Peas and Butter O'DEATH

The English language wallows in a mire of obfuscation and fraudulence.  Knot only our are spellings laughably perverse, add homonyms, and mix with terms like Greenland, buttercups and sweet peas for a deadly cocktail of confusion.  With the whole world careening into this one language, global tragedies must ensue, mark my words!

In the ethos of "Think Globally, Act Locally,"  let's resolve this year to prevent global calamity by straitening out a few linguistic kinks in the local Wild Edible realm. As has become my New Year's tradition, I commence upon this newest addition with a study of Wild In-Edibles as a vital counterpoint to Wild Edible practice.     

Buttercups are Not made of butter.  English's "Buttercup" is the mangy mutt bastard of French's "Button d'or," (Golden Button) and Anglo-Saxon's "cop" (head).  Somewhere along this twisted family tree Buttercup meant "Golden Button Head,"  which sounds like something to choke on rather than a fattening dairy creation.  (Plants of the Southern Interior from Lone Pine).

Buttercups grow tall or short, creeping or upright, margarine gold or fresh butter mellow.  Their green leaves are usually deeply lobed into three, sometimes two, sections of often frilly points.  Their shiny, five-petaled simple flowers, cheery yellow cup'o'toxins, spring up early in the year. 

Do Not pat these upon your morning toast, for all buttercups will bring you are the blisters and burns of poisonous alkaloid compounds.  They do not taste like butter, but are so bitter that before ingesting too much of it we tend to notice that something is seriously amiss.  Reportedly, buttercups pose greatest risk to dozy-eyed cows.  However this does not bear out with personal experience, not because I am a cow, but because my first 15 years were shared with steers who Never ate the buttercups carpeting our field.

             

This hurtful and useless plant's legends are thickly spread across the globe.  The nearby Nlaka'pmx (now there's a language!) poisoned arrowheads with it.  Okanogan's warned children to not touch it.  (Plants of the Southern...)  The English believed the smell could drive one to madness.  Beggars, following buttercup's lead of deception, slathered themselves in its blistering juices to gain sympathy (hey, everybody's got to make a living!).  Roman scholar Pliny "noted" that buttercups induced maniacal laughter ending in death (Edible and Medicinal Plants of the Rockies by Linda Kershaw).  On May Day, Irish farmer's rubbed the flowers on cows' udders to increase milk production (or was that puss?).  Buttercups have also historically soothed the rheumatism, arthritis, and neuralgias of the desperate. 

Soon we will marvel at this bright flower's chutzpah as the Sagebrush Buttercup is among the first natives to shrug off the Palouse winter.  Despite your admiration, do not bring them home.  Do not drink from this cup.  Do not melt them upon the following Peas.

            

 The pea family creates confusion via appearance, classification, and nomenclature.  Some wild peas are edible, some are deadly poisonous.  In the Pea family are these poisonous relatives:  lupines, goldenbeans, locoweeds (no confusion there), timber milk-vetches (churned into buttercups, no doubt), pea-vines and American vetch.  This family grows garden-pea-like flowers giving way to pea pods which look like something to pop open and eat as impromptu trail-mix.  A more experienced Wild Eater could select peas that won't leave you vomiting or paralyzed.  But I will not take my slim chances.

            

Example: Timber milk-vetch, a pine-forest-loving perennial, upright, clumping, white or lilac pea-flowers, thin pods. This vetch's milk collects selenium, causing its digesters depression, diarrhea, balding, and heart and lung failure (AKA: death), molybdenum for poor growth, brittle bones and anemia, locoine alkaloids for locoism (which is apparently English for Spanish for Insanity) and last but not least, miserotoxin, a well christened poison causing either rapid or slow-acting deaths from nerve damage, brain bleeding and lack of breath (L. Kershaw). I do not believe you get to take your pick from the miserotoxin's bag of goodies.  As my young daughter says, "You get what you get and you don't make a fuss." 

