It occurs to me to mention that sweet potatoes are, of course, a type of morning glory.

[conuly]

The irony absolutely kills me. They are the only type of morning glory I ever want to see in my yard ever again. I can't even plant beans because when they come up they look like morning glory seedlings and I don't know whether I should pluck them or let them be!

My mother reminded me we might have some potato potatoes out there, but they're by a hole with bees in it. I plan to take some boiling water to the bees, I've just been putting it off (I hate being mean to wild things that can't help living the way they're supposed to live, but really, I can't have bees smack in the middle of the yard), so maybe I'll do that.

Edit: And regular potatoes are a type of nightshade, along with tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. It's very strange that such a poisonous family can have so many delicious plants in it - but of course, you can't eat all of any of those plants.

Nightshade grows all around here, and the nieces can identify it pretty reliably. Most people don't seem to know what it is or I'm sure they'd yank it up. A while back in the gardening comm on LJ somebody posted a picture of some delicious looking berries (her words) and asked if they were safe to eat.

The first several comments said "OMG NO! That's nightshade!" as indeed it was. Then there was one saying she thought it was hawthorn and therefore safe, followed by a few more top-level comments reiterating that it was nightshade. I was so horrified by the thought that that middle commenter might stumble across some nightshade and eat it that I spent several minutes pointing out the differences between the two plants. The moral lesson here is that you really need to be very observant before you tell others that this or that berry is safe to eat.

Comments

[steorra]

!!! at sweet potatoes being a kind of morning glory.
Thanks for pointing that out. That's neat and I didn't know it.

Also, regarding yummy vegetables coming from poisonous families, a friend of mine is fond of pointing out that carrots also belong to a rather poisonous family.

[conuly]

Carrots, celery, parsnips, parsley? What family is that?

[steorra]

Apiaceae.
Contains Poison Hemlock and Queen Anne's Lace as some of its better-known poisonous members.

[steorra]

... And, of course, Queen Anne's Lace is a common name that refers to several species, and a quick glance at Wikipedia is not confirming my memory with a statement that any of them is poisonous.

[conuly]

I thought Queen Anne's Lace was the general term for any wild carrot!

[marveen.livejournal.com]

Well, there are the "wonderberry" type of edible nightshade...but I'm not rushing over to try one.

I don't get the "delicious looking" paradigm. Honeysuckle berries are beautiful, but not edible (bellyache and extreme digestive upset). Hollyberries are lovely glossy red....emetic. Red elderberries are toxic eaten raw (most of the plant is, actually). Nightshade is pretty as well (noted above).

You ONLY ever CONSIDER eating it if you a) know what it is, or b) have observed OTHER HUMANS eating it in the past with no ill effects, preferably both. (Birds love hollyberries.)

[conuly]

These weren't even the red nightshade, they were the black one. I can never recall which is "deadly" and which is "bitter", but since they'll both kill you (or at least make you very very very sick) I don't really care either.

[marveen.livejournal.com]

Here's a link to the garden nightshade or wonderberry. (http://www.tradewindsfruit.com/wonderberry.htm)

I get so frustrated sometimes trying to explain to people that common names vary, and just because it's called one thing has little to nothing to do with what it IS. (Lately with Oregon-grape: it is not a grape, it's not related to grapes, it's a type of barberry. But because it has the word "grape" in it, people insist on thinking it must be ...sigh. I've taken to calling it Mahonia aquifolium so as to avoid the aggravation.)

[conuly]

Fascinating. Why on earth would anybody want to grow something that doesn't taste like much but IS a dead ringer for a deadly poison?

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

The leaves of Oregon grape look like holly, which it's related to, and it's a small shrub, not a vine, so I wouldn't think anyone would mistake it for an actual grape. The berries do look a lot like wild grapes, though, and taste somewhat like them, and one can make jelly or wine from them, though it's hardly worthwhile when there are so many blackberries ripe at the same time.

[marveen.livejournal.com]

The berries do look a lot like wild grapes, though

True--tiny, purple wild grapes growing on a holly bush, that is.

and taste somewhat like them

...No, they don't. Or else wild grapes taste completely different than I would expect.

I use Mahonia aquifolia in cooking (and for ink purposes) all the time. It's very good, but I do not find any grape-ish connection in the flavor at all. The juice of ripe mahonia is so sour it can be substituted for lemon juice in cooking, yielding a "key lime pie" of a startling shade of purple.

and one can make jelly or wine from them, though it's hardly worthwhile when there are so many blackberries ripe at the same time.

