460 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
LJune 8, 18i>5 
NOTES FROM CAMP NESSMUK.-1V. 
"Roots and Yarbs. 3 ' 
As there was very little game around Mincke, and I was 
in no mood for killing at any rate, I took to studying the 
vegetation, and especially the trees and plants that are 
useful to us amateur barbarians. First among these are 
the esculent plants, which were important items in the 
Indian's and frontiersman's dietary, but the knowledge of 
which seems to have become almost a lost art. Narrative s 
of wild life are full of instances where" hunters or ex- 
plorers have been driven to subsist for a time upon "roots 
and yarbs," and even the occasional camper can profit by 
a little study in this direction. "Vegetables are bard t© 
transport, and you all know how toothsome is a mess of 
fresh greens after a surfeit of game, or perchance of fat 
pork and frying-pan bread. Likewise when a man is lost 
and supperles3, he will find even such unpromising 
material as cat-tail flag or Indian turnip (cooked) "a long 
way ahead of nothing." 
Yet, on thinking it over, I could not recall a single in- 
stance where books or papers on outdoor Ufe afforded 
anything like a list of the edible plants of the wilderness. 
Many of them tell us that every hunter ought to know 
such things, but none of them show how the knowledge 
is to be acquired, nor do the botanists offer us much help. 
Believing that such a list would be useful I have compiled 
one, partly from my own experience, but mostly from 
that of others whom I believe to be competent authorities. 
It is here offered to the readers of Forest and Stream 
merely as a starter, in the hope that others, who know 
more about such thmgs than I, will add to it or will cor- 
rect any blunders that may have been made. 
My list is limited to plants growing wild within the 
Northern, Eastern and Central States, including Virginia 
on the South and Kansas on the West. It has seemed 
necessary to add the scientific names of most of the 
plants, in spite of their looks, for popular names are often 
misleading. Some edibles have been omitted purposely 
because I could not identify them. 
A few of the plants here cited are not very savory to 
civilized palates, but would be found good enough in a 
pinch. The poorest of them can be recommended in 
place of dog, skunk, or rattlesnake, which some of my 
friends have been constrained to live upon at times, and 
all of which they declare to be "not bad eating." Of 
course everybody knows that wild plants, like cultivated 
ones, have their seasons, and some which are good when 
young and tender become uneatable or even poisonous 
when mature, while many which are noxious in a raw 
state become nutritious when cooked. I have taken pains 
to mark such in the following list, and believe that 
nobody will suffer from eating anything herein men- 
tioned. 
We will begin with substantial food plants, yielding 
starch or other positive nutriment: 
Roots. — Every schoolboy has been tricked with the 
Indian turnip (Ariscema triphyllum), but its acridity is 
destroyed by heating. When the root is roasted or boiled, 
peeled, and then dried and pulverized, it becomes a well- 
tiavored and nutritious flour resembling arrowroot. 
Similarly, the roots of crowfoot {Ranunculus), golden 
club (Orontium aquaticum), water arum (Calla palustris) 
and arrowhead (Sagittaria vaiiabilis), though acrid or 
bitter when fresh, are converted by roasting or boiling 
into sweet and palatable material, which may be eaten in 
these forms, or ground and made into bread. The roots 
of the silverweed (Potentilla anserina) may be eaten raw 
or roasted, being starchy and wholesome. Those of the 
common sow-thistle (Sonchus oleraceus) are not so good, 
but have occasionally been converted into bread. The 
root of the great bulrush (Scirpus lacustris) may be eaten 
raw, or pounded and made into bread, the flour being 
white and good. The prairie potato or pomme blanche of 
the voyageurs (Psoralea esculentd), and the wild hyacinth 
roots or eastern camass (Camassia fra-seri), are excellent 
and quite nutritious. There is another wild potato called 
man-of-the-earth (Ipomcea pandurata) that was roasted 
and eaten by the Indians in times of scarcity, but is poor 
food. -Other edible roots are those of the spatterdock 
(Nuphar advena), lily of the valley (Convallaria majalis), 
China brier (Smilax pseudo-china), meadow parsnip 
(Tliaspium aureum), hog peanut (Amphiearpaia monoica), 
ground nut or mild bean (Apios tuberosa), Jerusalem arti- 
choke {Helianthus tuberosus), and the common brake 
(Pteris aquilina) as well as other ferns. The roots of the 
bellwort (Uvularia) and pleurisy root (Asclepias tuberosa) 
are edible when cooked. 
