California Buckwheat, Eriogonum
fasciculatum
Description: Annual or perennial herb or subshrub. Blooms May – August. Leaves entire, often with woolly hairs on at least one surface. Flowering stalks have only a few leaves or none. Flowers form tight balls or clusters, arranged in a terminal umbel, white in late spring, gradually turning pink in summer, and rust-colored in fall. The rusty flowers commonly stay on until the next spring.
Special: Native. Hardy and drought-tolerant.
Use: Stems of most Buckwheat spp. edible before flowering. Seeds edible when ground & used as flour. Flowers, leaves, & seeds are used by small animals.
California Wild Grape, Vitis californica
Grape family
Description: Vine to 40' (may also be a shrub). Bloom May – June. Flowers tiny, greenish clusters. Purple fruits, with white sheen, ¼–½". Leaves lobed, toothed, fuzzy below.
Special: Native. A wild grapevine may live for well over a century.
Use: Fruits are edible; wine.
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Description: 4–10". Blooms –
April – June; Two round, fleshy leaves on an otherwise bare stem unite to form a saucer or cup ½–2" beneath the sprig of flowers. The tiny flowers have ¼" pale pink or white petals & 2 green sepals.
Use: Miners, & natives before them, used the leaves as salad greens. Prefers shady places
Miner’s Leaf Lettuce, Claytonia perfoliata
Purslane family
Description: Annual herb. Description:
The Red Clover's most defining characteristics are the purple-red flower and the v-shaped stripe of white across the green leaves. The flower has a rounded head.
Habitat: Red Clovers are all over campus, in fields, in thickets, roadsides, and could grow in another random location.
Use: Clovers in general are healthy to eat: in salad, as a cooked green, ground to flour, or blended with another tea. Clover is high in protein! The most common things to eat on the Clover are the flowerheads and the leaves, but are easier to eat if soaked for about an hour or boiled.
Special: Not native; considered a weed.
Rose Clover, Trifolium pratense
Pea family
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Common Mustard, Brassica rapa L.
Field Mustard, Rape Mustard
Communities: weed, species characteristic of disturbed places
Habitat:
Elevation: disturbed between 0 and 5000 feet [Calflora
2004 (ft.)]
An annual herb that is not native to California; it was introduced from elsewhere and naturalized in the wild
Use: Flowers can be added to salads or eaten as a garnish. Seed pods can be eaten raw or steamed
Whiteleaf Manzanita, Arctostaphylos viscid, Heath family
Bloom: February–April
Description: Shrub, up to 16'. Branches deep maroon, shedding in thin strips.
Leaves leathery, pale or gray-green, ovate to elliptic, up to 1½" wide. Inflorescence is a cluster of many 3/8" urn-shaped, nodding flowers, pink to white. Brown fruits (which have sticky surfaces) look like tiny apples, hence its name
(manzanita is Spanish for "little apples").
Use: Native. Fruits are a valuable wildlife food source (genus name is Greek for
"bear berries"). Natives ate berries raw & dried. Pulp used to make cider. Skin tonic made from leaves to relieve poison oak rash. Flowers edible. Manzanitas thrive on poor, stony soil, including burned areas, especially on dry slopes, usually in full sunlight.
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Nettle, Agustache urticifolia
White Mallow, eremalche exilis
Native Plant, Edibles Guide 1
Communities: Yellow Pine Forest, Red Fir
Forest, Lodgepole Forest, Subalpine
Forest, Foothill Woodland, Chaparral,
Valley Grassland, many plant communities
Wetlands: a moist area near a stream or the edge of a forest. Nettle herbs thrive in habitats like these.
Elevation: between 0 and 10000 feet
Use: Boil the plant for 10 to 15 minutes to destroy the stinging element of the bristles. You can now eat the very nutritious leaves and young stems of the nettle herb. Nettles provide vitamins C and A, as well as iron, protein and minerals. Furthermore, nettles have been used to treat anemia, diarrhea and poor circulation.
Community: Creosote Bush Scrub
Elevation: between 0 and 4921 feet [Calflora 2004 (m)]
Description. Blooms March – May. An
annual herb that is native to California and is also found outside of California, but is confined to western North
America
Use: mallow is used as a gargle to treat mouth and throat ulcers. The flowers and young leaves can be eaten. They are often added to salads or boiled and fried.
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Common Dandelion, Taraxacum officinale
F.H. Wigg.
Use: Has traditionally been used as an immune stimulator, blood cleanser (especially for the liver), mild laxative, digestive, diuretic, bitter, and kidneys strengthener.
Dandelion may help breast cancer, loss of appetite, warts, cancer, lung infections, increase bile to intestines, and is active against tumor systems. Dandelion may also be helpful for clearing emotional history and enriching deepening, grounded wholeness. Can be taken when arriving to a new place, moving, and adjusting to jet lag.
Description: Its golden-yellow flowers, followed by the round, fluffy, seed heads, are a familiar sight in lawns, meadows, and along roadsides. The entire plant contains a white, milky juice. In spring the young tender leaves are much used for table greens. The plant has a large, thick, fleshy taproot which extends well into the ground
Raspberry, Rabus leucodermis
Habitat: canyons, slopes
Wetlands: usually occurs in non wetlands, but occasionally found on wetlands
Elevation: between 0 and 7000 feet
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Strawberry, Friagaria vesca L.
Communities: Closed-cone Pine Forest,
Chaparral, Mixed Evergreen Forest,
Yellow Pine Forest, Douglas-Fir Forest
Wetlands: occurs in wetlands in another region, but occurs almost always under natural conditions in non wetlands in
California
Elevation: between 98 and 6561 feet
Seep Willow, Baccharis salicifolia [Mule fat]
Chinese physicians have used white willow since 500 B.C.
to relieve pain and lower fevers. In the mid-1700s, white willow was used in Britain as a remedy for malaria since the bark was similar to cinchona bark, a South American bark used to treat malaria. In 1828, European chemists extracted the constituent salicin from white willow bark and converted it to salacylic acid.
At the end of the nineteenth century, acetylsalicylic acid was synthetically produced and aspirin was born
Communities: Coastal Sage Scrub,
Foothill Woodland, Valley
Grassland, many plant communities, wetland-riparian
Habitat: streambanks
Wetlands: usually occurs in wetlands, but occasionally found in non wetlands
Elevation: between 0 and 1500 feet
Use:
Aspirin; pain reliever.
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Common Fig, Ficus carica
The ancient history of the fig begins in the Mediterranean region, and it is most commonly cultivated in mildtemperate climates. It’s a non-native in California, and in some places, considered a non-native.
The fig is a tree of small dimensions, 10 to 30 ff, with numerous spreading branches and a trunk rarely more than
7 in (17.5 cm) in diameter. It contains copious milky latex. The root system is typically shallow and spreading, sometimes covering 50 ft (15 m) of ground. The deciduous leaves are palmate, deeply divided into 3 to 7 main lobes, these more shallowly lobed and irregularly toothed on the margins, fairly thick, rough on the upper surface, softly hairy on the underside. What is commonly accepted as a "fruit" is technically a synconium, that is, a fleshy, hollow receptacle with a small opening at the apex partly closed by small scales.
Use:
The fruits are edible raw or cooked.
Some figs have little flavor
Prickly pear cactus, Nopales, Indian Fig,
Opuntia,
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