36 Wild Edibles & Medicinal Plants In 15 Minutes

hey guys this is josh here with trillium wild edibles and today i want to show you 36 wild edibles and medicinal plants that can be found all over the united states there are a lot of wild edibles and medicinal plants in the u.s with most usually growing right next to each other so it's a good idea to learn as many as you can because you never know what's around the corner like right now for example we're looking at this large white trillium these leaves would be edible however i wouldn't recommend picking the leaves of this plant because this plant is extremely rare at least in indiana so i wouldn't pick them however it is edible but around me there are all kinds of other edible plants like here for example you can see a common green briar these shoots right here are extremely delicious these things are great raw they're also really good sauteed and butter that's my favorite way to prepare them is saute them in butter with a little salt and garlic they are amazing that way some other edible plants in the area include cleaver you can see it's four petaled white flower here this flower is extremely tiny there's plenty of spice bush everywhere here there's canadian wood nettle here as well of course there's garlic mustard which i pulled up there's jack in the pulpit with its extremely distinct flower and very unique leaf pattern we have a type of rose briar growing in here there's also false solomon seal within the area and if we come down by the creek we'll find a lot of violets especially white violets you can see the flowers here and you can see the leaves screwing in as you can see these violet leaves are pretty good size so between everything that i've just showed you here you can get a substantial amount of food all the while you may be looking for mushrooms and not finding anything all those different plants that i just showed you guys are right within that area right at the end of my boken so that's a really small area that you could have gathered a lot of food and then here we are just a few more steps away from that and here's this really nice wood sorrel growing in you can see just how large these leaves are and again these are going to be extremely substantial especially when mixed with like all those violet leaves and some violet flowers you know cook up some nettle greens have some of the garlic mustard you know you could actually walk out of here with quite a bit of food you know there's some spice bush over there you can make some spice bush tea and get yourself some food something to drink right now we're looking at a raspberry and i can tell this just mainly because it has this kind of like white almost powdery coating along the stem it's got its distinct it has its distinct set of three leaves with teeth on the edge of the margins or on the edge of the leaf and of course as it just like any other bramble or raspberry or blackberry it has thorns of course there's dandelion here there's a lot of broadleaf plantain we have a variety of wild lettuce which is getting ready to flower as you can see here it's got these little flower buds starting you can tell it's a variety of wild lettuce because of this leaf the sleep wild lettuce's leaves are very distinct and another way that you can tell another way that you can tell is the milky sap whenever you pluck off one of the leaves i always like to pluck off one of the small leaves so i'm not causing very much damage that's one of the best ways that i like to do a test now this milky sap is actually bitter and toxic if you eat it in large quantities or consume it large quantities mainly because it contains opiates which needs to be cooked out yeah this is called lettuce but it has to be cooked it boiled in two changes of water before you can actually eat it you cannot eat it raw however this plant has a much better use medicinally and that's as a combinative or a nerve commoditive or a sedative and that's because of those opiates that it contains there's also blackberries here so there's raspberries blackberries dandelion plantain wild lettuce all of that just right there in that small area then if we turn around we find docus curota or queen anne's lace also known as wild carrot this is an edible plant as well just literally two steps away behind us underneath that we have quite a bit of red clover there's also a lot of white clover in the area as well because it's a kind of a grassy area in between two tree lines here you can see the leaves of the white clover and there you can see the flowers of the white clover and again those are edible as well one of the varieties of mint that are right across the trail is bee balm and here you can see the white flowers of mountain mint right below that on the edge right below that on the edge of that field we have black eyed susans another medicinal plant if i zoom in you can really see the cone flowers right over there which is another medicinal plant we have poison ivy which i'm not allergic to it so don't freak out but this is the notorious poison ivy with its distinct three set of leaves here we can see some yarrow flowers which just barely passed its flowering stage at this point but it's still perfectly usable yarrow you can use any time of the year that you find it growing which is nice mind you i haven't even began to talk about the trees or the shrubs like for example right here we have staghorn sumac or a variety of sumac to say the least there you can see the sumac berries starting to form there oops no you can't there you can see the sumac berry starting to form so we also have some sumac in the area we're going to go up here and then there's going to be a trail that's going to come this trail is going to come to a tee