            

 Above are several of our language's more unpalatable fibs.  If you do get served a nasty dish of Milk-vetch peas and buttercups in the 12 months looming ahead, don't make a fuss, and better luck next year.

Bellyaching aside, Sarajoy does love her native tongue.

POISON

Happy New Year!  Lets make a good New Year's Resolution together. 

In the past (perhaps as little as 12 months ago) I have made resolutions of improbable achievement.  Later, I tell myself that I didn't necessarily resolve to Do the splits, but resolved to contemplate them.  But this year, I am going to give you my own new and improved resolution, hoping these things bare no resemblance to birthday wishes which will not come true if you tell them.

I resolve to NOT eat any poisonous plants this year.

To aid in this serious endeavor, requiring all the resolve I can usually muster for these formulaic promises, let us look as some local plants of detriment.  We have already examined Indian hellebore, poison and water hemlocks, and snowberries.

This year, I begin with the most Goth plant ever; clusters of deep purple star flowers with gold stamen cones, slender vine, and deceptive, cheery red berries make Bittersweet Nightshade (Solanum dulcamara).  The dark green, purplish leaves (1-4") sometimes have extra "lobes" near the base.  When picked or crushed, Bittersweet nightshade exudes a horrific "green" smell, which should ward off any human predators.  This prolific vine chokes streams and plants with smothering mats. 

Screaming was the inarticulate yet appropriate way my mother responded when I handed her an enchanting bouquet of these flowers which had filled my young self with awe, adoration and some bewilderment at the stench.  Her response was based upon information. Mine was based upon appearances.

Birds eat the berries with impunity, spreading their seeds as nature intended.  But Bittersweet Nightshade is responsible for the deaths of livestock and children via the green-potato-toxin solanine and dulcamarine.  The leaves and green berries are the most poisonous.  But the red berries could turn you inside out as well, depending on the soil they sprout from.  Should you not keep our New Years Resolution this is how you might feel:  irritated skin, abdominal pain, tired yet restless, headache, difficulty breathing, low body temperature, dilated pupils, diarrhea, paralysis, convulsion, and then possibly death (www.metrokc.gov  King County's noxious weed information pages).  Gosh, it almost reminds me of high school.

Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) is found along roadsides and is overwhelming my neighbor's garden.  It grows 2-3' tall, with fragrant lacey leaves, and golden button-like flower clusters topping the stems.  Edible and Medicinal Plants of the Rockies by Linda Kershaw gave Tansy a long list of medicinal uses such as last ditch efforts at fighting parasites, fungi, bacteria and tumors.  And then this Warning: "volatile oils of these plants are poisonous – a small quantity can kill in 2-4 hours."  Edible Indeed!  In minute quantities, Tansy once flavored Easter cakes in England as both superstition and a way to cleanse the body after the salt-fish of lent (www.botanical.com).  Thujone, a chemical also found in absinthe, would be the Tansy's way of delivering convulsions and death, should more than a pinch be taken (Wikipedia).  Tansy is probably best as insect repellent in mattresses, and I've heard that planted near doorways, in can keep the spiders and ants out of your habitat.

Groundsels are another roadside attraction teetering on the fence between sustenance and death.  Common groundsels (Senecio vulgaris) could be mistaken as a "type" of dandelion or sow thistle.  The leaves are shaped like deeply lobed dandelion leaves, but are thick and shiny and grow from the stem.  The flowers are yellow and look like closed dandelion flowers, then turn white and fly away with their seeds.  Western groundsels (Senecio intergerrimus) are tall with up-pointing thick leaves and bunches of yellow, raggedy, daisy looking flowers at the top.  Both of these groundsels would gladly deliver to your liver alkaloids which would cause permanent damage before you ever felt a thing.  Once you started feeling, hope would vanish with the onset of bloody diarrhea, sleepiness, weakness, staggering, jaundice and death.  Groundsel contaminated flour and honey can cause similar pains.  Arrow-leaved groundsel (Senecio triangularis) is considered an Wild Edible when young, but with the aforementioned relatives, I'd just as soon keep my distance. 

