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Elisabeth C. Miller Library

Archives: Plant Answer Line Q & A

Plant Answer Line questions and answers.

are carnations and pinks edible?

Are carnation and pink flowers edible? I read (in a novel) about a 17th century beverage called “Water of Venus” that included carnations and cinnamon.

 

I could not find any information about a beverage of that name, which may be the author’s invention.  As long as the plants are grown without chemical fertilizers or pesticides, it should be safe to use spicy, clove-flavored Dianthus petals in drinks and edible concoctions, from cake and salad decoration to flavoring oils and vinegars. According to Edible Flowers: A Global History by Constance L. Kirker and Mary Newman (Reaktion Books, 2016), ancient Greeks and Romans used the petals in various dishes. The genus name is from Greek dios (god) and anthos (flower). The Romans called carnations Jupiter’s flower, to honor the god.

John Gerard’s 1597 Herball mentions that “a water distilled from Pinks has been commended as excellent for curing epilepsy,” and more generally, “a conserve made of the flowers with sugar is exceeding cordial, and wonderfully above measure doth comfort the heart, being eaten now and then.” In Carnation (Reaktion Books, 2016), author Twigs Way lists varieties of intensely fragrant pinks that are ideal for adding to food and drink: ‘Mrs. Sinkins,’ ‘Doris,’ Whatfield Can-can,’ ‘Betty Norton,’ as well as ‘Giant Chabaud’ carnations.

The article “History and Legend of Carnation to 1800” by W. D. Holley (editor for the Colorado Flower Grower’s Association) gives an idea of the wide-ranging presence of the plant, including its use in Elizabethan times for spicing wine and ale, called sop-in-wine or wine-sop.

Garden author Gayla Trail offers a recipe for Dianthus-infused vodka on her You Grow Girl blog. There are more recipes in the Herb Society of America‘s guide for using clove pinks, including instructions on how to prepare the flowers (discard the white base of the petals as well as the sepals and styles which can be bitter).

For more extensive historical information, Mary MacNicol’s Flower Cookery (Collier Books, 1972) is an excellent resource, with recipes from the 1600s to the 1900s. There is one recipe for Ratafia d’Oeillets from The Art of French Cookery (1814) by Antoine Beauvilliers. It calls for 24 pints of brandy and a pound of ratafia pinks (i.e., carnation flowers): “take nothing but the red of the flowers which is put into the brandy, with a drachm of bruised cloves; […] leave them a month in infusion; drain, and press the flowers well; dissolve two pounds of sugar in eight pints of water; mix it well with it; strain and bottle.” There is a second ratafia recipe using pinks with stamens removed, cinnamon sticks, saffron, strawberry juice, sugar, and brandy. Perhaps these beverages inspired the novelist’s Water of Venus.

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what is manna?

What is the manna mentioned in the bible—animal, vegetable, or mineral??

 

In brief, all three: the substance called manna is the result of a insect-plant collaboration, and it’s possible the substance has mineral content. In Exodus Chapter 16, while the Israelites are traversing the desert after fleeing Egypt, God speaks to Moses of a substance that is revealed after the morning dew evaporates: “a fine, scale-like thing, fine as the hoar-frost on the ground” which is to be consumed like bread. The Israelites called it man (derived from the word ‘what,’ or ‘what is it’), “and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.” According to the text, the manna sustained them for their forty years of dwelling in the desert. In Numbers Chapter 11, manna resembles coriander seed but also bdellium [b’dolach], which may or may not refer to an aromatic resin emitted by Commiphora [myrrh tree]. “The people went about, and gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in mortars, and seethed it in pots, and made cakes of it; and the taste of it was as the taste of a cake baked with oil.”

Theories of manna’s identity have ranged from the improbable—a type of lichen not found in the Sinai Desert—to the plausible: a sweet exudation from a plant, caused by scale insects or aphids feeding on it. Possible plant sources include Anabasis setifera, Gomphocarpus sinaicus, Tamarix nilotica, Acacia raddiana, Capparis cartilaginea and C. spinosa v. aravensis, Pyrethrum santolinoides, and especially Haloxylon salicornicum, which grows commonly in the southern Sinai. The latter plant is called ‘man rimth’ by Bedouins, who collect the sweet resin from the stems in summer. According to Israeli botanist Avinoam Danin, Haloxylon (formerly called Hammada) is probably the most plentiful source of this sweet substance, but other less common plants in the Sinai may also be sources. Therefore, manna refers to the sweet white substance exuded by some or all of these plants.