and we're going to hang a right and at that right we're going to enter a huge field of more wildflowers i'll show you that when i get there well i didn't even get there and i already spotted more plants right there you can see a stinging nettle there you may be able to see the dock or the rumx species growing back there i don't know if that's broad leaf or curly dock however it is dock and it is edible there you can see quite a bit of echinacea or coneflower growing right there there's a lot of that in this field along with bee balm and all kinds of other good stuff of course there's milkweed just like in most clearings there's always milkweed this plant is amazing for bringing in monarch butterflies it's because of the loss of this plant that we're losing our monarch butterflies in this part of my in this part of the country here you can see a hybridization between echinacea and a rudabekia species producing this yellow coneflower black eyed cone flower i don't really know what the name of this plant is however i do know it is a hybrid between echinacea and black eyed susan or rutabekia i can tell that because of its distinct cone shape and its yellow flower petals we also have wild quinine in this area the main reason for that is because where i'm at is more like a prairie habitat i can tell it's wild quinine because of its very distinct white flowers and it's very stiff papery like land shaped leaves with its very sharp teeth these lay these leaves as you might be able to hear they actually sound quite a bit like paper they feel a lot like paper too they're very very thick you may also notice that the leaves alternate all up and down the stem so those are the couple ways that i can tell that this is wild quinine which this was an extremely important medicinal plant in 18th and 19th centuries and still remains to be an important medicinal plant to this day here you're looking at spotted jewel weed or spotted touch me knot and one of the reasons it's called that is because you can see these spots that it has on the inside of the throat another name for this plant is jewel weed and that's the name that most people will know this plant by this plant absolutely loves low moist environments as you can see there are some cattails literally right over there so this is a really nice low moist environment and there are a lot of medicinal plants that occur within these kinds of environments and jewelweed is going to be one of the most prolific that you'll usually see you can see all of that orange all those little orange flowers that's all jewelry there's a whole bunch of jewel weed here now mixed in with it there are some morning glories there's some one bush clovers and there's some other things mixed in with it but for the most part that is all jewel weed now a lot of people know of jewelweed as a medicinal plant to rub on the skin to help alleviate the itch or the burning of the rashing sensation that happens from poison ivy and it does help with that just a little bit it doesn't cure it it doesn't really treat it it just kind of helps alleviate the discomfort is really what it does and there you can see the jewel weed and literally right next to it we have a bunch of bone set plants here you can see this bone set plant it's just past its flowering stage as you can see here these flowers are starting to die off the leaves have been getting chewed up by ants as you can see here however this is bone set and this is another medicinal plant this plant was one of the most important medicinal plants of the 18th century in colonial america so this plant is extremely important this plant has been used historically to help treat break bone or dengue fever it also can be used as a poultice on top of the skin for rheumatism in a drastic survival situation for the short term you don't want to use this long term because this plant can cause damage if used too long for too for too long of a period of time and there you can see the distinct perforation that's caused by this stem through the leaves on bone set and another common name for this plant is thorough wart which it gets that name because the stem perforates or goes through the leaves boneset is a really nice medicinal plant one of the things i like about bone set i like to use it more for colds and flus and to kind of help promote sweating and i like to use it in a tincture form however it can be used in a tea form but whenever it's given warm it can promote diarrhea or help to evacuate the bowels which can be good if that's what you need so keep that in mind if you think about using this plant and then if we turn around we can see more bone set right there next to canadian golden rod here you can see this really nice flower cluster of canadian golden rod you can also see some of this morning glory vine kind of growing along and twining around with it canadian goldenrod is well known for its ability to take over fields and it's also well known for its ability to cause allergies however a lot of people who think they're having goldenrod allergies they're actually experiencing allergies from the ragweed however this plant's pollen can cause allergies and some people are allergic to it but this is another great medicinal plant this plant can be used for fevers it's also can be used as an expectorant it can help with colds this is a really good plant to know just in case you're in a survival situation just because the dried flowers make a really nice tea the fresh flowers make a delicious tea as well it doesn't taste too bad another nice thing about canadian goldenrod is that it will exist anywhere there's usually clearing or sunlight i found this plant in the middle of the woods where there's just some sunlight peeking through the forest