Girded with these warnings (which are Not exhaustive) I hope we can all make it safely to 2008.  Lets leave the bloody diarrhea and convulsions for another year. 

DEATH

The dead of winter seems like an appropriate time to discuss Poisonous Plants.  When I am in April, filled by a wild salad, and in August, with berry juice running down my arms, I feel a satisfying sensation that the earth loves me and wants me to thrive.  But in January, I have my doubts.  Now is as good a time as ever to look at the wild and free ways that the earth would like to kill us all.  One such way is through poisonous plants, many of which grow abundantly around here.  

These are important plants for every wild forager to know well.  Use a reliable identifier.  I recommend Plants of the Southern Interior British Colombia and the Inland Northwest, published by Lone Pine.  

Water-Hemlock (Cicuta Douglasii) is perhaps the most deadly plant in these parts.  This is not to be confused with the nutritious conifers Western and Mountain Hemlocks.  Water-Hemlock is a water-loving, parsley-family perennial which grows along rivers and streams.  The parsley family, not unlike my own, contains both beneficial and toxic members, most appearing similar to the Water-Hemlock.   According to Plants of the Southern Interior…, the powdered roots were used by the Okanogan as arrow poison.   Water-Hemlock grows 3-6 feet tall and has a thick, sometimes purpley stem.  The leaves are compound, divided, oblong with toothy sided leaflets that some say look like marijuana leaves.  The peculiar, defining features are that the leaf veins end in notches between the teeth and that the base of the stalk is chambered.  It has greenish-white lacey flowers in the summer.  Its poison is an oily fluid permeating every part of the plant.   The roots contain the most oil, and are therefore the most deadly part (one bite is enough).  Immediately wash your hands or tools if they touch this plant.    The gruesome death you could expect Water-Hemlock to produce would be theatrical with a quick succession of vomiting, staggering, violent convulsions, paralysis and finally, failure to breath = death.

             

Poison Hemlock (Conium maculatum), the infamous accomplice to the death of the iconoclastic and heroic Socrates, can be found in these parts as well.  It enjoys the same watery ditches and creeks as Water-Hemlock, and is equally deadly.  Poison-Hemlock is taller,  2-8 feet, with summer, Queen-Anne's-lace-like flowers.  Plants of the Southern… describes it as a "course, freely branching biennial from a stout taproot, with highly dissected, feathery leaves and purple-spotted stems." 

Indian Hellebore (Varatrum viride)  is my kid's favorite poisonous plant.  She points it out, yelling to us to make sure we don't touch it.  This plant looks like a mix between a lily, skunk cabbage and corn.  The leaves are large, oblong and ribbed with a hairy underside (though I've never inspected it that closely).  At their bases, the leaves wrap themselves around the thick stalk.  The flowers are green "drooping tassels." (Plants of the Southern…).  I've spotted this throughout the woods at Idler's Rest and Kamiak Butte.  Drinking water from nearby a Hellebore is said to cause stomach cramps.  Eating a hellebore may not cause death, though you may wish for it as you writhe, vomit, foam at the mouth, can't see and experience "lock-jaw".  Native Americans recognized it as a remedy for advanced stages of cancer and tuberculosis.

Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus) is another toxic local plant, growing within city limits, Field Springs Park, Kamiak Butte, Idler's rest, etc. etc.  It looks like a Huckleberry or Service berry bush, but with white berries.  Translated from native languages, it is "corpse berry" and "ghost berry."  Food Plants of the Interior First Peoples, by Nancy J. Turner reports that the Stl'atl'imx identify them as Saskatoon (service) berries from the Land of the Dead.  Some also know it as wax berry. They reportedly have killed children and the Nlaka'pamux believed they were fatally poisonous. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate gorey descriptions of Snowberry fatalities.

This is not a complete list of the common and native poisonous plants, but they are my favorites.  Luckily, I have no first hand Cautionary Tales regarding these wild and free in-edibles. 

I am left pondering until spring if the earth loves me. She loves me not. She loves me.  She loves me not…