Wild berries, Foraging the forest.

While out putting out corn and tending to our food plot I noticed what I thought looked like a litchi tomato, except this plant had yellow fruit. Well this is where I put the internet to my use and started looking it up. I love knowing what I can and cant eat in the woods. Some of the best tasting berries are the ones that grow wild. Blackberries and dewberries are a prime example of this fact.

The plant that I came across was not a litchi tomato, and it was definitely not edible.  Good thing I didn't eat it.  Honestly that was only under the advisement of my husband, because if it were just me in the wood I probably would have had a tiny taste because of its likeness to the litchi tomato. And for good reason too, this plant is actually called the devils tomato, bull nettle, horse nettle, or apple of Sodom. It is part of the nightshade family from which the tomato derives.  Although it looks somewhat like a tomato it is poisonous. It has thorns and the fruit is a yellow, sometimes striped fruit.

Another plant I came across while in the woods caught my eye because of its beautiful and unusual clumps of bright purple berries. Just by looking at it I thought, this has to be poisonous. But when I smashed some of the berries in my hand and smelled them I was delighted at the scent of these tiny purple beauties. It was a sweet smell that reminded me of fruit. So I was most anxious to find out what these berries were. To my surprise these berries were not only not poisonous but used for remedies and cures among Native American tribes. It is called Beauty berries.

 

The Berry itself is used commonly in jelly and is said to taste like a cross between a grape and apple jelly. It is not advised to eat the berries because of their astringent nature. 

 

The leaves are also used in folk remedies as a natural bug repellent.  It is still used to this day for this as it has been patented by the USDA as a mosquito repellent.

Because of its sweet smell and uses for keeping bugs at bay, I harvested about a quart of these berries and leaves to make an essential oil for some of our homemade soap. We will have to see how that turns out, hopefully a hunters soap for women.

 

 

 

And while I am sharing I thought I should mention some common wild plant that I do know a little about from growing up in Oklahoma. The first is Polk salad. It also has purple berries but unlike the beauty berry these berries are not edible but can be used as a dye or paint. Growing up we would use the berries along with Indian paint brushes (a common red wild flower in Oklahoma) to paint on rocks.  The leaves on the other hand are edible if cooked right. It is important to only harvest tender young leaves as the older ones will have a hard string in them that is unappetizing. When cooking them it is said that they need to be boiled and drained three times. I remember eating these greens as a child with some scrambled eggs mixed in with them, but I do not recall actually seeing them cooked.

 

 

Granted I could not get any pictures of ripe berries at the time being but they will turn purple and make fun paint.

 

 

The other plant I noticed is easily recognizable by it unusual flowers that look like no other flower I have come across. It is called passion fruit and is edible but takes a long time to ripen and looks like a dried plum when it is ready. But by the time it is ripe, raccoons have usually found the plants and eaten the fruit.

 

 

I hope to bring more knowledge to anyone who reads this so that maybe if you ever find yourself in the woods lost and hungry you might know what you can and cannot eat. Or maybe you could use this information to bring yourself closer to nature and take a stroll in the woods. Knowledge ways nothing and we always carry it with us even in the woods.