Backyard Plant ID | Part 2/3 | How to Identify Edible and Useful Bushcraft Plants in the Summer

Description

0:03 - Wild Grape

0:40 - Yarrow

1:12 - Bramble berries

2:08 - Teasel

2:39 - Elderberry

3:27 - Green Ash*

4:28 - Goldenrod

4:51 - Mullein

5:43 - Mulberry

*Regarding the ash tree: The smoothness of the leaflet margins made my suspicious that I was in fact looking at a white ash. I went back in the winter to double check. I believe the tree I was looking at was indeed a green ash, based on the scarring I saw. I did, however, see what looked like white ash nearby. Here's a photo for clarification: http://i.imgur.com/kGzRfO1.jpg

Tags: Plant Identification,Plant (Organism Classification),Botany (Field Of Study),Survival Skills (TV Genre),bushcraft,Knowledge (Quotation Subject),Les Hiddins (TV Personality),Outdoor Education (Literature Subject),Outdoor Recreation (Interest),Camping (Literature Subject),Backpacking (Sport),Hiking (Sport),Summer,how to identify plants,Edible Mushroom (Food),edible plants,wild edibles,Wild Food (TV Program),bushcraft plants,cordage,medicinal plants

Video Transcription

there's more stinging nettle and jewelweed here and all these vines here are grape leaf you can see the little tendrils coming off and there is a look-alike called moon seed but it won't have these two little things that come off but moon seed has very similar berries and you don't want to eat those because those are toxic but this is just wild grape and sometimes you'll see little bunches of grapes growing and you can just pop those in their mouths when they're dark purple it's a really nice day out it's surprisingly cool for Ohio in the summer but okay this here this is called yarrow and what you can do is you can lay it near your shelter and it supposedly will repel insects and bugs from this flower so if you ever need to have a bug free shelter laying some of this down there's a pretty good idea not sure how effective it is but it's better than nothing I'm sure the distinct yarrow leaves can be eaten raw or cooked and along with the flowers can be brewed into tea okay so this plant is called rubus well that's the genus I believe it's raspberry a lot of people might look at this and think it's poison ivy because it's got these three leaves the shape of the leaves is kind of similar but the serrations are different if you look closely there's like a few main serrations with smaller ones which means it's called doubly serrated and the stem also has all these thorns on it which poison ivy does not have and actually there's this sort of milky powder on this I don't know if you can see that but you can sort of rub it off and the general rule is that if it's a raspberry a black raspberry it'll have this sort of white stem where you can rub the powder off and if it's a black berry the stem will be either green or brown when the fruit are out it's not really an important difference because any berry that sort of looks like a raspberry or blackberry in this area is edible but it's just something fun to know

so this is a plant that's really similar to thistle in terms of how it looks you can see it's got these really pretty little flowers and a bunch of thorns and it actually doesn't have too many uses I suppose you could maybe use the spiny part as a comb or something but I've actually seen in other people's videos people talked about how these leaves can sometimes catch water because of the way they're shaped and I suppose that's a good use of course if it's been sitting there too long you don't want to drink it probably now back here is a plant elderberry

you can see it's got this sort of clump or humble of flower buds and earlier in the season it'll have a bunch of white flowers and it looks a lot like wild carrots or any of the other plethora of plants that have flowers like that now the leaves are opposite and they have these fine serrations and that's one of the main ways you can tell that this is elderberry the berries on this plant will eventually ripen and turn a dark black color and you can eat those or you can make a tea out of the plant and its really good for curing fever and other sort of sickness and ailments you might have so it's really good and I'm really excited to try the berries this is an ash tree and from the looks of it I think it's a green ash there's three main ashes in Ohio which is blue white and green now with blue ashes the stem here would be sort of square instead of round but with green ash when you take one of these a little leaf well technically the whole thing is a leaf in these are leaflets but when you take one of these off the scar is shaped like a D and that's how you know it's a green ash as opposed to any other and the reason I'm pointing this out is because we've had the emerald ash borer in Ohio and that's been killing a lot of the ashes so it's really nice to see this and also the wood is really good for making handles for like axes or for making baseball bats and things like that very commonly used and that sort of thing so in case you don't have anything to spark tinder with there are two plants that might come in handy if you're good enough with friction fire which I'm not quite there yet but first one is this which is goldenrod and when this stem turns brown you can take all the leaves off and cut it off and use that as sort of a friction fire spindle and actually in the winter it'll also produce a lot of like little fluffy seeds that are also pretty decent tinder they're not the best sometimes they're hard to catch but a better than nothing I've been back there those tall plants with the stalks is Mullen now the leaves are really big and fluffy so if you're ever doing business in the wilderness it makes really good toilet paper the stalks the flowers on those you can use to make a tea which will help with respiratory problems I've heard you can also smoke it for respiratory problems which seems counterintuitive and also the stock of this makes a really good spindle for a friction fire when it's Brown a lot of people like using it with the bow drill and things like that and as you can see they get pretty big now over here if you walk with me a little bit you see some more of the plants that we've talked about here elderberry things of that sort and up here is mulberry now there's two common types of mulberry red and white red mulberry is native white mulberry is invasive there's a really good way to remember that and I'll let you figure that out but red mulberry is fuzzy on the bottom whereas white is smooth and the best way to feel is with your tongue and this actually feels kind of fuzzy but maybe my tongue has just messed up you'll most likely find white mulberry around red mulberry is pretty rare but either one produces fruits that sort of look like a raspberry that are really delicious kind of have a sweet taste without any tartness it's almost like eating a fig in a way but a beautiful tree it's amazing to be back we made our way up a forested hill as the Setting Sun cast the sky in a pink hue as we reach the top the evening sky glowed and shades of lavender and orange and the crescent moon shone brightly it was a serene backdrop to silhouetted trees and hills in the distance