice of gathering it from high on cliffs, wrote, "Half-way down, Hangs one that
gathers samphire; dreadful trade!” It was collected too in the Isle of Wight and
shipped to London in vats of seawater to keep it fresh.
These days it is illegal to remove plants of samphire from their
natural habitat. Nevertheless the rock
samphire is an interesting edible plant to look out for when walking by the
sea.
Sea Beet amongst seaweed and rocks. Photo by Steve Andrews
Sea beet is a common edible plant found at the top of
beaches and near the sea in the UK and Europe.
Its leaves are very good cooked as greens and taste
very much like spinach. This is not surprising because the plant is an ancestor
of cultivated spinach beet and beetroot. In fact, the sea beet is also known as
wild spinach.
It produces masses of glossy dark green oval or
diamond-shaped leaves in rosettes that can be found all year around. Its flowers
are small and greenish and form in summer and autumn.
Sea beet can be found growing amongst pebbles and
rocks at the top of a beach and on coastal land and is easy to recognise. You
are not likely to find anything else looking like poking its greenery through
the pebbles. It can be found growing where seaweed and other floating rubbish
has been washed up by the tide.
The leaves of Sea Beet. Photo by Steve Andrews
The stems of sea beet and the leaf stalks sometimes
have a purplish-red colouration which shows their link with beetroots.
The leaves of sea beet can be eaten raw in salads as
well as being cooked like spinach. Many people think their flavour is actually
better than spinach we grow and buy.
Richard Mabey recommends it strongly in Food For Free his
classic book on foraging which is now in its fortieth year and contains info with illustrations for some 200 types of edible plant and wild mushroom.
The sea beet is known to botanists as Beta vulgaris ssp. maritma and used to be classed as in the Chenopodiaceae but it is
now in the Amaranthaceae. Many other plants in this family, such as the
goosefoot (Chenopodium album), are
also edible.
Wall Pennywort (Umbilicus rupestris) is an
interesting edible wild plant that you are not likely to mistake for anything
else. It grows, as its name suggests in old stone walls, and also in crevices
in rocks, and has round leaves hence its name.
The Wall Pennywort is also known as Navelwort because
its leaves have a small indentation in the middle that could be likened to a
navel in a human stomach. The leaves grow in rosettes. An alternative name for
the plant is Penny-pies.
Wall Pennywort is found in the UK and parts of
southern and western Europe as well as in the Canary Islands. It has spikes of
greenish-pink flowers on stems that may be a reddish shade and it flowers in
spring and as late as May and early summer depending on location. These
flower-spikes can reach some 10in in height and the small flowers are
bell-shaped. It is a member of the
Crassulaceae or Stonecrop family and is adapted for surviving in dry
conditions. The leaves and plant are succulent and fleshy.
Wall Pennywort in flower
The leaves can be eaten as a salad and have been
compared with a crisp lettuce in flavour. They are best when found growing in
moist conditions or after rain when they are really juicy. Wall Pennywort tends
to turn a reddish colour in very dry conditions and will lose it succulent
fleshiness. Take care when gathering the leaves because Wall Pennywort is very
shallow-rooted and the whole plant can easily be pulled out of the small amount
of soil it is growing in.
Wall Pennywort has been used in homeopathic medicine
and is known as Cotyledon umbilicus
to practitioners. The plant is thought to be the “Kidneywort”, described by
Nicholas Culpeper in the English Physician.
The famous herbalist said of the Wall Pennywort: : "the juice or the distilled water being drank, is very
effectual for all inflammations and unnatural heats, to cool a fainting hot
stomach, a hot liver, or the bowels: the herb, juice, or distilled water
thereof, outwardly applied, heals pimples, St. Anthony's fire, and other
outward heats. The said juice or water helps to heal sore kidneys, torn or
fretted by the stone, or exulcerated within; it also provokes urine, is
available for the dropsy, and helps to break the stone. Being used as a bath,
or made into an ointment, it cools the painful piles or hæmorrhoidal veins. It
is no less effectual to give ease to the pains of the gout, the sciatica, and
helps the kernels or knots in the neck or throat, called the king's evil:
healing kibes and chilblains if they be bathed with the juice, or anointed with
ointment made thereof, and some of the skin of the leaf upon them: it is also
used in green wounds to stay the blood, and to heal them quickly."
Wall Pennywort is a
plant that is easily recognised and is worth adding to the plants you are
foraging for. It really is an enjoyable edible wild plant to be eaten as a
salad vegetable or to add to sandwiches.
Summer is the hottest time of the year and has plenty of sunlight, but when
it comes toforagingfor wild foods it is the season in between spring and autumn, which means
that the spring greens are past their prime and the fruits and nuts harvested
in autumn are still not ready.
However, summer is a great season for gathering in the herbs that grow wild
and drying them to preserve them for future use and some like St John's Wort
are traditionally harvested at this time.
