Tweet, tweet, tweed, weed...

We asked our students to come up with come good tweets about what they learned in our Byrne 2014 seminar about weeds, and here is the result!

I've learned that weeds and flowers are no different biologically. 

Weeds are awesome.

Weeds are like onions. Onions have layers. Weeds have layers. They both hve lauers. #weedstho

I definitely have a new appreciation for weeds. Except for that unidentifiable grass. #Istillhavenoideawhatthatwas

Hated for the wrong reasons #weeds

Weeds, the hipsters of the plant world. People don't understand them and want them gone. They're still pretty cool though. 

Nothing about kush. Everything about dandelions #notthatkindofweed

I ate things that I probably stepped on earlier, and liked it! #dandelionicecream #weedsarecool

Weeds are not bad because they taste great on pizza and in every other type of food also it is natural and healthy #weedsforlife #weedsarecool

Thanks students for a great class!

Eat Your Weeds @ Rutgers Day: How to Safely Savor Wild Edible Plants

Tomorrow, April 26, 2014 is Rutgers Day in New Brunswick, New Jersey! Every year about 70,000 people come to Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey's New Brunswick campus for a huge festival celebrating all that is our university.

The Struwe lab (i.e. the writers and creators of this blog) will host a public outreach and education table entitled "Eat Your Weeds!: How to Safely Savor Wild Edible Plants." We will provide information about weedy plants, advice on urban foraging, and free samples of some original recipes that incorporate weedy plants to everyone who stops by. It will be a lovely way to celebrate the start of the growing season - and the upcoming end of the semester - here on campus!

Here is some information about my current favorite weedy plant and a recipe for a snack that we'll be serving tomorrow, garlic mustard hummus:

Delicious garlic mustard hummus on cracker (with a hairy cress leaf on top). Photo L. Struwe (cc).

Information about garlic mustard, Alliaria petiolata (Brassicaceae), an invasive species.

Recipe for garlic mustard hummus, developed by Sara Morris-Marano.

You can download our recipe handouts at this link, or under Download in the right navigation bar on this blog. 

Invasive Species Sushi

A Connecticut Sushi chef uses invasive species to re-imagine sushi. Although his dishes showcase invasive aquatic species, his formative experiences were harvesting burdock and lamb's quarters with his mother as a child in New Haven.

How might we re-imagine food using weedy species? Corporate monocultures are arguably as destructive to native habitats as improper fishing practices are in aquatic systems. Many of the cursed weeds of lawns and gardens were once widely considered edible and delicious.

In the comments section of the article, some readers list their own food ideas. Isabel mentions wild mustard greens, purslane, dandelion flowers, kudzu and Japanese knotweed. How do you use weedy plants? Send us your re-imagined weeds salad, tea, or stir-fry recipes!

Some plants have really unusual features.  This edible crop and weed, purslane (Portulaca oleracea), has capsular fruits with a top that 'pops off', so that the seeds are then exposed to weather and wind.  This particular type of capsule is called circumscissile, and for this particular plant is could be that the part that is left below with the seeds functions as a splash cup.  I don't know, but it is not unlikely.  The little black seeds would then splash out of the cup when a raindrop hits the cup, and disperse further than just normal falling down out of the capsule. (Note to myself, research needed!)   

Splash cups are not that common, but also occur in the bird's-nest fungus. While looking up purslane I found out that one plant can produce more than 240 000 seeds per season.  Well, it is good it is edible then.

You can read more about purslane and this photo here. 

Photo credit (c) Arjo Vanderjagt on Flickr

Species: purslane (Portulaca oleracea, Portulacaceae)

Not all weeds are edible or even palatable...

Smokey The Cat tried out some leaves of the yellow foxtail (Setaria, Poaceae), but spat them out.  When it comes to edible plants, it is important to remember that some things that are edible do not really taste good, and that some things that taste good actually are toxic.  So, don't go by the taste only.

[photo by Vilseskogen, Flickr, Creative Commons]

Iowa's old cocklebur farms

From an article in New York Times, about how the high crop prices are making farmers plow and put golfcourses and old, unused farmland into agriculture again:

In Iowa, the nation’s biggest producer of corn and soybeans, farmers insist that they are simply getting more value from their land. Darrell Coddington, a farmer who runs an excavation business, has spent much of the past year clearing additional land in the hilly and wooded southern part of the state, including places that used to be left alone and derided as a “cocklebur farm,” referring to the thorny weed.

Cocklebur (Xanthium strumarium) is a very interesting-looking plant. It is in the Asteraceae, the sunflower family, but the fruits are covered with horrid, sharp spines (easy to get around if you are stuck to an animal!). It used to be the perfect food for the now extinct parrots of the South; now however, it is an invasive weed that loves rich and often sandy soil.  It is a nasty thing to step on and is also toxic.  Any good features? Sure, it makes a yellow dye and it repels pests from crop plants close to it.