The term manna has since been used in other parts of the world to refer to any sweet substance exuding from plants. In Northern Iraq, the sweet substance, possibly caused by insects feeding on the plants, is harvested from ash trees [Fraxinus ornus]. According to the authors of “Identification of Sugars in the Manna of Northern Iraq,” the substance “usually accumulates on the leaves until they fall to the ground. The sugars are extracted from the raw material with boiling water and mixed with eggs to make a popular dessert.” The nougat-like treat is called mann al-sama (manna of the heavens). There is a similar sweet in Iran called gaz, made with honeydew or resin from plants like Tamarix gallica and Astragalus adscendens. Plants upon which psyllid insects have been feeding exude this substance. The insects place their eggs “alongside the main vein of fully-grown leaves, which then curl up around the vein. The nymphs begin feeding inside the rolled-up leaves before they are scattered over the plant during flowering. They can be seen between the sepals and petals, but not inside the corolla. The white, sticky, segmented strings of gaz are mostly secreted in the last instar stage. The segments indicate multiple excretions. The soft exudates harden, eventually detach from the nymph’s body, and remain in the foliage, mixed with the nymphs and often with the plant debris as well.”

Ancient Greek scholar Pliny the Elder, describes manna in his Natural History: “Honey comes out of the air, and is chiefly formed at the rising of the stars, and especially when the Dogstar itself shines forth […] at early dawn the leaves of trees are found bedewed with honey, and any persons who have been out under the morning sky feel their clothes smeared with damp and their hair stuck together, whether this is the perspiration of the sky or a sort of saliva of the stars or the moisture of the air purging itself.” According to Edward Parker in his book Ash (Reaktion Books, 2021), Greco-Roman tradition called the exudate from ash trees manna, and the practice of giving it to infants as a first food spread to Europe.

Sicily also has a long history of  extracting manna from ash trees [Fraxinus ornus and F. angustifolia, primarily] for edible, medicinal, and cosmetic uses. There are ash plantations in the towns of Castelbuono, Pollina, and Cefalu. The tree bark is scored with a knife to harvest the liquid exudate, usually in summer to early autumn. The liquid solidifies rapidly when exposed to hot sun.

 

 

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Water chestnuts and edible tubers

What is the botanical name for water chestnut? Will it grow here? Are there other water plants that have edible tubers which will thrive in the Pacific Northwest? What about edible lotus root, from Chinese lotus?

 

Chinese or Sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) is hardy in zones 4-10 and is considered invasive in some parts of parts of the midwestern and southeastern U.S. This article in The Guardian by Mark Griffiths, author of The Lotus Quest, suggests growing it in a container in a conservatory or on a sunny deck. However, you may not want to harvest tubers from a lotus grown in a relatively small container, as the plant needs to be large enough to have a substantial system of linear growth in order to sacrifice some of its tubers for human consumption. According to the Colorado Water Garden Society, “Lotus grow in a linear fashion, with a sequence of a tuber producing a leaf and perhaps a flower, then beginning another tuber to repeat the cycle . . . Tuber, leaf, flower, tuber, leaf, flower, etc. Each terminal point produces a single leaf and flower and then sends out the next, new growth. Beneath the soil, lotus growth takes on one of two forms: runners and tubers. The Summer “runner” growth is thin and long (to 24″+).”

American yellow lotus (Nelumbo lutea) also has edible tubers, but it can be an aggressive grower. If you are seeking out plants, be aware that there is sometimes identity confusion among Nelumbo, Nymphaea, Nymphoides, and Nuphar. In King County, there are two common invasive water lilies that are sometimes mistaken for lotuses, Nymphaea odorata and Nymphoides peltata. While some of these water lilies have tubers that have been considered edible in times of famine, they are not a desirable food source.