canopy i found canadian goldenrod growing this plant can grow pretty much anywhere to my experience so that's kind of a good thing so if you go to harvest any you're probably not going to be hurting very much if you just take a few plants then of course if we look on the ground there's plantain you can find plantain again pretty much anywhere there's a clearing or anywhere that there's grass of course there's dandelion which both of those are medicinal as well plantain is a mucilaginous plant it can be used to draw out infections it can also be used for bug bites or bug stings like mosquitoes it's really good anti-inflammatory the dandelion is a really good blood thinner it's nutritive salts contain a lot of blood thinning properties and it's also very good for the heart they contain a lot of vitamin a and the dandelion root also makes an acceptable coffee substitute and as we continue to go down this way a little bit i have to take a few more steps and here you guys may be able to see the blue flowers of great blue lobelia or lobelia syphilitica and that's one of the things this plant was actually used to treat back in the 18th and 19th century with syphilis however it didn't really work too terribly well it's better to be used in place of lobelia and flota and lobelia inflata is a relative of this plant and lobelia in florida is a lot more potent so that's one reason why it's recommended by a lot of herbalists that beginners use blue lobelia instead of lobelia and flota because it's not as strong however it does work just the same and they can be used for a lot of the same uses here this blue flower that you see is the flower of blue lettuce now this is one of the many varieties of wild lettuce that occurs within the state of indiana and within the eastern woodlands there are a lot of varieties of wild lettuce and they're usually very difficult to separate one from another however during their flowering time they're usually a lot easier just because the color of the flowers one nice thing about blue lettuce is that it generally grows quite tall and here's a very medium sized plant that you can see here it's only about three and a half maybe four feet tall at the most whereas if i turn around and you can see this thing you can see this big blue lettuce plant growing up there maybe kind of hard to see but it's right at the tip of my index finger you can see the flower cluster right there that plant is absolutely huge there's its flower cluster there i know this may be kind of hard to make out on camera but this plant is about 10 feet tall this is one of the tallest plants that grows within the eastern woodlands within the forests and it's the tallest species of wild lettuce that we have here within the eastern woodlands one of the many uses some of the medicinal uses of this plant is to be used as a sedative many native american tribes within the woodlands and across the united states of america use the dried leaves and smoking herbal and herbal smoking mixtures as a sedative to help calm the nerves another good thing about this plant is you can use it in tincture form for the same thing so that's some of the main uses for this plant it does have others however it's best used just to kind of help calm the nerves but the reason it's a sedative is because it contains opiates so you've got to be aware of that and make sure that you're not using too much over too long a period of time because again those opiates can cause your body a lot of harm so be cautious of that when you decide to use this plant while it is called lettuce these leaves cannot be eaten raw they do have to be cooked because of the opiates they contain and the milky latex or the milky sap that this plant has within it you know like if i pluck this leaf here you can see that milky sap starting to come out and that's why you have to boil these leaves in two changes of water however this is another medicinal plant another medicinal plant that usually occurs anywhere within moist forest land or anywhere within most moist land where there is trees you'll usually find this canadian sanical this is a great medicinal plant it's really good for inflammation or cuts it is a pain reliever it does help to relieve the pain of bruising and the marks of bruising you can use the leaves you can use the flowers you can use the seed clusters you can use the entire plant for helping to heal inflammation you can even put it in your bath water this plant works really well mixed with yarrow and plantain whenever you make it into a salve or a bomb for topical treatment this plant works really really well all the plants that we just talked about go all the way down to that clearing so you can see in just a very short distance there is a lot of plants and there's a wide abundance of medicine available to you within swamplands yes the mosquitoes are very bad however the medicine that's here is sometimes worth it especially if you really need it so i thank you guys for watching this video i hope you enjoyed it and i hope you learned something if you want to learn more about edible or medicinal plants make sure to subscribe

Channel: Trillium: Wild Edibles

Views: 779,308

Keywords: 36 wild edibles and medicinal plants in 15 minutes, 36 wild edibles and medicinal plants, wild edibles and medicinal plant walk, wild medicinal plant walk, medicinal plants and herbs, wild edible plants, foraging wild edibles, foraging medicinal plants, medicinal herbs, medicinal plants and their uses, wild edibles and their uses, Trillium: Wild Edibles, wild edibles, medicinal plants, foraging, herbalism, wild edibles and medicinal plants, 36 wild edible plants

Id: xCn-dGLyJAw

Length: 15min 5sec (905 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 17 2017