Category Archives: Edimentals

Article, Edimentals

EDIMENTALS REACH MAINSTREAM HORTICULTURE

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My attention was drawn today to two articles in which my word Edimentals featured (made up in the late 2000s):
EDIMENTALS AT CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW
“Edimental plants that are both edible and ornamental have emerged as a star of the Chelsea Flower Show.”
The article from the Daily Telegraph about this year’s Chelsea Flower Show can be read in the 3 pictures! 
The second article had actially been published last year on the BBC Food site. Here’s the link to “The low-maintenance edible garden for lazy gardeners” which both mentions Edimentals and credits me with the word!

Edimentals, Perennial vegetables

Megacarpaea delavayi

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This is one of the most exclusive vegetables and finest edimentals out there, Megacarpaea delavayi (Brassicaceae), a plant found in the high mountains of southwest China at high altitudes (3000–4800 m), and one of the most beautiful! Flora of China says it grows in swampy meadows, grassy slopes and open thickets. It also states that it is used for medicine and as a vegetable. Consulting Google Scholar I found a paper “Eating from the wild: diversity of wild edible plants used by Tibetans in Shangri-la region, Yunnan, China” by Yan Ju et al. (2013) which states that the young stems and leaves are used.
I purchased two young plants I found for sale in a small selection of plants for sale at the Gothenburg Botanical Gardens shop in Sweden in 2011. They took two years to flower and set seed in a shady, dry spot in my garden. It is thought that Megacarpaea can be monocarpic (dying after flowering) but it did come back three more years but grew weakly and did not flower again. I therefore moved the plant to a new location in 2016 which was a bad move as it died…
Sadly, I never did get to eat some….
I put the seed I harvested on my seed list two years in a row and sent to a few people, so if you are one of them and have seed, I am very interested! I germinated some of those seed myself (picture), but I don’t recall what happened to them…
Edible flowers, Edimentals

First 2023 Edimental Flowers

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Despite the fact that the soil is frozen solid apart from the top couple of cms, I was surprised to discover the year’s first flowers in the garden: 
1. I received this as Primula veris subsp. macrocalyx but is always a couple of months earlier than Primula veris, so I wonder if it’s a hybrid?

2. Primula elatior (oxlip / hagenøkleblom) – this could also be a hybrid

Edible flowers, Edimentals, Root crops, Salad

“Over the top” Flowery Whopper Carrot Salad

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I was going to post an album of pictures showing off all the late flowers in the garden this record-breaking mild autumn still without any frost, but as they’re all edible I made a salad instead!
There were 33 different edible flowers (see the list below the pictures) plus 30-40 greens and a whopper carrot which I decided to keep whole as a feature! It was cut up when the salad was tossed afterwards. It has a story too as it is one of the Danish accessions rematriated from Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) in the US last winter. I took a few seed before sending the rest on to Danish Seed Savers (Dansk Frøsamlerne). It’s called Kämpe which means Giant in Swedish/Danish (I call it Whopper as it’s probably the biggest/thickest carrot I¨’ve grown here). It’s not a very old variety and SSE informed that it was a cultivated variety originally from the Swedish seed company Weibulls. Anyone know more about it?
Salad flowers, all harvested from the garden
Salvia (blackcurrant sage / solbærsalvie)
Fuchsia magellanica
Hemerocallis “Stella de Oro”
Taraxacum spp. (dandelion / løvetann)
Rubus fruticosus (blackberry / bjørnebær)
Papaver somniferum (opium poppy / opium valmue)
Viola altaicum
Campanula persicifolia (peach-leaf bellflower / fagerklokke)
Sonchus oleraceus (common sow-thistle / haredylle)
Glebionis coronaria (chopsuey greens / kronkrage) (3 varieties)
Daucus carota (carrot / gulrot) (unopened flower umbel)
Geranium sanguineum (bloody cranesbill / blodstorkenebb)
Brassica oleracea (kale / grønnkål)
Oenothera biennis (evening primrose / nattlys)
Begonia
Malva moschata (musk mallow / moskuskattost) (white and pink flowered)
Malva alcea (hollyhock mallow / rosekattost)
Monarda fistulosa (wild bergamot / rørhestemynte)
Monarda “Elsie Lavender”
Calendula officinalis (pot marigold / ringblomst (2 varieties)
Campanula trachelium (nettle-leaved bellflower / nesleklokke)
Calamintha nepeta (lesser calamint / liten kalamint)
Tropaeolum majus (nasturtium / vanlig blomkarse) (2 varieties)
Pisum sativum (garden pea / ert)
Origanum spp. (wild marjoram / bergmynte) (2 varieties)
Campanula lactiflora
Alcea rosea (hollyhock / stokkrose)
Tragopogon pratensis (Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon / geitskjegg)