The common name ‘water chestnut’ may refer to the edible corms of the Chinese water chestnut familiar from Asian cuisine (Eleocharis dulcis), which is in the sedge family (Cyperaceae), or to European water chestnut (Trapa natans), which is in the loosestrife family (Lythraceae). Eleocharis is not winter-hardy in our area (it requires zones 9-11). Trapa natans is a noxious weed in Oregon and is on the Washington State Noxious Weed quarantine list, so it is not a good choice if you are planning to grow your own aquatic plants. Green Deane’s Eat the Weeds webpage describes the differences between these plants.

One commonly grown native plant with edible tubers is Sagittaria latifolia (common arrowhead, wapato, duck potato). It is an attractive ornamental in a water garden. According to Missouri Botanical Garden, the starchy golf-ball sized tubers that develop at the ends of the rhizomes (underground runners) “are edible, and may be boiled or baked and eaten as a potato-like food. Native Americans harvested and consumed these tubers, which in some areas were known as wapato. The tubers are also an important food source for waterfowl, hence the name duck potato.” According to Eat the Weeds, only Sagittaria latifolia is of edible interest to humans because the size of the tubers or corms is more significant than in other species. Generally, the larger the leaf size, the larger the edible tuber. In any case, avoid planting the two species of Sagittaria on the Washington State Noxious Weed list: S. platyphylla (quarantine list) and S. graminea (class B).

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Growing hawthorn in the Pacific Northwest

Hawthorn fruit is valued in traditional Chinese medicine for digestion, circulation, blood pressure, and anything to do with the heart. What types of hawthorn could I grow here in the Pacific Northwest that share the same medicinal properties as the ones used in China? I found some fruit on a tree in my neighborhood that reminds me of the dried hawthorn fruit we used, but someone told me this was a strawberry tree, not a hawthorn.

 

Strawberry tree is the common name for Arbutus unedo. Its very bumpy fruit is edible but not especially tasty (the species name means ‘I eat one,’ because one would be enough to convince the eater to seek a better food source!). Unlike deciduous hawthorns, Arbutus is evergreen. I can imagine, if you have only seen medicinal hawthorn fruit in dried form, it would be easy to mistake it for the strawberry tree’s fruit. Chinese hawthorn fruit has a comparatively smooth surface, though it is dotted with lenticels (that allow for exchange of gases between the outside world and the fruit’s interior).

We are not medical professionals, so we cannot address the medicinal benefits of any plant. However, there are several species of Crataegus (hawthorn) that are native to China, and some of these have fruit considered useful for the medicinal purposes you mention. The species that come up most often are Crataegus pinnatifida (shan zha) and Crataegus hupehensis. In the article “Hawthorn (Crataegus) Resources in China” (Taijun Guo and Peijuan Jiao, HortScience, Vol. 30(6), October 1995), there is a list of all the species that grow in various regions of China. The most useful ones are likely those that have sizeable fruit. There are also quite a few cultivated varieties, especially of C. pinnatifida, C. scabrifolia, and C. hupehensis. There is some history of hawthorn’s medicinal use in Europe as well, but with different species (mainly Crataegus monogyna–an unregulated noxious weed in King County– and Crataegus laevigata, previously called C. oxyacantha).

If you search online nursery inventory for the Chinese hawthorn species mentioned above, you will see that a cultivar of Crataegus pinnatifida called ‘Red Sun’ is available from Raintree Nursery in Washington, and One Green World in Oregon. You could certainly try growing it here, provided you have the right space for a 15-foot tree that needs full sun. When the fruits ripen (in the fall here), you could even scoop out the seeds, fill them with red bean paste, skewer them, and dip them in sugar syrup to make tanghulu, a treat for Chinese New Year.

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Sahlab and other edible orchids

When I lived in the Middle East, there was a warm drink we enjoyed called sahlab (spelled with variations in different countries, such as salep in Turkey) that is made from dried powdered orchid roots and milk. It can be sweetened, flavored with rosewater and sprinkled with cinnamon and finely chopped pistachios. The powder made from the roots was ubiquitous in markets in my country, but is hard to find here. I don’t know which kinds of orchids are used traditionally. Do all orchids have tubers that are edible (or drinkable)? Are there Pacific Northwest native orchids that could substitute for the wild orchids used in Middle Eastern sahlab?