We will apparently have to agree to disagree on that one, as the bland one-dimensional sweetness of himalayans--the abundant blackberry--is so undesirable to me I'm not even bothering this year, preferring the trailing dewberry, gooseberry, raspberry, currant, marionberry and wild huckleberry.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

The little wild grapes of the woods of Ohio are just about the same size as Oregon grape, and they're just as tart - I used to eat so many of them every fall that I'd get 'grape rash' around my mouth from the acidity. The biggest and ripest of them tasted a little like particularly small, sour Concord grapes. Probably one could tell them from Oregon grape in an actual taste-test, but they're pretty close.

Himalayans are the abundant blackberry, but there's 20 other species of drupelet-bearing Rosacea out there, and IMHO any of them except thimbleberries would make better jam than Oregon grape (I love thimbleberries, but they're only good fresh.) I had Oregon grape sauce on a meat dish once, which was odd but okay - haven't ever cooked with them myself, though I did dye cloth with the roots once, which make a fine bright yellow.

Good to know about the purple 'key lime' pie; thanks! There's tons of Oregon grape getting ripe just now, so I might just try that out

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Here's some pics of wild grapes with size references:

http://chateau-z.com/images/aestivalisbunchandleaves.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/starleys/6209826758/

.... and one of Oregon grape for comparison:

http://www.herb-pharm.com/store/images/plants/oregon_grape.jpg

[marveen.livejournal.com]

Ah, that explains it. The only wild grapes I'd ever been up close to were the muscadines, and those are a somewhat different kettle of fish.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

The red is woody nightshade, or bittersweet. The black is the deadly nightshade, which I've never actually seen in the wild, either back East or here; it's a European native.

[conuly]

I've seen both around here.

[sayga.livejournal.com]

There was a news article here recently about giant hogweed found at an elementary school. It looks like Queen Anns lace, only HUGE, but it is also toxis and will blister a person's skin, leave scars and cause blindness if it gets in your eyes (and it was introduced to the US on purpose, because it's pretty. Nice). The article went on to describe the differences between Queen Ann's Lace and giant hogweed. It's pretty important to know the difference between a lot of plants. I'm growing catnip, which sometimes looks like stinging nettle, but luckily for now we don't have stinging nettles in our yard.

I did not know sweet potato was in the morning glory family, though. That's kind of crazy!

[conuly]

I don't mind nettles in my yard. They're very nutritious, and if I choose to plant my soup herbs with my tulips that really ought to be nobody's business but my own. It's hardly *my* fault some of my neighbors are thieves, is it?

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

We've got giant hogweed out here too; it's evil stuff. The flowers are white lacey umbels like Queen Anne's Lace, but there the resemblance ends, because Queen Anne's Lace is a little roadside flower, and Giant Hogweed is a giant sprawling monster, like Poison Hemlock on steroids. The sap is a phototoxin; reacts with sunlight to destroy tissue, and it's under pressure in those big hollow stalks, like alien blood in Aliens. Totally evil. It originated in the Caucasus, probably at Castle Dracula.

Stinging nettles are a wonderful plant - anything cooked spinach can do, cooked nettles can do better. Mmmm, nettle fettuchine, one of the culinary pleasures of Spring....

[conuly]

OMG, I thought that hogweed plant (under a different name) was invented for a Vivian Vande Velde novel!

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

No, srsly, the stuff is real (http://www.kingcounty.gov/environment/animalsAndPlants/noxious-weeds/weed-identification/giant-hogweed.aspx). Horrifying, neh? It's like finding out that triffids are real - which I hope we never will, but if giant hogweed exists, who knows what else is out there?

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

It amazes me that anyone could confuse hawthorn and nightshade. Hello, hawthorn has thorns - hence the name - not to mention being a tree, and otherwise bearing almost no resemblance to nightshade. Sheesh.

In North America, all berries with drupelets are safe to eat: everything in the blackberry/raspberry family, and also mulberries, which are the only tree-fruit with drupelets I know of. Red huckleberry is the only red non-drupelet berry I know that's edible for humans, besides wild strawberries (which are obviously strawberries) - most red berries are bird-berries; people-berries tend to be purple - though that doesn't mean every purple berry is safe.

[conuly]

Maybe it wasn't hawthorn, then. It was something that looked somewhat similar to the careless observer.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

I take it redcurrants don't grow in North America?

[conuly]

Not sure they're native to the area.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

Shame, redcurrant jelly is delicious. (And fast being pushed off the shelves by cranberry sauce, sigh.) I've never managed to cook with actual redcurrants yet though, because they make such a fleeting appearance. And I'm not sure my market stall even carries them when they are around, I think I've only ever seen them in the grocer's that I don't normally use.

[conuly]

Of course, tomatoes - which ARE berries, unlike, say, strawberries - are definitely native.