St John's Wort
St John's Wort(Hypericum
perforatum) is commonly found growing in grassy places, woodland
clearings and edges, roadsides, waste ground and railway banks and is in full
bloom and full potency at midsummer when it can be collected on St John's Day,
June 24. It is easily recognised by its golden yellow flowers starry 5-petaled
flowers with conspicuous stamens and the flowering tops are the part of the
plant that contains most of its active ingredient hypericin.
St John's Wort
St
John's Wort has become widely known and used as Mother Nature's answer to
Prozac and is on sale as a herbal tea or in other forms as a supplement from
health stores and distributors of such products. It is also a remedy for
anxiety and nervous tension, as well as having antiseptic and anti-inflammatory
properties.
Red Clover(Trifolium
pratense) is a plant that may well also be found in places where St
John's Wort grows and especially in fields and meadows but also on railway
banks and waste ground. TheNative Americansrecognised its medicinal properties after it had been introduced
to the continent and used it against cancerous tumours and skin diseases, as
well as taking it during pregnancy and childbirth and as a general tonic and
herb of purification.
The
flowers are the parts that get used as an infusion and these can be collected
and dried. Red Clover was once used to treat bronchial complaints and is also
thought to be good for balancing blood sugar levels.
Common name: Wild Marjoram - Scientific name: Origanum vulgare Photo by Leo Michels. Usage: Public Domain
Two
aromatic summer herbs that can be used in cooking as well as for medicinal
purposes areWild
Thyme(Thymus drucei) and theMarjoram(Origanum vulgare), both of
which favour grassy places on limestone or a chalky soil.
Wild
Thyme is a tiny little plant that you will have to get down on your hands and
knees to gather and it grows in clumps among short grassland and on downs and
heaths. It produces reddish-purple flower heads and is easier to find and pick
when in bloom, which occurs between June and August.
The
flavour and fragrant aroma of Wild Thyme is much milder than the garden variety
but it is just as useful for flavouring savoury dishes. Richard Mabey awards it
with an A category in his classic bookFood for Free.
Marjoram
is a much bigger plant and when in flower it is easy to spot clumps of it,
especially as it usually has bees and other insects in attendance eagerly
gathering the nectar from its pinkish purple flowers. This is a very aromatic
and spicy herb that is excellent for adding flavour to food.
In
Mediterranean cookery Marjoram has been much valued and made use of, although
in the UK it has often been neglected for some reason, even though one of its
local names is Joy of the Mountain. It is also known as Oregano.
Marjoram
is prepared by collecting some flowering sprigs of the herb, hanging them to
dry and then stripping the leaves and flowers from the stalks. Crushed up in
this dry form it can be stored in airtight jars for future use.
Marjoram
taken as an infusion is good for anxiety, insomnia, colds and chest complaints,
indigestion and tension headaches. It has antiseptic properties too.
Another
common summer herb isFennel(Foeniculum
vulgare) and although it grows inland on waste ground and
cultivated in gardens it really thrives on cliffs and other places by the sea.
It can reach as much as 5 ft in height and is easy to recognise with its
graceful appearance, feathery leaves and umbels of mustard-yellow flowers,
which appear from June to October.
If you
crush any part of the Fennel plant you will notice a strong smell of aniseed
and its flavour is similar too. The seeds are collected later on in the autumn
and are wonderful for adding to curries, stir-fries and other dishes as well as
making Fennel herb tea but the leaves and stalks are gathered in early summer
and hung up to dry.
Finely
choppedFennel leavesare good in salads, with parsnips, and even in apple
pie and the herb is good with oily fish as well. The whole plant is edible and
it really is one of the most useful wild herbs that can easily be found.
In
fact, Fennel is such a versatile plant that Pliny listed it as being a remedy
for no less than 22 complaints and it was one of the Anglo-Saxon herbalists'
nine most sacred herbs. Fennel tea is good for the digestion and it can be used
as a gargle for a sore throat and a mouthwash.
Fennel Tea
250ml/
½ pint/ 1 cup of boiling water 1 teaspoonful ofFennel seed½ thin slice of fresh orange or some grated rind
Crush
the Fennel seeds slightly and place in a teapot and pour the boiling water over
them. Cover and leave to infuse for 5 minutes.
Add the
orange slice or rind for extra flavour, and then strain before serving.
Olives with Wild Marjoram
1 lb of
pricked olives in a jar 1 cup of olive oil 1 teaspoon of Thyme 1 teaspoon of
crushed peppercorns 3 teaspoons of chopped Wild Marjoram
Add the
herbs and spices and olive oil to the olives in the jar, close it, shake well
and store in a refrigerator for at least 2 days.
Serve
the olives with red wine and cheese.