 

The use of orchid tubers, whose stored starches are nourishing both to the orchid plant and to humans, goes back many centuries, and over time, sahlab/salep in one form or another migrated across Europe. In the Middle East, people typically use tubers from wild native orchids. In Israel, the family Orchidaceae is referred to as Sahlavim [plural], and the genus Orchis is called Sahlav. In Greece and Turkey, the drink is often made from the tubers of Orchis mascula, Orchis militaris and Anacamptis morio. Other sources include Dactylorhiza and Ophrys species. By the 18th century England, salep or ‘saloop’ was made from Orchis mascula, and was sold by street vendors as a lower cost alternative to tea and coffee. It also went by the name ‘dogstones’ because of the tubers’ resemblance to testicles. In his 1640 book Theatrum Botanicum, John Parkinson lamented that “our pharmacists are wont to adjudge every sort of orchid root an aphrodisiac,” possibly a throwback to the notion that a plant’s appearance indicates its medicinal uses (the Doctrine of Signatures).

An important consideration is the conservation status of some orchids, including species which have been harvested for making sahlab. CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, restricts importing all orchids, because of the difficulty in distinguishing one from another, especially by looking at tubers alone. This may account for the scarcity of sahlab powder.

Many orchids have edible properties–just think of vanilla, made from the pods of Vanilla planifolia. It is hard to say which locally native orchids have tubers best suited to making sahlab, and harvesting wild orchids is problematic from a conservation standpoint. For clues about edible uses of orchids in this country, I
searched the Native American Ethnobotany Database. Numerous tribes (including some in the Pacific Northwest) have used a wide variety of orchid species for edible, medicinal, and spiritual purposes. Those which grow here include: Corallorhiza maculata, Goodyera oblongifolia, Platanthera dilatata, Platanthera stricta, and Spiranthes species. Goodyera, for example, is mentioned in Erna Gunther’s Ethnobotany of Western Washington as a tonic among the Cowlitz.

Rather than try to find or grow and harvest orchids to make your own sahlab, the best thing would be to look for prepared sahlab powder that is made from sustainable sources.
Excerpt: “Salep can be produced sustainably, and the species of orchids that yield the best salep (Orchis mascula, Orchis militaris and Anacamptis morio) can be cultivated. Local propagation and sustainable cultivation alleviate harvesting pressure on wild orchids but subsequent trade poses challenges in the context of national and international legislation, such as CITES.”

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Seeds and food stamp benefits

I receive a food stamp benefit, and I’ve been able to use it to buy food plants to grow in my garden, but I would like to be able to grow food from seed. Do you know if the benefit covers seeds for food crops?

Thanks for pointing out that food stamp benefits can be used for food plants! I consulted with legal experts at Seattle’s Solid Ground and found out that the benefit does include seeds. Here is the USDA Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program web-site where this is stated:

Excerpt:
“Households CAN use SNAP benefits to buy: Seeds and plants which produce food for the household to eat.”

According to the historical information on the website of SNAP Gardens, this benefit has existed since 1973, when the Food Stamp Act was amended to include “seeds and plants for use in gardens to produce food for the personal consumption of the eligible household.” You would still need to obtain the seeds from an existing vendor who accepts the food stamp benefit.

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the fragrant beverage-producing willow

There’s a type of willow used traditionally in Iran to make a fragrant beverage. In Farsi, it’s called bid, and I think it’s also known as musk willow. I need to know what the species is, and I wonder if it will grow in the Seattle area.

 

Most sources I consulted confirm that musk willow or bid is Salix aegyptiaca. Encyclopaedia Iranica says “bid” is a general term for the genus Salix, but does identify “musk willow” as Salix aegyptiaca. The online version of W.J. Bean’s Hardy Trees and Shrubs: Temperate Woody Plants in Cultivation says the following:
“Native of S.E. Anatolia, S.E. Transcaucasia and N. Persia; introduced to the Botanic Garden at Innsbruck in 1874 by Dr Polak, doctor to the Shah of Persia, and in cultivation at Kew five years later. At one time a perfumed drink was made in Moslem lands from its male catkins, which were also sugared and eaten as a sweetmeat, and used for perfuming linen. For these it was cultivated from Egypt to Kashmir and central Asia, so the epithet aegyptiaca is not so inappropriate as it would otherwise seem to be.”