Edimentals, Perennial vegetables, Pollinators

Flowering Aster scaber

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September is the month when several Asteraceae are in flower including one of my favourite perennial vegetables and edimentals Aster scaber (yes, I know it’s officially Doellingeria scabra) or chamchwi in Korea where it’s cultivated commercially for Korean markets around the world (often sold dried). It’s also popular with pollinating insects as can be seen in the gallery taken this week here.

….and a parasitic wasp on the flowers:

 

See this page for more links to articles about this plant on this blog: https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=6080
It’s also one of the 80 in my book Around the World in 80 plants.

Edientomental, Edimentals, Food, Pollinators

Sweet Gigas stalks

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Somebody asked me a few days ago if one could eat Angelica gigas (Korean Angelica) as you can Angelica archangelica (see my book Around the World in 80 plants for more about that). In my book, I do mention gigas as one of several other Angelica species used in other parts of the world, but until yesterday I hadn’t eaten it myself, partly as I¨’ve never had many plants and the flowering is wonderful!!


On the Korean wiki page, it simply states that “dangwi / dangquai’s petioles and tender stems are eaten raw or seasoned with herbs”. The root is also used medicinally along with Angelica acutiloba and Angelica sinensis.
You can find various instructional videos and recipes on Korean pages by searching
For example, the spring leaves and petioles are boiled and served with onions, garlic, sesame oil and sesame seeds.
As my plants were close to flowering (they darken quickly to deep red at this stage), I decided to go for using the flower stems in salad:I first took one of the thicker flower stems…
….and sliced off a bit at the base for a taste! I was taken aback by how sweet it was (flower stems of Angelica archangelica were in the past considered to be candy by Norwegians). This reminded me of other plants that have surprisingly sweet flower stems: Scorzonera hispanica (scorzonera / scorsonnerot) and Arctium (burdock / borre). I assume that as plants like these approach flowering they produce less insect repellent chemicals and transfer their energy to producing flowers and seeds. For the salad, I peeled off the outer layer as it is fibrous and sliced it into the salad.  Young seed pods of sea kale / strandkål were also available as were Scorzonera flower stems and buds.



As with most Apiaceae, Angelica gigas is very popular with the pollinators, so this one definitely fits into the Edi-ento-mental category (delicious, ornamental and popular with the pollinators – what more could you wish of a plant!).
Unfortunately, like Angelica archangelica this species dies after flowering.

Edimentals, Onions, Perennial vegetables

Chiugok, Small Bird’s Garlic, a hardy Himalayan edimental

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Like Sherpa onion or Nepalese onion Allium wallichii, which features in my book Around the World in 80 plants, chiugok (small bird’s garlic) as Allium macrantum is known in Lithang, Tibet is the latest emerging Alliums in my garden. I often wonder if they are still alive when, in a cold spring they haven’t emerged by the end of May, but both species have overwintered now for almost 20 years.

A nice large group of Allium macranthum in the Gothenburg Botanical Gardens in Sweden on 26th May 2008
Spring shoots in the Tromsø Botanical Gardens on 4th June 2009

I’m not sure where my oldest plants came from but my second accession came from Vojtec Holubec’s seedlist, collected in Szechuan in China.  It’s native to Bhutan, Sikkim, Gansu, Shaanxi, as well as Szechuan and Tibet and grows in wet places at elevations of 2700–4200 metres (Flora of China).

