We strongly recommend foraging with someone experienced, or looking at pictures and descriptions from several online or printed resources to be sure of identification before harvesting and eating. Idaho Mountain Wildflowers is a website that contains great photos and descriptions of hundreds of native wildflowers, some of which are edible and/or medicinal. Bluebird Forest Garden and the author of this content assume no liability for improper identification of wild foods.
Agoseris This is a native plant that looks a lot like dandelion with its long narrow leaves and yellow blooms. The leaves also look quite a bit like chicory. The leaves are darker green in shady locations, lighter green and fuzzy in full sun locations. The leaves are best cooked, but can be eaten raw. The sap can also be dried and used as chewing gum.
Amaranth, wild Amaranth is native to North America. Wild amaranth, also known as pigweed, or red-root amaranth, can be found across Idaho. The stem above and below the soil line is bright pink or red. The leaves are usually pretty small, ribbed, and opposite each other on the stems. The plants may have a single vertical stem, or be branched like a tumble weed depending on the amount of growing space they have. The leaves are edible, best steamed, and the seeds, which grow in tan colored clusters at the leaf crotches and at the top of the stem, are also edible.
Arrowleaf Balsamroot This is another highly edible native plant, which is abundant on some dry, rocky hillsides. The leaves make a great pot-herb when very young; they quickly become too bitter to enjoy. It has large grey-green, slightly fuzzy, wavy leaves that bend upward on either side of the leaf stalk. The leaf shoots and young leaves are edible steamed. They have a yellow bloom with a brown center, and the roots as well as the seeds are edible, although the ones that I saw had all the blooms eaten off by the deer!
Bed Straw The native variety that I’ve seen here is Fragrant Bedstraw, of which the leaves, stems, and seeds are edible as well as medicinal. The leaves may be eaten raw or cooked. This bedstraw as long, trailing stems, fuzzy leaves and stems that give it a sticky feeling, almost like a sea anemone. It has small, white blossoms along its stems and the leaves are thin, and radiate away from each other in all directions like the legs of a starfish.
Bitter Cress This small plant is a ‘weed’ in my garden, and only just now I find out that all tender parts of it are edible! It’s in the mustard family, with thin seed pods that point straight away from the blooming stalk at odd angles, and look somewhat like kale seed pods only smaller. Like other members of the brassica family it has four flower petals, and lobed leaves.
Blackberry leaves and young shoots The peeled young shoots of blackberry canes can be eaten in salads or steamed and the leaves when older can be dried and used for tea. Blackberry roots are also known to be medicinal.
Bull Thistle This naturalized thistle has large dark green leaves, especially when growing in the shade or in rich soil. It’s a biennial, so in its second year it grows blooming stalks with egg-shaped buds and large purple flowers. In the first year, I like to dig the plant and wash it whole, then cut it up a bit, wearing gloves and then boil the leaves and root in a big pot. It makes a wonderful rich vegetable soup base. The raw leaf veins can also be nibbled by plucking the leaves, folding them in half so the thorns are all facing away from the leaf vein and then nibbling the vein, gingerly to avoid the thorns. In the second year, the larger blooming stalks have tender inner meat that is heavenly. Using gloves and a long knife, I cut the stalk into 4 inch lengths and boil them in a big pot with whatever leaves are still attached. Again, it makes a wonderful green broth, plus the outer fibers of the stalks can be peeled away to reveal the soft inner meat, which I eat as a delicacy.
Burdock This naturalized ‘weed’ is a common, wild-growing, nutritious edible that grows in many areas of Idaho. It even contains some important dietary oils. I’ve only seen one plant in my garden so far, so I haven’t harvested any yet. The leaf shoots and young leaves are edible, probably more palatable cooked. I’ve read that the tap root is edible in the first or second year and should be peeled before boiling to remove a bitter flavor. In the first year the plant just makes leaves which are large, wavy, green on the top and whitish on the bottom and slightly fuzzy. In the second year, it grows a vertical, branching stem and the burrs from which it gets its name.
Cattail This common native plant has been called the supermarket of the swamp, because it has a variety of edible uses, from the tubers to the new growing shoots in the spring to the pollen later on in the summer. The ‘blossoms’ (which look an awful lot like a brown corn dog) can be eaten when immature with the pollen still forming inside, or you can wait a little until the pollen is releasing and knock it out into a bowl and use it as flour or soup thickener. Cattails grow in swamps, shallow ponds and still water. The leaves are flat; the blooming stalks are round and hollow, and both can grow between four and six feet tall.
