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Transcript: GEORGE ELLMORE, Assoc. Prof., Biology:
Mmmmm, that looks tasty! What I just picked here is Queen Ann's lace and there are the
roots, the domestic carrot that's orange was bred from this plant. Well it is dry and
pithy but it is undeniably carrot-like, pretty potent flavor. Here we are in the Fletcher
lot of Tufts University so this is not as manicured as some of the more public areas
on campus I know it allows the plants to grow taller then they usually do in the manicured
areas. Along this hillside here is Portulaca Purslane , tropical areas it grows year round
we just get it when we get tropical weather which is July and August. The plant is succulent
so it's kind of thick and it holds a lot of juice. You can boil these like spinach,
stir-fry them like peapods, eat them raw it's a fresher less green, less bitter taste than
spinach offers. In the corners of this parking lot the most conspicuous plants we can see
are some sort of wild or Farrell fruit trees. At the base of this wild apple tree there
is a lot of shade and the plants that are growing right underneath this tree are different
than the lawn plants further out. We find two very nice edible species so there's Chickweed
which is a very delicious green, very nice combination of alfalfa sprouts and baby spinach.
The other plant that's down here is called Sour Grass it has clover-like leaves but gives
you a very tart, sour taste. So after having some good green Chickweed you can punctuate
that with a little bit of a sour taste with the sour grass. In this parking lot and
over a radius of maybe thirty or forty feet we've had apples, we've had things that taste
like spinach, we've had something that tastes like carrot that you can use in baking and
soups, and Peppergrass that's a combination of horseradish and radishes. It's just kind
of fun there's no way I'm suggesting we get our two-thousand calorie a day diet from this
kind of munching. It's a resource that's overlooked. These are Daylilies, there are
fields and fields of Daylilies out there although they're big in June, now it's just a few leftovers.
The thing that's edible are the buds that haven't bloomed yet, the flavor is like a
combination of asparagus and green beans. They're edible raw, they're edible stir-fried,
what this will do if you like this makes you a menace for any daylily gardens you see next
year, you're gonna be picking the buds, really a choice edible. What happened to the plants
we were eating this morning? They've been cut, so the final thought is if you see it,
take it.