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Wild Edible Plant - Crab Apple Flowers and Sassafras

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Mitch, Mitchell, Alone, History, Channel, Survival, Nativesurvival.

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Video Transcription

okay so Mitch an 80 survival my dad's house again to go over a few more trees that are good for a spring foraging don't go away all right so it's tree in front of me right here is a crabapple tree makes a very small apples you know they're about quarter inch cross so has all these beautiful white flowers use you four to five petals give you guys close up okay so use you for 25 and pink or white this particular tree is white obviously and this is this is an edible as well it's lost in my flowers okay have a few more

now

I find the flowers pretty bitter not disgustingly sober little bit of that one

you know I can eat them but uh I prefer the crab apples over the flowers let's put it that way but again you know there's another tree that um it's edible in spring and it has tons it's just an explosion of flowers I mean you know there's probably hundreds and hundreds of thousands of flowers here that are dried up so it's not too mate left but actually saw another one right down the row in the back here that i bloomed a little later so I got a little less Sun so I'm going to bring you guys over to there to show you that when you hit it the right time it's just an explosion of flowers there's just tons and tons of them and on the twigs they're these little like mini Twix kind of like spikes I most see how that growth is coming off right there right there there's a lot of these growths off off of a tree you know gogo down this branch as well see this one right there right here right here as well so apple trees have that characteristic where they grow kind of spine Lee where they're kind of everywhere they're not they're not very straight thick trees usually have a lot of branches a lot of a lot of splits in their trunk like this one right here so this is where it starts so splits here splits again there splits there splits back there and there's some more in the back off on the same trunk so it splits many times and it has very kind of jagged looking twigs to have these homeless he's like these Barb's you close up she then get that focus in it's not bad okay so we have these barbs on the branches and that's very characteristic of a crabapple or apple tree sorry these twigs little world little explosions of a flower and leaf basically

so where there's a leaf there's always a bunch of them and they grow in these little notes

so the like clusters all right so here's another one just loaded with flowers bloomed a little later this is what usually looks like they much more firm they're going to stay on there the other one there they're all falling off this is what the blooms look like before they get started never tasted them in this stage so I'm going to go out and do the right now I my daughter with me public in here well I like those a lot better in this stage let me try a flower and see if it's less bitter if I got it earlier in the cycle so again it's particular ones five petaled no white much less better so same growth pattern where you have a twig see if I can show you we have a twig to a large cluster of flowers and leaves going off the stem so the like satellite growth oops like satellite growth it's the same deal oh well these tastes a lot better though I might need a few more especially the flower buds before they actually flower good stuff little leaves slightly better still nothing as bad as as the older growth in the other tree so there's a ton of food here granted flowers aren't exactly going to fill you up to eat them three four at a time you have to eat a couple handfuls really to make a dent but again this is where the trees putting all of its energy and it's the healthiest part of the tree right now and as you can see there's just an absolute ton going to write up the tree thorny or spurred small trees Apple like fruit

so we have crab apples domestic Apple domestic pair Hawthorns okay so i can crab apple has those little gross else on you about kinko-white so similar to a domestic apple but the leaves a Sharptooth leaf on the side some species of hairless for generally smaller yellow to reddish variety of species sell flowers between March and May and it's me right now so that makes sense right fruit September's in November so it says it's good for our jellies and preserves although it's usually too hard and tart to be enjoyed raw I disagree crab apples contain an abundance of pectin and make excellent jellies or preserves that's page 216 alright so 216 I rather enjoy the the fruit raw and we'll be doing that once they actually get on the tree litter on this fall ok so my other book on keeping here is a tree guide so one sides edibles the other side is tree identification now crabapple should be on 164 of this book believe it has a what area of the country so you can just skip right over those they're not the right one I always leave real examples of my books like I mentioned some of my other videos like wintergreen see it's the leaf apple leaf crabapple leaf and crabapple flower so southern crab apples their sweet crab apple is up in my area in the Northeast so as you can see they grow in clusters this is a really great book I really like this one has the little thorns to sprout the side a little like twig twig like thorns alright so leaves a two to three inches long one and a half inches wide oval to evade with a hug around or too abruptly pointed apex usually a rounded base and tooth to margins fragrant pink white flowers classes of three to six and yellow green fruit is about an inch in diameter and broader than long which is true does look like this like short fat goes as a shrub or a small tree often forming thickets and moist soils and twigs on with sharp spines that it's also true so this is page 162 of this particular guide i have this is actually one of my favorite books i have and they're very hard to come by i may be able to find a second one it's by golden press i'll show you the cover trees of north america see Frank Brockman this is an old one and it's different than the others has better pictures let's see it's copyrighted 1968 Western publishing company phenomenal book alright so there you have it the crabapple tree alright so you're getting some cars in the background I'm about 50 feet from the road I apologize for that but this is the only place that these trees grow I've ever seen in this area he read sassafras

has three style leaves very aromatic plant has a trident this one has a couple tridents it has a standard leaf you know like a bull vate shape and it has something looks like a mitten so we can find one here here's one this one's pretty fat actually so it's almost like a trident that didn't have the other side looks like a mitten so it has three leaves on the same tree there's another one right here and then going the other way try it in right next to it the old eight right past this one cluster is all three now all these little saplings right here all sassafras all around me just absolutely loaded the other place I've ever seen them grow and actually that's not true i've seen one little place about a half hour from here but other than that yeah my my house in my my personal space this is the only place I've seen him grow and there is just absolutely tons of them is almost a solid so thicket of them okay so basically the leaves when you crush them they have like a gel inside so the real taste good to eat unless they're really young and there's just a little less Joe I'll see if I can show you yeah you see that right there

it's like a sticky clear liquid alright

so a lot of people use that because it's like a thickener in some stews and soups and things you can just eat these raw right off the tree so that glove we saw earlier want to go I need that and one of the ovate hey why not we'll grab this trident right here make make a little sets of frost trifecta all right sup tastes awesome cause it tastes just like the tree smells which is incredible now again there's a little bit a little bit of a gel there but it's not that big of a deal now the tree is very aromatic so you know you scrape it to expose some of the inner bark say just like just like this how you give that a good sniff oh man love it I made a really nice tea out of this plant if you do it from the root I've also done it from the twigs and from the leaves amazing plant so this is another one that you can forward John in spring just chomp on the leaves just like they are and small the better because I've found that when they get bigger it just you end up with a mouth full of like jello most the texture is just nasty so you want to get these early so again another spring edible here off the tree this one is sassafras okay so that's the first page 210 of Peterson's right here trees with leaves often two or three lobe and they say what's edible is the root will the young leaves all right so there you go makes a spice many other things

like tea which is what they have right up there very aromatic now these are very young when they get older they it mentions here that the bark gets a kind of red which is true I find a little more orange than red there's the leaves something similar is mulberry but there's a huge difference in the trees the fruit it has mulberries huge fruit and the leaves are our two that's the price of smooth they don't get those huge fruit eater I spinach needs the Bible appreciate your support to get our website in survival calm thanks for joining me today take care

About the Author

NativeSurvival

NativeSurvival

Mitch is a Wilderness Living Skills Instructor, he has been featured on The History Channel's program "ALONE" and written articles for Outdoor Magazines; he owns and operates The Native Survival School which provides woodland living and survival classes, as well as offering quality outdoor gear he's designed. Defintely, he is a master at bushcraft's techniques.

You can find all his videos on his YouTube channel.

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