Cedar The leaves of the native Western Red Cedar can be dried and used for tea, however they do contain certain compounds that the body must detoxify, so the tea should be used no more than twice a week. The leaves of the cedar tree are large flat scaly, very divided fronds that hang down from the branches.
Chickweed The leaf and seeds of this naturalized plant are edible. It has a branched, trailing growth habit and the slightly ribbed, smooth leaves are in opposite pairs along the square stems. The leaves are good eaten raw or steamed.
Chicory This plant looks a lot like dandelion in its first year, but with a slight fuzz on the leaves. Both are non-native and commonly considered weeds, but contain many valuable nutrients and can be an important food source. Chicory root is often dried, roasted and used for tea. I like to stir fry the roots and leaves early in the spring of the second year, before they bloom. The blooming stalks are tall, fibrous and branched, with blue flowers that have a thin whorl of petals and are usually only open for a few hours.
Cinquefoil This is another ‘weed’ that I recently found out is edible. There are many species of it across America. The kind I’ve seen doesn’t have runners. Some species are native and the roots were used by Native Americans for their medicinal qualities. The young leaves and shoots are edible, and the roots are edible also, if they are boiled for awhile. Cinquefoil is a low growing plant that looks a lot like strawberry, but the leaves are more divided. The blooms have five petals, and the leaves have five main parts (and two smaller parts), so you can think of the Spanish word cinco (five) to help you remember the name of this plant.
Claytonia (Miner’s Lettuce) This native plant is probably one of the most well known of the wild greens. The one that I find here has pink succulent stems all growing from a central base. The stems support green to pink succulent leaves that are attached to the stem near their middle, with a tiny white bloom just above where the stem attaches, near the middle of the leaf. That unique leaf attachment is a distinguishing characteristic of the Claytonia family. The leaves and stems are good eaten raw or cooked.
Clover This family of native plants have many edible uses, from tap roots to seeds. The leaves and roots are best cooked. The blossoms are also edible, and may be white, crimson or yellow, depending on the clover. The leaves are best cooked and grow in a leaflet of three leaves held horizontally on a stem.
Curly, or yellow dock I eat the young leaves of this naturalized member of the dock family, and occasionally I’ll eat one of the long skinny taproots, from whose yellow color this dock gets it’s name. The root is higher in medicinal qualities so I eat it in small portions. The taproot is yellow, the leaves are dark green, serrated, long and fairly narrow.
Daisy, ox-eye This naturalized ‘weed’ is one of my favorite edibles. It grows in sufficient quantities to harvest without qualms of depletion, is incredibly sweet, and since it’s a biennial, it’s one of the first plants to emerge with edible leaves in early spring of its second year. The dark green leaves are smooth, almost waxy, and have a unique lobed pattern. The leaves are best eaten before the plant blooms, in early spring. The blossoms are yellow centered with white petals.
Dandelion The leaves of this naturalized plant can be eaten raw in salads, steamed or fried or added to soups. They are at their peak before the plant blooms. Dandelions grown in shade or rich soil produce much larger, more mild flavored leaves. For plants in the full sun, harvesting the blossoms may be more sensible. Like chicory, the root can dried, roasted and used for tea. And like chicory, I like to dig entire plants just before they bloom and fry or steam them — a big mess of greens and roots, and maybe a few blossoms as well. Dandelions have yellow blooms that quickly produce large puffballs of seeds, each with it’s own little umbrella of white lacy fiber to fly away on.
False Soloman’s Seal This small native plant grows from a perennial tuber that is edible. The young shoots of the False Soloman’s Seal are edible as well. The berries are redish, ripen in late summer, and are edible, but said to be laxative if eaten in large quantities. The berries and foliage of the very similar true Soloman’s Seal are not good to eat, so be sure you can tell them apart. The False Soloman’s Seal berries are clustered at the end of the stem beyond the leaves, and ripen to bright red, or striped. The true Soloman’s Seal berries dangle in a long row along the underneath of the stem below the leaves, and ripen to blue.
Fern Fiddleheads These are the shoots of the native ferns that emerge in early spring. There is a little controversy about whether bracken fern fiddle heads may slightly elevate the risk of certain cancers of the throat, and they must be boiled or otherwise prepared for consumption, but many, many people have eaten these spring delicacies. I’ve chosen to avoid them after smelling the chemicals that boil off of them. Instead I eat the fiddle heads of the lady fern, that grows in swampy areas. I recommend them as one of nature’s finest edibles, comparable to asparagus.
