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Nettle
Description: These plants grow several feet high. They have small,
inconspicuous flowers. Fine, hairlike bristles cover the stems, leafstalks,
and undersides of leaves. The bristles cause a stinging sensation when they touch the skin.
Habitat and Distribution: Nettles prefer moist areas along streams or
at the margins of forests. They are found throughout North America, Central
America, the Caribbean, and northern Europe.
Edible Parts: Young shoots and leaves are edible. Boiling the plant for 10
to 15 minutes destroys the stinging element of the bristles. This plant is
very nutritious.
Oak
Description: Oak trees have alternate leaves and acorn fruits. There are
two main groups of oaks: red and white. The red oak group has leaves with
bristles and smooth bark in the upper part of the tree. Red oak acorns take 2 years to mature. The white oak group has leaves without bristles and a rough bark in the upper portion of the tree. White oak acorns mature in 1 year.
Habitat and Distribution: Oak trees are found in many habitats
throughout North America, Central America, and parts of Europe and Asia.
Edible Parts: All parts are edible, but often contain large quantities of
bitter substances. White oak acorns usually have a better flavor than red
oak acorns. Gather and shell the acorns. Soak red oak acorns in water for 1 to 2 days to remove the bitter substance. You can speed up this process by putting wood ashes in the water in which you soak the acorns. Boil the acorns or grind them into flour and use the flour for baking. You can use acorns that you baked until very dark as a coffee substitute.
Palmetto palm
Description: The palmetto palm is a tall, unbranched tree with persistent
leaf bases on most of the trunk. The leaves are large, simple, and palmately
lobed. Its fruits are dark blue or black with a hard seed.
Habitat and Distribution: The palmetto palm is found throughout the
coastal regions of the southeastern United States.
Edible Parts: The fruits are edible raw. The hard seeds may be ground
into flour. The heart of the palm is a nutritious food source at any time. Cut
off the top of the tree to obtain the palm heart.
Rattan palm
Description: The rattan palm is a stout, robust climber. It has hooks on
the midrib of its leaves that it uses to remain attached to trees on which it
grows. Sometimes, mature stems grow to 90 meters. It has alternate, compound leaves and a whitish flower.
Habitat and Distribution: The rattan palm is found from tropical Africa
through Asia to the East Indies and Australia. It grows mainly in rain
forests.
Edible Parts: Rattan palms hold a considerable amount of starch in their
young stem tips. You can eat them roasted or raw. In other kinds, a
gelatinous pulp, either sweet or sour, surrounds the seeds. You can suck out this pulp. The palm heart is also edible raw or cooked.
Sago palm
Description: These palms are low trees, rarely over 9 meters tall, with a
stout, spiny trunk. The outer rind is about 5 centimeters thick and hard as
bamboo. The rind encloses a spongy inner pith containing a high proportion of starch. It has typical palmlike leaves clustered at the tip.
Habitat and Distribution: Sago palm is found in tropical rain forests. It
flourishes in damp lowlands in the Malay Peninsula, New Guinea, Indonesia,
the Philippines, and adjacent islands. It is found mainly in swamps and along streams, lakes, and rivers.
Edible Parts: These palms, when available, are of great use to the
survivor. One trunk, cut just before it flowers, will yield enough sago to
feed a person for 1 year. Obtain sago starch from nonflowering palms. To extract the edible sage, cut away the bark lengthwise from one half of the trunk, and pound the soft, whitish inner part (pith) as fine as possible. Knead the pith in water and strain it through a coarse cloth into a container. The fine, white sago will settle in the container. Once the sago settles, it is ready for use. Squeeze off the excess water and let it dry. Cook it as pancakes or oatmeal. Two kilograms of sago is the nutritional equivalent of 1.5 kilograms of rice. The upper part of the trunk's core does not yield sage, but you can roast it in lumps over a fire. You can also eat the young sago nuts and the growing shoots or palm cabbage.
Tamarind
Description: The tamarind is a large, densely branched tree, up to 25
meters tall. Its has pinnate leaves (divided like a feather) with 10 to 15
pairs of leaflets.
Habitat and Distribution: The tamarind grows in the drier parts of
Africa, Asia, and the Philippines. Although it is thought to be a native of
Africa, it has been cultivated in India for so long that it looks like a native tree. It is also found in the American tropics, the West Indies, Central America, and tropical South America.
Edible Parts: The pulp surrounding the seeds is rich in vitamin C and is
an important survival food. You can make a pleasantly acid drink by mixing
the pulp with water and sugar or honey and letting the mixture mature for several days. Suck the pulp to relieve thirst. Cook the young, unripe fruits or seedpods with meat. Use the young leaves in soup. You must cook the seeds. Roast them above a fire or in ashes. Another way is to remove the seed coat and soak the seeds in salted water and grated coconut for 24 hours, then cook them. You can peel the tamarind bark and chew it.
Walnut
Description: Walnuts grow on very large trees, often reaching 18 meters
tall. The divided leaves characterize all walnut spades. The walnut itself has
a thick outer husk that must be removed to reach the hard inner shell of the nut.
Habitat and Distribution: The English walnut, in the wild state, is found
from southeastern Europe across Asia to China and is abundant in the
Himalayas. Several other species of walnut are found in China and Japan. The black walnut is common in the eastern United States.
Edible Parts: The nut kernel ripens in the autumn. You get the walnut
meat by cracking the shell. Walnut meats are highly nutritious because of
their protein and oil content.
Yam
Description: These plants are vines that creep along the ground. They have
alternate, heart-or arrow-shaped leaves. Their rootstock may be very
large and weigh many kilograms.
Habitat and Distribution: True yams are restricted to tropical regions
where they are an important food crop. Look for yams in fields, clearings,
and abandoned gardens. They are found in rain forests, semievergreen seasonal forests, and scrub and thorn forests in the tropics. In warm temperate areas, they are found in seasonal hardwood or mixed hardwood-coniferous forests, as well as some mountainous areas.
Edible Parts: Boil the rootstock and eat it as a vegetable.
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