Grains and Seeds.— Wild rice (Zizania aquatica) was a 
staple food of the Indians, who removed the husk by 
slightly parching the grains over a slow fire. It is pala- 
table when roasted and eaten dry, and also makes good 
bread. Gruel, mush or bread may be made from the 
ground seeds of panic grass (Panicum), drop-seed grass 
(Sporobolus cryptandrus), manna grass (Glyceria), or in- 
deed of almost any grass seeds that are large enough, but 
the bearded darnel is said to be unwholesome. There is a 
weed locally known as "wild buckwheat," though not a 
buckwheat, which is reputed to be poisonous, but I have 
not identified it. The seeds of the golden club (Orontium 
aquaticum), dock (Rumex), lamb's quarters (Chenopodium 
album), purslane (Portulaca oleracea), and sunflower 
(Helianthus) may be eaten parched, or in gruels. Those 
of corn spurrey (Spergula arvensis) and tansy mustard 
(Sisymbrium canescens) may ba mixed with other grain, 
or used by themselves if need be. 
Legumes. — The wild lupine (Lupinus perennis), wild 
kidney-bean (Phaseolus pereunis) and milk vetch (Astra- 
galus canadensis) may be cooked like domestic beans and 
peas— in fact, nearly all the wild legumes may be eaten 
with impunity. 
Asparaginous Plants. —In spring, the young and ten- 
der shoots of several wild plants make excellent substi- 
tutes for asparagus, being prepared in the same way. 
Among these are the China brier (Smilax pseudo-china), 
bellwort (Uvularia), common milkweed (Asclepias cor- 
nuti), pleurisy root (Asclepias tuberosa) and poke weed 
(Phytolacca decandra— the root of which is poisonous, 
and the raw juice of the old plant is an acrid purgative)! 
The young stems of ferns, before the down appears on 
them, may also be employed, and even the tender shoots 
of blackberry and raspberry. 
Salads and Greens. — The name of these is legion, but 
as most of them are good only in the spring months they 
are not wtll known to sportsmen. Some are common 
weeds, growing only about cultivated places or abandoned 
clearings, and are not properly plants of the wilderness. 
The root of the cat-tail flag (Typha latifolia) makes a 
good salad. So does chicory or succory (Cichorium inty- 
bus), water cress (Nasturtium), sheep sorrel (Rumex aceto- 
sella), mountain sorrel (Oxyria digyna), deer grass (Rhexia), 
wood sorrel (Oxalis— it should be eaten in moderation), 
wild lettuce (Lactuca canadensis), young sprigs and roots 
of the evening primrose (CEnothera biennis), Jamestown 
weed or thorn apple (Datura stramonium — but when 
mature it becomes narcotic and poisonous), and the tender 
stalks and roots of the angelica. Wild peppergrass (Lepi- 
dium virginicum) is fair to middling. Several of the doct s 
are good, such as yellow dock (Rumex crispus) and red 
dock (R, venosus), but I cannot say whether all of them 
are. Celadine (Chelidonium majus), sow thistle (Sonchus 
oleraceus), dandelion (Taraxacum off.), chickweed (Stel- 
laria), purslane (Portulaca, oleracea), turkey pea or goat's 
rue (Tephrosia virginiana), stork's bill (Erodium cicutari- 
um), lamb's quarter (Chenopodium album), and several 
other plants of the latter family, known as pigweed, 
goosefoot, "keerless," etc., make good greens when 
young, and so do nettles ( Urtica) when the leaves are still 
perfectly tender, as boiling renders them quite harmlesst 
The young tops of nettles, the flowering ends of cat-tail 
flag and the common blue violet make good pot herbs, 
either in soups or with meat. The wild onion, wild leek 
and wild garlic (Allium) are efficient substitutes for the 
domesticated varieties. 