Fir Needles There’s a time in the spring when the fir trees put out their new needles. To me this is a special time. I love the way the trees look with the bright, light green needles accenting the tips of all the dark-foliaged branches. These new needles when they first emerge from their buds are quite palatable and are high in minerals and carbohydrates. I prefer the needles from the Douglas (red) fir. It has rough bark, and the needles grow all the way around the twigs, like spruce needles, unlike a true fir, which has needles that only extend horizontally on either side of the twigs.
Fireweed Also called willowherb, this is one of my favorite native edibles. It likes to grow in areas that have been cleared or burnt, hence the name. It has long narrow leaves that grow off of the upright stems in a fairly random pattern (not opposite each other). It has beautiful pink blossoms along the top of the stem, and later on it releases its seeds with little balls of puff that float away on the fall breezes. The young shoots, leaves and the pith in the center of the stems are all edible, and quite delicious. I usually eat the leaves and growing tips raw. Fireweed leaves can also be fermented slightly to make delicious tea leaves. Harvest the leaves, crush them by rolling them between your hands, or across a stone and put them in an open jar for 12 to 24 hours until a pungent aroma develops. Dry for later use. Fireweed seed is now in stock!
Grasses Grasses are native and naturalized edible greens that are often overlooked. I enjoy the tender inner part of Orchard Grass stems, which is a clump grass that has flattened stems arising from a central base. I grab the leaves near the base and pull them out of the clump. The lower part of the leaf that pulls out of the clump contains a little bit of juice and tender meat that I scrape off between my teeth. Grasses can also be juiced in a juicer to make them more digestible. It seems that most all grasses are edible, but not that easy to digest except when young and tender. Be sure what you are using is a grass, since some lily family plants have similar leaves and probably aren’t edible. Grass seed can also be harvested, cleaned and eaten.
Hawthorn This native bush has edible as well as medicinal qualities. It’s a compact tree with large thorns and dark blue to purple berries. The young leaves and leaf shoots are edible as well as the berries. The berries have large seeds and aren’t very flavorful, but they are a good survival food to know about, and if you are into natural medicines, they are a great plant to know.
Horsetail This is a native, swamp-loving plant. In early spring it sends up tan colored shoots that are edible, and later it sends up green, round, hollow, leaf-less stems that get about 2-3 feet tall. These green stems are not edible, but have several medicinal uses.
Huckleberry leaves While famous for their berries, huckleberry plants also offer edible leaves that may be dried for tea. Mid summer when the leaves are fully grown, but still tender, is the best time to harvest.
Indian Pipes Some sources say that these native, saprophytic flowers are mildly toxic, but most say that they are edible even raw, although they have better, asparagus-like flavor when cooked. Saprophytes are plants that do not have leaves; they get their energy from other plant matter, similar to the way mushrooms get their energy. Indian Pipes grow in the spring in dense forests in small clumps of white stems with drooping white blossoms with black interiors.
Lamb’s Quarters This is a naturalized member of the Goosefoot Family, so named because the leaves resemble the shape of a goosefoot. Its growth is similar to wild amaranth or orach. The leaves are a light blueish green, much lighter in color on the underside. The leaves are edible raw or cooked. I prefer them cooked. The seeds are also edible, and like amaranth, they grow in clusters in the leaf crotches and at the tops of the stems. This is a fairly common weed, and since it often grows in such abundance that it would be easy to harvest an entire meal’s worth, it’s a good one to get to know.
Lettuce, prickly This introduced plant is just similar enough genetically to garden lettuce varieties that it can cross pollinate with them, and has similar branching seed heads with yellow blossoms, but the similarity ends there. The leaves are flat, spiny, oddly serrated, and attach to the stems in a horizontal fashion. When grown in the shade or with plenty of water the leaves can become quite large and are good to eat, although somewhat bitter. It also produces a milky sap which can be eaten.
Lomatium This is the Latin name for a family of edible native plants that are abundant on the dry hillsides Idaho. Common names include Biscuit Root, Cous Root and Indian Celery. The tubers of this plant are edible, especially when cooked and can be made into a flour as well. The leaves and leaf stems are edible and the seeds and blossoms (beautiful yellow umbels) may be used as spices. Lomatium is in the same broad family as water and poison hemlock, but is usually shorter and prefers much drier habitat, but still good to double check characteristics before eating.
Mint So far I’ve see the native catnip mint growing wild here. It makes a nice tea, but is also mild enough in flavor to eat the leaves raw, or add a few to a soup or stir fry. It has medium green, heart-shaped leaves that are lighter color on the underside, pink flowers, and the leaves are opposite each other on the stems, with branching stems or blooming stems coming out of the leaf crotches. Dried mint leaves are currently for sale and in stock! Click here for details.