Salix aegyptiaca is featured in the February 2016 issue of the Royal Horticultural Society’s publication, The Garden in an article entitled “Willow the wish” by David Jewell. Since the article recommends it for gardens in England, where the climate is similar to ours here in the Pacific Northwest, it will probably thrive here in Seattle as well.

edibility of Mahonia species

Are the fruits of Mahonia x media ‘Charity’ edible, similar to Mahonia x media?

First, an aside: Mahonia has been ‘moved’ to Berberis, so that now Mahonia x media is named Berberis x hortensis, and Mahonia aquifolium is now Berberis aquifolium. Since the resources I will be quoting use the former names, I will leave them as they are.

Here’s what British author Alys Fowler says in her book, The Thrifty Forager (Kyle Books, 2011):

“All Mahonia species are edible, long-used for jams and juices in their native homes […] Sometimes you’ll find Mahonia nervosa, the Oregon grape, with the roundest grape-like berries. It looks very like Mahonia aquifolium but usually fruits later, around early autumn. […] Even when fully ripe, the acidic berries [of all Mahonia species] are too bitter to eat raw–they should be cooked into pies, jellies and jams. The flowers are edible, but bitter. The fruit needs to be picked and processed into jam or jelly very quickly, and it stains everything. It’s very low in pectin, so either add crab apples or add liquid pectin, following the usual jam making rules. You can also make an Oregon grape cordial which tastes a bit like blackcurrant cordial. Because of the low sugar content, it will need to be frozen if you want to store it–it’s a very sharp cordial, I use 350-400g (just under 1 lb) if granulated sugar to 600 ml (1 pint) of fruit. If that’s still too sharp, try mixing it with concentrated apple juice to sweeten it.”

Plants for a Future Database has pages for several Mahonia and Berberis species, including Mahonia x media, and its fruit is listed as edible.

on the safety of pickled walnuts

Is it safe to eat pickles made from unripe walnuts (including hulls)? Are some types of unripe walnuts safe to eat and others not safe? I am not sure what kind of walnut is in my garden.

I am also a bit worried by articles I found online which say that juglone from walnuts can cause cell damage. Maybe I should skip this culinary adventure?

 

Pickled walnuts (from English walnut, Juglans regia) are a traditional British delicacy. The Royal Horticultural Society even mentions them. Alys Fowler’s book, The Thrifty Forager (2011), says the walnuts for pickling must be picked in early summer before they harden. Traditionally, walnuts for pickling were harvested June 15, St. John’s feast day. The famous 16th century herbalist John Gerard said, “the green and tender Nuts boyled in Sugar eaten as a Suckad, are a most pleasant and delectable meat, comfort the stomacke, and expell poison.”

All walnut species have edible properties, though black walnut may be more bitter than English walnut. Edible East Bay published an article by Kristen Rasmussen in summer 2015 on pickling green walnuts from a native Californian species of walnut, Juglans californica.

Anyone who is sensitive to walnuts probably should avoid the pickled ones, too. Like many plants, walnuts have both edible uses and toxic properties. If you do not consume large quantities of walnuts (pickled or otherwise), I do not think there should be dire medical consequences. Toxic Plants of North America, 2nd ed., 2013 (Burrows and Tyrl) has a section on walnut (Juglans). The main toxicity concern discussed is that to horses, and in their case, it is mainly due to the use of walnut wood shavings in horse stalls.

A word about finding random articles on the internet: Context matters, and the citation you found about cell damage is in the context of using juglone (administered in a medical research facility) to kill cancer cells. It is not the context of everyday consumption of walnuts. Reliable sources are hard to find via the internet, and I would view with skepticism any site that is primarily commercial and does not cite trustworthy sources.

I could not find any references to the effects of pickling on the chemical composition of walnuts. Certainly, pickling (like any form of food preparation) will have some effects on nutrients. But since pickled walnuts are likely an occasional snack and not a staple upon which one’s diet is founded, there is no cause for concern.