Milkweed & Dogbane — Identification & Sustainable Foraging with Adam Haritan

everyone I'm Adam Harrison from learn your land and in this video what I'd like to do is to help you differentiate between two species of plants these two species although they're in the same family of plants the dogbane family apocynaceae and they share somewhat similar morphological features meaning whatever you look at it they resemble one another somewhat in certain stages of their development they're not the same species and one of them is edible common milkweed and the other one not so much the other ones considered toxic which is dog vein and also Indian hemp now even if you're not interested in foraging for plant if that's not your thing that's okay because you know it's still important to be able to identify things in our environment to be able to identify different organisms that inhabit our area in our land because there's a direct correlation direct positive correlation between the amount of things that we can identify the amount of things that we are familiar with and comfortable with in our surroundings and the amount of time that we spend in a place like this and it's my observations what I've noticed and you really can't convince me otherwise that the more time we spend in a place like this the healthier we become and I know you want to become healthier nobody wants to feel bad not only healthier but the more time we spend in a place like this the happier we become as well and not just a fleeting happiness that just comes and goes but an overall sense of contentment fulfillment satisfaction of life but things just you know start making sense finally stay tuned we're gonna start with milkweed and we're gonna move on to dogbane common milkweed or Asclepius syriaca is a perennial member of the dogbane family or apocynaceae in worldwide there are dozens of species of milkweed here in Pennsylvania there are at least 11 different species we're just focusing on common milkweed in this video this is frequently found in roadsides waste ground old farmland even new farmland you don't really see it here in the understory you have to go out into the open you'll usually see colonies of this plant not just one or two stalks we usually see a lot of it now this plant starts to appear in May and you'll see the shoots starting to appear from the ground and these shoots have leads that are opposite one another and they are clasping the stock you would look underneath the leaves you would see that they're slightly hairy not in all species of Oh Queen but at least in asclepias syriaca you flip it upside down you'll see the leaves are slightly hairy now if you would cut the stock in half you would break it you would see first at its hollow but also a milky latex comes out of it that's one of the reasons they call it milkweed the flower buds appear in June and July and at first they're closed obviously and then they open up into these beautiful purplish-pinkish greenish flowers that will eventually develop into these very unique looking fruit pods that are green they've got these little wart like projections on it and at first they're small but then they mature to about 2 to 3 inches in length inside of the developing seeds at first they're very silky if you would crack it open prematurely you would see it's very white and silky inside but then these seeds mature whenever this plant senescence the seed pods break open then they could be carried away in the wind now as I mentioned before common milkweed asclepias syriaca is a choice wild vegetable it's one of my favorites I like the harvest many parts of this plant and before you harvest this plant and start cooking and understand that all parts of this plant should be cooked first you really don't want to eat this plant raw and what does that mean well you could cook it in about 8-10 minutes of boiling water and then just dump that water out or in the case of the flower buds which I'll talk about you can actually stir-fry those so the first part that you can consume whenever first appears are the developing shoots so whenever the shoots appear you know throughout the month of May at least here in Pennsylvania those shoots can be harvested and when the leaves are still clasp-- along the stem that's the best time to harvest it as it gets to be too tall and then you know the flower buds start to appear the plant just becomes a little too tough little too fibrous to consume whatever you cut the stock in half check to make sure that it's hollow inside because dogbane is not going to be hollow but milkweed will be hollow inside and you're not going to see a lot of those reddish hues along the stock either now what's the flower buds appear you can harvest those as well and it's kind of like broccoli because broccoli is on open flower buds right and so the milkweed flower buds whenever they are unopened you could harvest those and those are the parts that I like to stir-fry and a little butter or olive oil and I think that goes very well as a side dish whatever the flowers appear you can eat the flowers as well then the fruit pods however when they're only about an inch or less in as I get a little longer it just becomes too tough to consume that outer green pot you can still harvest that inner Sookie material and you can eat that as well remember cook all parts of the milkweed plant now to differentiate this between dog Lane I'm going to get to the dog vein characteristics know parts of common milkweed should be bitter even when you nibble on the stock raw it should be very mild and have somewhat of a pleasant flavor if you detect a lot of bitterness in this plant it's probably not milkweed it's probably dogbane or just another plant altogether so now we are going to be discussing dogbane the somewhat similar looking plant compared to milkweed now this is no surprise and the dogbane family and the genus is Atlas I and I'm here in Pennsylvania we have at least two species we have spreading dogbane we also have Indian hem but they both go by the name dogbane now when it first appears in the spring it could be growing right next to milkweed this is when most people confuse milkweed for dogbane because the shoots look somewhat similar dogbane when it appears has somewhat of a reddish hue to it and a whitish bloom as well common milkweed won't really have that whitish blue if you take your finger and rub it up and down the stock you're not going to get that white material on your finger nor does it have a lot of reddish hues on the stock now I'm talking about milkweed milkweed might have reddish specks on it but it doesn't have that reddish hue that characterized dog vein stem now when you look at the two side-by-side common milkweed is somewhat more stout it's a little thicker of a chute and as you start to see more and more of it you'll definitely develop an eye for it whenever you look at dog band it's much thinner it's much more tall than it is why this helps to differentiate between the two but the leaves can be clasping in dog brain just like in milkweed but if you see the two side-by-side you would see that milkweed is definitely a little thicker and dog brain is thinner if you would cut the stock of dogbane inside it is solid now remember common milkweed is hollow inside but the inside of dogbane is solid also like common milkweed if you would cut dogbane there's a milky latex that will come out of dog vein so both of these do have that