Mullein This common ‘weed’ is naturalized in many areas of Idaho. It is mostly used medicinally, including as a cough or asthma soother, but the leaves and flowers are edible when cooked. It’s biennial, so in its first year it makes a big bunch of very fuzzy, light green, large leaves, and in the next year, it makes a hefty vertical blooming stalk that can reach five feet tall and has blooms all around the top of the stalk, looking rather like a giant pipe cleaner. It likes to grow in sunny, disturbed areas. The wide fuzzy leaves also make a great toilet paper alternative.
Pearly Everlasting This is a native edible in the daisy family, but from a distance I think it looks more like yarrow. Up closer you see that the leaves are not lacy like yarrow leaves, but have the same greyish green color. The leaves alternate their way up the stems in a loose whorl pattern, and at the top of the fairly long stems are clusters of fuzzy white buds, followed by tiny daisy-like flowers with yellow centers. I’ve seen this plant around quite a bit, but just now found out that it’s not only edible, it’s reported to be tasty and nutritious — definitely on my list of things to try this season!
Pineapple Weed Aka wild chamomile, this tasty little native isn’t really a weed: it’s edible and the Native Americans had several uses for it, including sprinkling the dried leaves on meat that was drying, to prevent flies from landing on the meat. The foliage has a strong aroma when crushed. I like to eat it raw or in soups. The leaves are about as wide as they are long and serrated to the point of being lacy. In mid-summer they send up a blooming stalk which has flowers that look like a little yellow egg set in a bowl of white petals.
Pine The needles of any pine tree can be harvested and used as tea. Since pines are evergreen this is something that’s available year round and pine needle tea can really spice up a long winter evening!
Plantain This is a naturalized medicinal plant that is very edible, also. I eat the young leaves raw as well as cooked. I also use it as a pain reliever for hornet stings and for healing of skin wounds. I just chew up a leaf and spit it onto the affected area. It can take the pain from a hornet sting away in seconds! We have two kinds of plantain here, broad leaf, and narrow leaf. The broad leaf has almost round leaves, blooming stalks that look just like pipe cleaners, the narrow leaf has a smooth blooming stalk with just a clump of blossoms at the top. Both have very inconspicuous flowers and tiny seeds, which are also edible. The leaf veins are elastic and often become exposed when a leaf is broken off; then you can pull on the leaf vein to make the leaf curl.
Purple Dead-nettle This little naturalized plant is beautiful and all parts above ground are edible and quite tasty. It’s one that I have weeded out of my garden for years not knowing it was edible. On my list for this season! It’s called ‘dead’ not because it’s deadly, but because the leaves don’t sting like true nettles. Dead nettle is a member of the mint family and has bumpy, slightly hairy, green to purplish leaves and little purple flowers that are quite tasty as well.
Purslane This Idaho native edible is a delicious and versatile food. It can be eaten raw in salads or steamed, and the stems can be pickled. It is one of the best vegetable sources of omega-3’s. It’s a low-growing, branching succulent, with green leaves and yellowish red stems. It prefers sunny, disturbed soil, and it’s been growing in my garden for years without my knowing that it’s edible. Watch out, purslane!
Queen Anne’s Lace Also known as wild carrot, this naturalized biennial has edible roots and foliage in its first year, and edible blooms and seed in the second year. Caution should be exercised, however as the seeds have some medicinal properties and have been used as a birth control in days gone by.
Raspberry leaves Whether it’s the native black cap raspberries or the domesticated red varieties the leaves make a delicious tea. The native raspberry leaves have thorns on them so, while technically edible, it’s probably best to dry them and use them as tea leaves rather than eating them.
Rose leaves The leaves any type of rose are edible and may be dried and used for tea. Late Spring to early summer is the best time to harvest.
Shepherd’s Purse This is a tasty, nutritious member of the mustard family that’s native to Idaho. When the plant is young, before it goes to seed, it looks quite a bit like a dandelion plant, only the leaves are more lobed near the base, with a large lobe at the end of the leaf. As the plant goes to seed, (and the greens become less desirable!) it becomes a lot easier to identify, by its unique, heart shaped green seed pods that grow on little stems on all sides of the vertical blooming stems. It has delicate white to slightly pink flowers.
Sheep Sorrel This is a very tasty naturalized edible that’s good raw or cooked and adds a lot of (sour!) flavor to salads and stir fries. The plant can look completely different depending on where it grows: in shade it has large green leaves that have a unique shape with ‘ears’ near the the base of the leaves, and occasional reddish yellow seed heads. In full sun the leaves are usually inconspicuous and the red seed heads are all you really notice. It grows from an aggressively creeping rhizome that is often only an inch or so under the soil surface. The rhizomes (horizontal, creeping roots), leaves and seeds are all edible!
