Native Plants
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Thursday - December 26, 2013
From: Austin, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Edible Plants
Title: Looking for stinging nettle not exposed to pesticides or exhaust
Answered by: Nan Hampton
QUESTION:
Hi, Thank you for providing this service! I'm interested in foraging and wild edibles in Austin and am wondering if anyone can tell me a spot where I could harvest some Stinging Nettle that is unexposed to exhaust or pesticides. If you have any other special recommendations for local wild edibles that grow in abundance, I would be appreciative!ANSWER:
If you are referring to Urtica dioica (Stinging nettle), it is shown in Turner et al. Atlas of the Vascular Plants of Texas as occurring in Texas only in Wheeler County in the Panhandle. Urtica chamaedryoides (Heartleaf nettle), however, does occur in Travis County. It is also called "stinging nettle" by some and, indeed, Green Deane on the Eat the Weeds website calls it "the nettle that stings the worst". Unfortunately, I don't have first hand knowledge about where it might occur at all and certainly not where plants that haven't been exposed to pesticides or exhaust from automobiles could be found. I think your best bet for finding such stinging nettles is by contacting fellow wild food foragers. In the Austin area there is the Texas Wild Plant and Food Foragers. On Facebook you can find the Wild Food and Foraging Austin page. You might also try contacting someone in the Austin Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas.
For foraging in Texas there is Foraging Texas: Merriwether's Guide to Edible Wild Plants of Texas and the Southwest and Wild Edible Plants of Texas websites. And, if you don't already know it, there is the 2013 book by Delena Tull, Edible and Useful Plants of the Southwest: Texas, Mexico and Arizona available in the Wildflower Center store. This is the revised version of her 2009 publication Edible and Useful Plants of Texas and the Southwest.
Here are three different discussions about edible native plants in the Austin area by another Mr. Smarty Plants contributor that you may find interesting: discussion #1, discussion #2 and discussion #3.
More Edible Plants Questions
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Native edible plants
September 24, 2005 - Hello,
I would like some resources for identifying native edible plants in
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We do alot of hiking and would like to...
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Problems with non-native tomatoes from Spokane WA
August 18, 2012 - I have 2 tomato plants in 1 whiskey barrel, they are in abundance with tomatoes. My problem is when the tomatoes start to ripen, half green & half light red within 1 day the tomatoes are really soft ...
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Edibility of Rumex hastatulus (heartwing sorrel)
March 25, 2007 - My mother and aunt, who are in their 80s, tell stories of eating a plant, when they were girls in North Central Texas. They call the plant "sheep shire". My mother says that it is a flat weed, that...
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Jelly made from local plums from Amarillo TX
July 29, 2011 - On Wednesday, August 5, 2009 you answered a question on native plants in the Austin area in which you wrote:"Two kinds of local plums have also been used to make jellies: Mexican Plum (Prunus mexican...
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