Wild Onion vs Poisonous Lookalike (Death Camas)

I have two different species of plants here this is the weekend of June first and this video helps show the importance of knowing what plant it is you're looking for and how to differentiate it from other plants both edible and more importantly the poisonous ones that can be confused with it so can you see anything about these two different species of plants that looks different I'm gonna point out a few differences here on the left here we have wild onion and at this stage of the development of the plant it's more difficult to identify this because it doesn't have the flower stalk and the flower bloom so you're basically just going based off of the leaf structure and identifying it so if you look at this leaf you will notice if you run your fingers along the leaf it feels like a succulent leaf you will notice that there is a gentle u-shaped kind of valley in the leaf and you also notice there is a just a slightest bluish tinge to it you'll notice that the wild onion has kind of a pinkish color to the bulb when you compare it to this plant you'll notice some important differences and if you don't know what you're looking at it can be very easy to confuse these two plants so this here has death canvas you'll notice how it looks very similar to the wild onion these are both in the lily family which explains why they look so similar to each other but certain species in the lily family are poisonous while others are not only edible but delicious this one definitely I would avoid and know how to identify in all stages of development so you can look for certain hallmark characteristics at this stage of the death chemistries development you will notice that the leaf of the death Camus is more grass like and its feel and in its appearance it's not as succulent as a wild onion you'll also notice that where the leaf structure begins to branch that there is a v-notch a distinct distinctive v-notch that runs the entire length of the leaf all the way to the top if you remember the wild onion is different because it's leaf structure has more of a u-shaped kind of experience another thing to notice wild onion you can't really quite as easily fold over the two halves of the leaf very well compared to the death canvas the death canvas just because of that v-notch is very easy to fold over and just run the entire length of the leaf another distinguishing characteristic is ascent wild onion will always have a wild onion smell and we'll also have onion taste I feel entirely confident in consuming this this species of onion is known as nodding onion allium sir knew him and I've noticed with this species that although there's a distinct onion taste and smell to it it doesn't have as strong of an onion and smell an onion taste as some of the other wild onion species that grow in Colorado but it is still a very noticeable onion taste and smell it's a very delicious plant you can enjoy it either raw or cooked there's a variety of ways of cooking the wild onion you can boil the bulbs and leaves you can use them in a stew you can roast them over the coals of a fire there's just plentiful ways of enjoying this the entire wild onion is edible from the bulb to the leaves to the flower stock although that will be a little bit fibrous and then also the flower bloom also is edible and it has the characteristic onion flavor in smell

Channel: Rocky Mountain Edibles

Views: 935,951

Keywords: Wild Onion, Death Camas, Wild edible, Onion, Death lily

Id: P8vz7B0hLC8

Length: 4min 36sec (276 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 02 2019