Mast. — Acorns of the sweet-mast variety, such as white 
oak, post oak and overcup, are eatable raw, but are much 
better and wholesomer when roasted or parched like 
popcorn. Even the bitter-mast red oak, black oak and 
water oak acorns will sustain life, but they are not tooth- 
some. The nuts of the region mentioned above are wal- 
nut, butternut, hickory, hazel, chestnut, beach, pecan 
and yonquapin (seed of the spatterdock or yellow pond- 
lily). Acorns, chestnuts and yonquapins may be ground 
to flour and made into heavy bread or cakes, which are 
nourishing, but somewhat difficult to digest until you get 
used to them. 
Fruit. — Within the limits indicated we have crab 
apple, wild plum, wild cherry, persimmon, pawpaw, may 
apple (the roots and Wves are purgative), wild straw- 
berry, raspberry, blackberry, dewberry, salmon berry, 
cloudberry ,buffaloberry,snowberry, crowberry, twinberry 
or fly honeysuckle, service berry or shadberry, bearberry 
or "larb," wild currant, wild gooseberry, cranberry, 
blueberry or huckleberry, elderberry, mulberry, haws 
and wild grapes. It would take too much space to name 
the varieties. Some of the berries which are unpalatable 
when raw are savory in stews, or when dried and mixed 
with meat. The ripe fruit of the prickly pear is eaten 
raw; the unripe fruit, when boiled ten or twelve hours, 
becomes soft and resembles apple-sauce; even the inner 
pulp of the leaves is succulent when they are roasted on 
the hot ashes. The fruit of the passion flower (Passiflora 
incarnata) is a large berry which turns yellow when 
mature, and is sometimes eaten in the South, where it 
goes under the name of "maypops." 
Mushrooms and Toadstools.— There are over a hun- 
dred species of edible fungi, ranging from delicate little 
relishes to "beefsteaks" that would "furnish four or five 
men with a good dinner." Very few of the toadstools are 
poisonous. I have no space here to do more than advise 
every camper to procure a copy of Harper's Magazine for 
August, 1894, remove from it the article on "Edible Toad- 
stools and Mushrooms," by the well-known artist and 
writer William Hamilton Gibson, and put this admirable 
little essay in his knapsack. It weighs only an ounce, and 
will return many a pound of delicious nutriment. The 
directions for identifying the commoner fungi are plain to 
anyone, and are helped out by capital engravings. A book 
by Mr. Gibson on this subject is announced, which he will 
illustrate in colors. 
Browse. — The asparaginous shoots already mentioned 
may be eaten raw. So may the buds and young leaf 
stems of hickory (remove the bark), tendrils of grape vines, 
etc. They are not "filling," but delude a ravenouB man 
into the notion that he is eating something, and that is a 
point gained. The same may be said of black birch baik, 
sassafras bark and buds, wintergreen, etc., etc. The ten- 
der branches of the staff tree or climbing bittersweet 
(Celastrus scandens) have a thick bark, and are palatable 
when boiled. Slippery elm you are well acquainted with, 
and probably know that the mucilaginous inner bark is 
nutritious. I have heard of it being fried in lard. The 
bark is said to have the quality of preserving fatty sub- 
stances from rancidity, and will keep butter, lard, or any 
fat perfectly sweet for a long time by mixing about one 
part of it with a hundred parts of the grease, keeping 
them melted together for a minute or so, and then strain- 
ing. The buds are also mucilaginous. The flowers and 
beans of the yellow locust are eatable, and are said to fur- 
nish a palatable dish when fried. The tripe de roche of 
the far north is a bitter and only slightly nutritious lichen 
or rather a variety of lichens of the genera Qyrophora 
and Umbilicaria. 