Common Mallow
TheCommon
Mallow(Malva sylvestris) is often
found growing in the same locations as Fennel and is another very useful herb
that flowers from June through until October. Typically encountered on
roadsides, on banks and on waste ground the Common Mallow stands out with its
showy pink five-petalled flowers that are produced on stems that can be as much
as 3 ft in height.
The
leaves, flowers and seeds are all edible as well as having medicinal
properties. The plant contains a lot of mucilage, which taken internally as an
infusion reduces inflammation and is a treatment for coughs sore throats and
bronchitis.
Young
leaves and shoots of the Common Mallow contain vitamins A, B1, B2 and C and can
be eaten raw in salads or cooked as greens. Unripe fruits can also be added to
salads and the seeds are known as "cheeses," due to their shape
rather than the mildly nutty flavour.
The
Romans cultivated the Common Mallow as a culinary and medicinal herb and by the
16th century it had gained a reputation as a cure-all. In sufficient quantity
it has a laxative action and so can help purge the body of toxins and disease.
Meadowsweet
One
more easily found and wonderful summer herb is the Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria),
which grows in damp places such as river and streamsides and by ponds, and
flowers from June until October with frothy creamy-white flower heads.
Meadowsweet has inspired poets Ben Jonson and John Clare, and the latter
included it in his poem To Summer.
The
flowers and leaves when dried smell of newly mown hay and can be added to
pot-pourri or used to make a herbal tea. It can be used to flavour soups and
stews but has medicinal properties too and is traditionally taken as an
infusion for heartburn and gastric ulcers.
Lime Tree
Besides
all the herbs described above that can be looked for in the countryside, there
is another, which grows much closer to home and is definitely worth knowing
about and that is theLime
Tree(Tilia x europaea), which
can be found in many parks, gardens and along city streets. In June and July
the delightful honeyed fragrance of this common tree perfumes the air and when
they are in bloom is the time to harvest its flowers.
Made
into a herbal tea, known as "Tilleul" in France where it has proved a
very popular beverage, Lime-blossom besides tasting good is good for anxiety
and insomnia because it has mildtranquillising propertiesas well as for treating high blood pressure. Dry the
entire flower head along with its winged bract and make the tea without milk.
In
early summer, before the Lime leaves get too old and tough, they can be eaten
in sandwiches but make sure to wash them first and collect them from out of the
way of roads and traffic fumes.
Summer
is an ideal time for enjoying the countryside and rambling due to the longer
hours of daylight and the warm and sunny weather. The fragrance and the many
uses of the herbs found growing at this time of year are surely another of the
many pleasures of the season.
Footnote:
This article was originally published inPermaculture Magazine,
number 48, summer 2006.
Bladder Campion (Silene vulgaris) is a common
wild flower in the Pink and Campion family (Caryophyllaceae). It has attractive white flowers carried in inflated bladders, hence its
name, and it is of importance as an edible wild plant that can be gathered by
foragers.
Bladder Campion grows in many parts of Europe, in the UK, and is also found
throughout North America where it is often considered as a weed. Bladder Campion
described Bladder
Campion grows in grassy places and reaches 1-2 ft in height. It is a perennial
plant that can often be found along the sides of pathways, roadsides and at the
edges of fields. It is a dainty-looking wild flower when in full bloom.
In the
UK it flowers between June and August and produces distinctive flower-heads
that are easily identifiable due to the inflated calyxes that form the bladders
which the plant gets it name from. After flowering its tiny brown seeds are
contain in seed-capsules inside the bladder-coating which shrivels with age.
Bladder Campion in
the kitchen
Bladder
Campion has been a popular free food in parts of Spain and the leaves of the
plant were even collected for sale as "collejas." The collectors were
known as "collejeros" and they had to gather a sizeable amount of the
greens to make their efforts worthwhile.
The
young leaves and tender shoots are good in salads but older leaves are usually
cooked by frying or boiling. They can also be added to soups, stews and
omelettes.
Cooked chickpeas with Bladder
Campion greens. Photo by Xufanc.
"Gazpacho
viudo" (Widower gazpacho) is the name of a soup made in the La Mancha
region of Spain. This gazpacho is made by stewing the leaves and it is served
with flatbread. The reference to widower is because this soup was traditionally
only eaten when times were hard and food was scarce.
Bladder
Campion leaves and young shoots can be cooked with chickpeas to make a stew
known as "potaje de garbanzos y collejas," with scrambled eggs as
"huevos revueltos y collejas" and simply cooked and served with rice,
or "arroz con collejas" as the dish is known in Spanish.
According
to Wikipedia, the plant is popular too in Crete where it is called
"Agriopapoula" (Αγριοπάπουλα), and
the leaves and shoots are eaten after browning in olive oil.
