I hadn’t thought to try the mallow flowers, and thanks for the note on the leaves tasting better in winter/cooler weather.
Chorispora tenella is a new one for me, on inatrualist it looks like it’s up in our hills but (at least not sighted/recorded) down in our coastal area so I’ll keep my eyes out if I go on a hike! I wonder if blanching our wild radish leaves might help them mellow out too.
And I know I’ve seen shepherd’s purse around but never tried it - glad to know it’s tasty!
Did you ever get a definite id on your plant? It looks to me like sweet clover, it grows all over here. Flowers can be yellow or white.
biological., it was some type of clover with yellow flowerets.
I found this weed in my yard, does anyone have experience with it?
I read “buckwheat” and thought, nice, then I read “bindweed” and had to decide whether or not to panic! So does someone know, is it an obscure edible or a menace? Or just a benign weed.
It’s not in the bindweed family. It’s probably called that because of the leaf shape, but as far as I can tell they’re not related.
It is a non-native.
The leaves look like bindweed, hence the confusing name, but they aren’t closely related at all. It’s a type of buckwheat, and it has edible seeds that taste good (just like buckwheat). As long as it’s not annoying you, I recommend keeping it around and enjoying the seeds!
Thank you, both. Any recommendations for how to harvest and prepare?
The seeds are a pseudograin, just like buckwheat, so treat them like a grain: collect the seeds while they’re dry, winnow the chaff off, and then you could either soak them and eat them whole (like oatmeal or rice), or grind them into a flour to bake with — whichever floats your boat.