milky latex but if you look inside dog Bane is solid inside and no weed is hollow another unique trait about dogbane and Indian hemp is that both of these plants have branching unlike common milk we rarely if ever where you see common milkweed branching it's usually a single stock with opposite leaves you see the flower buds you see the flowers and then you see the fruit pods now with Dogman in Indian hemp it branches out so you'll see multiple branching especially as it matures now when it's younger still in its young chute stage throughout May you won't really see this branching so you have to wait to see when it branches however remember that common dog mane is a much thinner stock and then common milkweed is a much smaller stock the flowers are different they don't really look like one another and also the fruit in the seeds of common dogbane and the dried stalks look much different compared to milkweed milkweed has that characteristic green fruit pod it has those wart like projections common dog Lane does not have that whatsoever and if you look at common dog weighing the dried stock in the winter time it looks much different and if that's what you want to identify that's a great time to because then you can monitor that spot and come back the next year and see the shoots starting to appear then you won't okay that's my dog bad spot and this is my no bloom spot over here because you're looking at these winter identifying traits these winter stocks to help differentiate them in the springtime when they appear there's a good reason we don't want to consume dogbane or Indianhead but contains a class of compounds known as cardiac glycosides in a specific class within that grouping known as Cardinal IDEs and these are compounds that are spread out in at least 12 different botanical families however they seem to be concentrated in apocynaceae or the dogbane family and what these compounds do is that they affect heart function it's specifically what they do is they affect sodium potassium pumps in the plasma membrane of our cells and they don't always affect them in positive ways now conventional medicine uses cardiac glycosides especially in the treatment of congestive heart failure and when you look at the traditional uses of dog vein it hasn't just been used for fibers I'll talk about that in a second but it has been used medicinally to affect heart function now if that's something that you want to look into you know I'm not telling you to do it but I encourage you to do your own research on that you want to use dogbane at all medicinally but remember it has been used for specific conditions and very specific doses and it's been used by cultures that have used it for a very long period of time so if you want to use it definitely do your own research and maybe speak to somebody or work with somebody who has used it very intentionally in the past but you know for intensive purposes dog brain is not edible we consider a toxic but common milkweed is edible now common milkweed has some of these cardiac glycosides as well however they have different compounds not ones found in dogbane and not in the same concentration that's found in dog brain so that's why whenever we consume milkweed it's rather pleasant it's not that bitter whenever you consume dog Bane or Indian hemp you get those bitter cardiac glycosides Kadena lines into your mouth and you just want to spit it out almost immediately now dog Bane is still a very practical plant and a very useful plant to know especially from a primitive skill standpoint because the fibers are unparalleled when it comes to other plants here in Pennsylvania if you attend any primitive skills workshop or class and you're talking about natural cordage the instructors will almost always talk about common dog vein and you would want to use it when the stalks you know start to die away they start to senesce they become dried and you can still see them throughout the winter months heck you can even see them right now and if you would you know peel apart some of these fibers you could do something known as reverse wrapping you can make very strong cordage that you can't really make with a lot of other plants here in Pennsylvania so it's still a very useful plant mainly for utilitarian purposes when forging for anything whether they're plants or mushrooms it's sensual that we do so with intention especially when foraging for milkweed it's important that we go out with a conservation mindset always with a species longevity in mind I'm sure we've heard about the modern butterfly and how its numbers are massive decline and this is mainly due to habitat destruction deforestation and it's winter home and also the loss of milkweed in farmlands that are sprayed heavily sprayed with herbicides the monarch butterfly absolutely requires the milkweed plant in order to lay its egg and then the larvae feed solely on the milkweed plant so if we are going out there foraging and exacerbating this issue even more well we could be contributing somewhat to maybe a very very small degree to this habitat loss as well so whenever we go out there let's keep this in mind let's try to practice non-lethal harvesting measures whenever possible so maybe instead of harvesting all the shoots from a colony wait until the flower buds appear and we can harvest the flower buds or harvest the flowers some of them not all of them of course or we can wait until the fruit pods appear and harvest some of those fruit pods we can harvest some of the seeds maybe from people who are growing milkweed we can harvest those seeds we can plant them back ensuring that the species will be here not only for our generation but future generations as well and maybe just forge the species on your property first this is your first introduction to milkweed and consuming milk we learn how to do it in a sustainable way on your property so if you do go out into Wilder lands to Wilder lands to harvest milkweed you will already have that stewardship mindset available you know milkweed is such a familiar face in the summer months and I do have a very intimate relationship with milk we have been utilizing it for many years and I would love to see you develop a relationship with milkweed as well and I promise I won't get jealous you're not relationship with it if there's enough to go around for everybody let's make sure that there's enough to go around for everybody as well by planting back thanks so much for watching this video I truly appreciate it hope you learned something about milkweed and the differences between milkweed and dogbane and Indian hemp I encourage you to go to learn your land comm and sign up for the email at the bottom of the website so that we could stay in touch if you're watching this on YouTube I encourage you to subscribe to my youtube channel to stay up to date with all the videos that I plan on releasing thanks again for watching this video I truly appreciate it I'll see in the next one you

Channel: Learn Your Land

Views: 158,216

Keywords: Adam Haritan, Learn Your Land, Wild Foodism, Foraging Pittsburgh, Foraging, Wild Edibles, Native, Milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, Dogbane, Apocynum, Native plants, Monarch butterfly, Arthur Haines, Daniel Vitalis, David Wolfe, Stuart Wilde, God, Nature, Universe, Western Pennsylvania, North Park

Id: oXRDIJuqkJ8

Length: 13min 46sec (826 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 08 2016