Richard
Mabey gives the Bladder Campion a B category as an edible plant in his
forager's BibleFood For Free. This is an
excellent book if you want to learn about the wealth of fruits, nuts, wild
flowers, herbs and fungi that can be found in the countryside and are safe to
use in the kitchen. And there is more useful information on foraging here.
Many people today suffer from arthritis and
gout but what a lot of them don’t realise is that their painful condition is
made worse by many commonly eaten foods and their acidic content. There are plenty of greens, vegetables
and some fruits that contain oxalic acid and this is where the problem lies. Purines
in foods become uric acid in the body. Even black tea is one such source of the problem. Cranberries can be good for you but they are a fruit with a high acid content. Moderation is the key with many such foods.
Margaret Hills
The late Margaret Hills, who had been a
nurse, became famous for her book Curing Arthritis the Drug-Free Way, and a
main part of her theory and the remedy she prescribed, is the avoidance of the
foods and drinks that cause arthritic conditions. Hills had once suffered the
painful ailment herself but had found a cure for it.
Cider Vinegar
She claimed that apple cider
vinegar counter-acted the problem by helping to break up the crystals in the
joints. It contains malic acid, and this has an alkaline effect in the
bloodstream. So, apple cider vinegar is a very important way of treating
osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, according to Hills.
Hills helped many people cure their
arthritis and soon had thousands of followers. She set up a clinic and also
went on to write other books, all dealing with the subject of how to treat
yourself if you suffer from arthritis and how to live a lifestyle that prevents
the condition starting or returning if you once had it. She recommended eating a healthy diet that is low in purines and avoiding commonly eaten food such as citrus fruit and drinking black tea.
You see, the inflammation in the joints
is caused by uric acid crystals that have accumulated over time. Oxalic acid
and oxalates not only add to this problem but cut down the absorption of
calcium, which is needed for the strength, repair and growth of bones. It is believed that oxalates, and calcium oxalate in particular, cause kidney stones.
Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Honeygar
Explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes healed
himself of terrible arthritis with cider vinegar in a product known as
Honeygar, which also contains honey as its name suggests. He takes Honeygar
daily and swears by its efficacy. His story was published in the Daily Mail in
2008 in a story by Matthew Dennison entitled: “Sir Ranulph Fiennes: I beat my
arthritis with a vinegar cure passed down from my mother”.
Parsley Salad
Parsley
Amongst the plants that contain oxalic
acid, Parsley (Petroselinum crispum)
has large amounts of this substance in its leaves. Many people think of this
herb as being healthy to eat, and whilst this is mainly true, because of the
oxalic acid it should be eaten with caution by anyone with a tendency to suffer
from arthritis.
Spinach leaves
Spinach
Many of us were brought up watching the
Popeye the Sailor-man cartoons in which the hero of these animations derives
all his strength from eating Spinach. Again, this plant is very good for us in
moderation because os the vitamins and minerals it contains. However, Spinach (Spinacia oleracea) too has a lot of
oxalic acid in it, as does its very close relative the Beetroot. Beetroot and the Beets are all in the Beta genus of plants. Sea Beet or Wild
Spinach, which is regarded an ancestor of the cultivated varieties, is Beta vulgaris. Chard too contains oxalic
acid in its leaves and is actually a descendant of the wild plant just
mentioned because it is known to botanists as B. vulgaris subsp. cicla.
Rhubarb on sale
Rhubarb
Rhubarb (Rheum rhabarbarum) may make delicious pies but the leaves of this vegetable
are actually poisonous due to the acids in them. The pinkish-red stalks which
we use in our cooking admittedly do not contain anywhere near as much oxalic
acid but it is present. This has been known for a long time and many old books
will include a caution that this food should be avoided or eaten in moderation by
those who suffer from gout and arthritis.
Bermuda Buttercup
Sorrel
There are two sorts of plant known as
Sorrel. First there are those in the Rumex
genus including the Common Sorrel (R.
acetosa) and the Sheep’s Sorrel (R.
acetosella). They are known for having a sharp and tangy taste and make
good additions to salads and can be cooked as greens. However the acidity of
these Sorrels is caused by oxalic acid.
The second type of Sorrel that also
contains high levels of this harmful acid are those in the Oxalis genus. Even
their generic name tells you this is the case. Wood Sorrel (O. acetosella) and the Bermuda Buttercup
(O. pes-caprae) are two of the many
species. They all have pretty foliage like four-leaved clovers and many have
dainty flowers too. The Oxalis species have a tangy taste and are eaten in
salads but again the caution needs to be applied because of the oxalic acid
they contain.
Purslane
The Common Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) is a common weed in
many places in the world. This little plant with its semi-succulent leaves
makes a popular and tangy addition to salads but again it has oxalic acid
present in its leaves in the form of oxalates.
It can be cooked as well as eaten raw and has many other health-giving
nutrients but care should be taken because of the oxalic acid present.