Sweets. — The sugar maple is known to everyone. 
Birch molasses, made from the sap of birch by boiling it 
down, is bitter-sweet, but makes a fair substitute for 
sugar in tea or coffee. Good syrup may be made from 
the roots of the great bulrush (Scirpus lacustris) by bruis- 
ing them, mixing with water and boiling down. Poplar 
blossoms contain honey, which can be dissolved out in 
water and boiled down to syrup. 
Yeast.— The hop plant (Humulus lupulus) is no rarity 
in a wild state. An efficient substitute for yeast is fur- 
nished by the liverworts (Hepaticce), which grow on the 
bark of maples and beeches in the North. A little of the 
liverwort is steeped in warm water for a few hours, and 
the infusion is then mixed with dough to form a 
"sponge." 
Tea, Coffee and Tobacco.— Substitutes for tea can be 
made from various wild mints, from the flowers of the 
linden or basswood, blackberry and raspberry leaves, 
wintergreen, holly leaves, the New Jersey tea shrub 
(Ceanothus Americanus), and from the dried flowers of 
the goldenrod. The best substitute for colfee (none of 
them amount to much) is chicory root, dried, roasted and 
ground. Others are the seeds of the fever- wort (Triosteum 
perfoliatum), and roasted and ground acorns. Kinni- 
kinick is made from certain barks or leaves, either alone 
or mixed with tobacco. The "red willow" commonly 
employed is not a willow at all, but a dogwood, known as 
the red-osier dogwood (Cornus stolonifera). The alter- 
nate-leaved cornel (Cornus alternifolia), and the silky 
cornel (Cornus sericea), may also be used in the same 
way. The outer bark is removed with a knife, the inner 
bark is then scraped up iuto little frills, which are roasted 
by holding the stick near the fire, and these are then pul- 
verized in the hand and are ready for smoking. The bark 
is milder and better in the fall, when the sap is going 
down, than in the summer. The red leaf of the sumach, 
and the leaves of the bearberry and wild rose, are also 
used for kinnikinick. 
This list might easily be extended by including the 
edible wild plants that grow only in the Southern or 
Western States — the palmetto, palm and yam, the cacti, 
aloe, Spanish bayonet, mesquite, wild sago, tuckahoe, tule 
plant, camass, kouse root, coontie root, bread root, sand 
food, screw bean, pimple mallow, manzanita, pinons, 
juniper nuts, pine seeds, squaw berry, Lycium berry and 
a great variety of other roots, seeds and fruits peculiar to 
those regions. But I have made a fair start, and will 
leave the development of this interesting subject to others 
better qualified than myself. No one can speak of all our 
wild food-plants from personal experience, but if our 
woodsmen, plainsmen and mountaineers would tell us 
about the edible plants with which they are acquainted , 
the proper season for gathering and the best methods of 
cooking them, the result would be an important contribu- 
tion to wildcraft — the recovery of a lost art, 
Horace Kephart. 
St. Louts, May 89. 
THE MUSEUM CARIBOU. 
[Concluded from page (0\ . 
Everything was now made for our preparations for to- 
morrow morning. At supper Nuel said, "Doc'or, we 
goin' to be ready for 'morrow morning. Have two to- 
boggan — one for me, one for you. Me show you how me 
carry canoe an' t'ings to village. We wan' to leabe 'mor- 
row morning berry early. Me hate to leabe dat nice wig- 
wam an' warm hearth, you call um. Not smoke much 
eder, did it? Yes, it berry nice — warm, not freeze. Don't 
want to pull um ober. You mus' have you call tent 
cover?" 
"Well, I will give you the cotton tent." 
"Me glad. Me keep it. Gabr'el, he come an' me an' 
him hunt, an' we get um more calleboo. We sleep um 
much, too. P'raps catch um more martin an' otter. But 
me like dat wigmam much. Be so comfortable. Me like 
to hab you too, all time. You stop umticulum. He! he! 
made me twis' up my niouf an' rattle up my head, so me 
could not hear meself. Dat was not drunk, you say?" 