Sow Thistle This is a great wild food for me. This naturalized plant grows prolifically in my garden, and it is one of the few good vegetable sources of fat. It has milky sap, slightly spiny leaves, smooth, branching blooming stalks and yellow blooms. I like to cut off the plants when they are at their bulkiest, after the blooming stalks are growing, but before the buds have formed. Often the plants regrow and I get another harvest before they get spindly and go to seed. I chop the leaves and stems into a soup or stir fry, and they soften so that the spines are not noticeable.
Spring Beauty Also called Indian Potatoes, this beautiful little native member of the miner’s lettuce family grows from a perennial, starch bulb that apparently is similar to potatoes, and can even be eaten raw. The leaves are also edible. There’s one plant in my garden growing wild, and other than that I think it mostly grows at higher elevations, so I’ve yet to find it in sufficient quantities to try eating it.
Stinging Nettles This is very useful and nutritious native plant. It grows in moist forests, but I’ve never seen it near here, so I purchased some seed and I’m going to establish a patch or two of it near, but not in, my garden, as it can spread aggressively and I want to keep my garden bare-foot friendly! It is often dried, used for tea, or steamed for fresh eating. The plant is similar to mint in its growth habit and leaves, but since I’m not an expert on it yet, I’ll leave it to others to go more in depth on it. It does grow wild in moist parts of Idaho, but care should be taken, including gloves, for harvesting, because it can cause severe skin rashes.
Strawberry leaves The leaves of strawberry plants are edible and also can be dried for tea leaves. Since the wild or alpine strawberries often do not produce berries, this is a useful thing to know, so you can still harvest a little from them by taking a leaf or two, even if there are no berries. Late spring to early summer finds the leaves at their best.
Sweet Cicely An Idaho native that was used by tribal people as a seasoning. Both the leaves and root are edible and have a strong anise or licorice scent. This is a good way to distinguish it from toxic members of the carrot family, such as poison and water hemlock. The long black seeds of the Sweet Cicely variety that I’ve found are very apt to get stuck in socks during a walk across a meadow, making it easy to find and identify. The root would be old and tough by the time they are going to seed, however.
Thimbleberry is a native, thornless shrub that loves moist slopes and forest clearings. The young green shoots are edible before they leaf out and can be eaten raw or sauteed like asparagus. Depending on how old they are, fibers may need to be peeled off the shoots to make them more palatable. The mature leaves of thimbleberry are medicinal.
Tree lichens, hairy, black or green The black tree lichen (commonly called moss), bryoria fremontii, was a staple of the Nimiipuu Tribe. They would steam it along with camas roots in fire pits until it became gelatinous and then dry it and powder it for later use in soups and breads. I like to boil and simmer the green tree lichen, alectoria sarmentosa for several hours over the course of several days, until it becomes soft, and makes a great soup base or pasta substitute. Unlike usnea, which is more medicinal than edible, alectoria sarmentosa and bryoria fremontii do not have a stretchy central fiber, just a loosely woven network of fibers of similar size. Be aware that there is a toxic tree lichen, called wolf lichen, that is more neon green and not as long, dense and fine as the alectoria sarmentosa.
Trillium This is a beautiful native wild flower that grows in fairly shady woods in wet soil. It was used extensively by the Native Americans, and I have found it in quantities where I feel comfortable taking a leaf here or there. The leaves are good raw, or steamed. It grows from a perennial root, and the plants only ever have three leaves each year, and also the flowers have three petals, hence the ‘Tri’ part of the name.
Violet There are several kinds of native violet in Idaho. The one that I find (and eat) here in north central Idaho is Hooked Violet which has light purple flowers and heart-shaped leaves that curl up at the edges so as to direct any rain drops down toward the stem where the run down to the roots of the plant. Violet leaves are good eaten raw or cooked and are one of the first spring greens I see here.
Yarrow This is a fairly well known native plant that was used by Native Americans and Europeans alike for its medicinal qualities. As with some medicinal plants, it is edible in small quantities. The leaves are best eaten young, in the spring because in summer they get more fibrous than their lacy appearance would imply. It is quite strong of flavor, but I like the flavor, and enjoy eating it in small amounts. The leaves are long, extremely divided to the point of looking like lace, light grayish green, and the blooming heads are umble-shaped with white flowers. Yarrow likes to grow on sunny, rocky hillsides.