Edible plants on the AT
Knowing a few plants that are edible along the AT is not only fun, but could be potentially life saving. I have listed not all, but a fair amount of semi easy to identify trees, plants, fruits and fungi that are classified as edible.
NOTE: To better learn and confirm each plant, I recommend prior to ingesting any, to please practice scouting these foods with a field guide. Never eat anything your not 100% sure is safe, and test for allergies if you feel necessary.
Cat Tails
Edible Parts: All raw or cooked young shoots, peeled stalks, Immature flower(hot dog looking thing) Spikes, sprouts. Cook flower and eaten like corn on cob....with butter.
Taste: kinda like corn
Season: Year round
Where: Throughout the entire AT, (near water)
Yes, Im playing around here....that's a pretty mature stalk. Not exactly good eattin...unless you want to make flour...
Dandelions
Edible Parts: Raw All or cooked, Leaves dried and made into tea is comparable to coffee.
Taste: bitter, but the flowers are semi sweet
Season: March-Sept.
Where: Throughout the entire AT
Little drawing I did of the Dandelion, I love their name...I bet people would buy them if they didn't grow everywhere.
Juneberry (AKA) Amelanchier
Edible Parts: Raw Fruit
Taste: Huckleberry like
Season: June-Sept
Where: Throughout the entire AT
Wintergreen (AKA) Gaultheria (AKA) Checkerberry
Edible Parts: Raw leaves and fruit, Dried white flowers make a great tea,
Taste: Smells like gum, doesn't quite taste like gum
Season: July-Aug Flowers Aug-June Fruit
Where: Throughout the entire AT
Chanterelle Mushrooms (AKA) Cacntharellus Cibarius
Edible Parts: The entire mushroom, cut bit above where the ground level is to assure new growth
Taste: Meaty
Season: Late spring early summer
Where: Throughout most the AT, (thick shady wooded areas)
My last batch of Chanterelle's I collected in WA frying up. Mmm, so good with garlic and butter!
Common Chickweed
Edible Parts: Raw young leaves and stem (cook mature hairy leaves)
Taste: Bitter lettuce
Season: Year round
Where: Throughout the entire AT
Cloudberry
Edible Parts: Raw Fruit
Taste: Like salmonberry but more tart
Season: July-Aug
Where: NH, Maine (had to add it because of my name, and I LOVE blackberries)
Wild Strawberries & Wood Strawberries
Edible Parts : Raw fruits. Leaves can be dried to make a delicious tea.
Taste: Taste better than store bought!
Season: Summer
Where: Canada down to TN
Wood Strawberries, seeds on outside.
Ramp (AKA) Allium Trucoccum (AKA) Wild Leek
Edible Parts: Raw or cooked leaves and bulb
Taste: Delicious
Season: Flowers June-July,
Where: Throughout the entire AT
Clovers
Edible Parts : Young leaves, flower heads (white, pink,purple, red,yellow) all rich in protein, seeds.
Taste: The flower heads are sweet
Season: April-Oct
Where:: Throughout the entire AT
Laetiporus (AKA) Sulphur Shelf (AKA) Chicken of the woods
Edible Parts : Cooked tender edges, tastes like chicken once cooked
Taste: Like chicken...no joke
Season: Late Summer-Fall
Where: Throughout the entire AT. (on dead or injured trees)
Passion-Flower (AKA) Maypop
Edible Parts : Center of fruit, Iooks like a large yellow egg
Taste: Citrus taste
Season:July -Oct
Where: Throughout most the AT
Below an unripe Passion fruit...the insides full of meat and seeds that will turn yellow when ripe.
you eat the contents but not the shell
Blackberries (AKA) Brambles
Edible Parts : Raw leaves, fruit., and young shoots
Taste: Sweet...my favorite
Season: Spring-Summer
Where: Throughout the entire AT
Purslane
Edible Parts : Raw stems, leaves, and seeds or cook. Rich in iron. (Ghandi's favorite)
Taste: Little lemony
Season: Summer
Where: Throughout the entire AT
Oyster Mushroom (AKA) Pleurotus Ostreatus
Edible Parts : All
Taste: mild...good with salt and pepper saute with some butter and garlic...killer!
Season: Year round
Where: Throughout the entire AT, (Grows on trees)
Scallions (AKA) Allium
Edible Parts: All, small like onions, hollow centered tubes that come to a point.
Taste: Like an onion
Season: Spring-Early Summer
Where: Throughout the entire AT, (fields and open areas mostly)
Ostrich Ferns (AKA) Pteretis pensylvani
Edible Parts : Raw or cooked Fiddlehead's (meaning young curled sprouts) under 6"
Taste: Earthy, a mix of like broccoli and spinach
Season: Early Spring
Where: Canada down to VA
Chicory (AKA) Cichorium
Edible Parts: Raw purple flowers, young leaves best, and boiled roots
Taste: Taste like the Dandelion
Season: Early spring- leaves May-Oct-Flowers Fall-Spring roots
Where: Throughout the entire AT
Wild Grapes (AKA) Vitus
Edible Parts : Raw fruit, cooked young leaves. Grapes are great for extra energy
Taste: I used to eat these out of my grandmas yard, the perfect amount of tart with sweet
Season: Fruit Aug-Oct
Where: Throughout most the AT
Huckleberry (AKA) Gaylussacia Baccata
Edible Parts: The Fruit
Taste: Tart, but not overly
Season: June-Sept
Where: Throughout the entire AT
Day Lily
Edible Parts: Flowers and leaves, raw or cooked.
Taste: Parts similar to mild onion
Season: June-Aug
Where: Throughout most the AT
Mulberry (AKA) Morus Nigra
Edible Parts: Young cooked shoots, and raw (Ripe berries only-dark purple) Berries
Taste: Like a dry fig
Season: Spring- Early summer
Where: Throughout the entire AT
American Basswood (AKA) Tilia (AKA) Linden
Edible Parts: leaves, younger the better..good in pesto, Sap can be made into syrup
Taste: Pleasing- sweet!
Season: Year round
Where: throughout most the AT
Also: Dried flowers act as antioxidants; boil them into a tea have great smell and believed to treat colds, cough, fever, infection. Fiber know for being the best natural cording.
Fiber known for as being one of the best natural cording.
Willow Tree
Edible Parts: Chew chew small green twigs-swallow juice natural aspirin. Leaves high in Vitamin C 7-10 times higher then Oranges.
Taste: Like aspirin
Season: Year round
Where: Throughout the entire AT
Also: Mash up leaves and bark to make a paste and place on stings, cuts, burns, or swelling.
There's a lot more out there!
The Appalachian trail spans through the wilderness of fourteen U.S. states. Covering roughly 2,180 miles. There is a lot more out there that is edible aside from what I've listed, so read up and be safe.
knowledge is power, but it's useless without common sense.
Some numbers of ground covered on the AT
- Georgia 76.4 miles
- North Carolina 95.5 miles
- 200 miles along the Tennessee border.
- Tennessee 287.9 miles
- 200 miles along or near the North Carolina border.
- Virginia 550.3 miles
- West Virginia 4 miles
- 20 miles along the West Virginia border.
- Maryland 40.9 miles
- Pennsylvania 229.6 miles
- New Jersey 72.2 miles
- New York 88.4 miles
- Connecticut 51.6 miles
- Massachusetts 90.2 miles
- Vermont 149.8 miles
- New Hampshire 160.9 miles
- Maine 281.4 miles