"No, Nuel. I would not give enough to make you 
drunk." 
"Me like to try um more. Me know drunk not same as 
med'cin'. Drunks make Injin not t'ink much; med'cin' 
t'ink mose all de time. But me like drunk mose." 
About 4 o'clock we started. There was a half -moon 
shining well toward the west. It gave considerable light, 
however, but weird and solemn, in an indescribable way, 
and there was a chill about my body that seemed to strike 
to the marrow. I imagine a waning moon is more cold 
and freezing than a new one. 
But we were glad of what we had. We could pick 
along pretty well. Of course in some places the frozen 
hummocks were trying, and the twigs and little trees 
hindered me, and it was hard for me to distinguish what 
was smooth and what was rough, and my toboggan would 
bring me up all standing. Of course there was nothing 
to be seen but fields of ice and snow until Venus grew 
dim, and the moon, far in the west, paled into whiteness. 
But now we are at the canoe, and I can see a very 
crooked way between the lifeless trees. Hardly had we 
reached the canoe when Nuel began: "Now, Doc'or, 
worst over. Can slide along now. Dat snow ice make 
good run. We watch for hole. Get 'fool house' by af'ei- 
noon. We eat all we can for breckfas' and den have feas 
w'en we get home. Take good rest now. Coffee, calle- 
boo, pancake (you have pan), and den pipes. He! he! we 
have good time. Goin' to be fine." 
Nuel quite inspired me after this, and I did my best. 
I judged ISuel did his, too. I was astonished at what he 
could hold. It seemed to me we would want another leg 
before we started. 
The extertpore canoe camp was quite unique of its kind, 
and we rested a good hour here. Nuel had topped off 
some large branches and braced up a good many more. 
Of course, the earth was bare near the trunk ; the snow 
piled up, as though it was a rampart. This rampart, cov- 
ered with branches, made a good seat, and the air was 
just cold enough to enjoy it. We could hear in the dis- 
tance several squirrels chattering to themselves, and three 
meat hawks, with a dozen or more crossbills, came along 
early, just to see what was going on. 
I could see that the weather had commence d to moder- 
ate. Nuel saw that; his remark was, "Me 'fraid rain 
dis even. While fros'. No win'. Berry still." 
But we had our second breakfast, and a good one, too. 
When we were through with our smoking, Nuel said: 
"Doc'or, me goin' to put toboggan on ice, an' canoe on 
'em. Lash 'em on, as you say, bow an' stern. Me put 
t'ings each end. No weight on middle. Toboggan can 
turn roun' an' slew, an' not twis' canoe; same as you call 
bob-sled. Goin' to have sof place for canoe. Put com- 
for'ble un'er ends. It not rub back." 
When Nuel had everything adjusted to his liking, he 
said : "Doc'or, you steady um canoe stern, jus' leetle. 
Keep um from slew. Me pull. An' you help um me w Vn 
me say. He! he! Make um good road, good sleigh.' 
Now we go. Not fas', Doc'or. No need." 
Everything went aloug very nicely, except in a few 
places, where the loose ice had crowded down the rifts 
and made the snow rough, and when w r e had to avoid 
open water. 
From time to time Nuel would remark: "Dat otter 
hole. See w'ere he ate um fish. Me comin' for him nex' 
mont' wid Grabul. See dat, t'ree calleboo pass ye saerday,, 
I s'pose. Blenty rabbit fill. No small t'ing show any 
track on crus'." 
"But Nuel, where are all the partridges? I have only 
seen two budding." 
"Oh no, he not many now. He buried in snow. Crus' 
under him. He sleep till he get out. Fox an' martin fine 
out sometime. Dig down, find out. Eat him." 
Before noon I could see that the crust was softening. 
Of course it softened quicker than the hard ice and we 