The roots are fleshy and could no doubt be eaten like the fleshy roots / rhizomes of Allium wallichii and Allium hookeri are.
The roots of Allium macranthum (on the left) are similar looking to larger Allium wallichii (right)

By early July the old roots are withering away and new roots are growing as the flower scape appears:


The flowers are gorgeous hanging on long pedicels. Note that the flower colour varies and the Szechuan accession is pink with green pedicels and has relatively many flowers.

One of my multi-species salads with Allium macranthum flowers in the centre:

Seed heads on 6th September:

Seeds ready to share or trade:

Ethnobotanical records
I searched Google Scholar for evidence of Allium macrantum being used traditionally for food and there were indeed a few ethnobotanical studies recording its use as a food plant. Although not the most popular food Allium in the Himalayas, it is reported to have been one of several species eaten both in Arunachal Pradesh in North East India, the Eastern Hills of India (along with more commonly used Allium wallichii, Allium hookeri and Allium fasciculatum) and used as a spice with meat in South Central Tibet. In Lithang, chiugok “is cleaned and cut into small pieces. It is mixed with butter, tea, roasted barley flour (tsampa), salt, and chilly. Tsampa may not be added. The sauce so obtained is eaten with Tibetan dumplings (mokmok) and fried meat-filled pancakes (shapakle)” (in Traditional knowledge of wild food plants in a few Tibetan communities). 
The taste is in my experience relatively strong and therefore best in mixed salads and cooked dishes.
Allium macranthum has also been moved into gardens as an ornamental and has also been used medicinally, including,  along with other Allium species, as a cure for altitude sickness! 

Edimentals, Onions

Allium ulleungense: a new vigorous edimental

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In 2019, a very interesting paper was published giving a very good case for splitting the geographically widespread Allium victorialis species complex, at the same time describing a new endemic species to the island Ulleung between Korea and Japan. The paper also mentions that the species is “Rare in natural habitats, but widely cultivated in Korea as an edible plant named ‘Myeong-i-na-mul’ or ‘Sanmaneul.’”
Reference: “Allium ulleungense (Amaryllidaceae), a new species endemic to Ulleungdo Island, Korea” by Hyeok-Jae Choi, Sungyu Yang, Jong-Cheol Yang and Nikolai Friesen in the Korean Journal of Plant Taxonomy
Those who follow my blog and FB posts will maybe remember my article on the Giant Ulleung Celery, Dystaenia takesimana, another edible endemic to this island which I’m growing in my garden from two sources, one of which is the Gothenburg Botanical Gardens in Sweden (see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=24998)
Figure 4 in the paper shows a map of Allium subg. Anguinum showing the disjunct distribution of what was earlier classified as Allium victorialis, now split into Allium victorialis, microdictyon, ochotense and the new species Allium ulleungense together with other species in the section like Allium ovalifolium.
The article has a useful table and pictures showing the differences between microdictyon, ochotense and ulleungense.
I have about 10 different “Allium victorialis” accessions in my garden both from Norway, Kola (Russia), the Alps and the Far East. Having read the paper which documents that the Ulleung victory onion has both broader and longer leaves I noticed that one of my plants had very different and broader leaves than my other ones and was particularly vigorous. I had lost the label of this plant. Johan Nilson of the Gothenburg Botanical Garden wrote on the Alliorum forum thread about this species: “I believe we might grow this” (they had had an expedition to the island some years ago and this onion and Dystaenia had been collected). Johan had given me various edibles on a visit to Gothenburg a few years ago and I wonder if he might have given me this plant?
Anyway, the morphology of this plant fits well to the newly described species with several leaves 12 cm wide (ochotense reaches 10 cm and microdictyon 6 cm); leaves up to 26-27 cm long (the other two species reach 25 and 21.5cm) and yesterday I measured the white tepals which are slightly longer in the new species and this also matched with 7mm length (the others reaching 6.5). The rounded leaf apex of my plant also matches ulleungdense, acute in the other two species (and other Japanese accessions I have in my garden). I now need to propagate it and plant it in the Allium garden Chicago at the Ringve Botanical Garden. 

Edientomental, Edimentals, Onions, Pollinators

Keeled garlic, a useful winter Allium and edimental in summer

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There are Allium species that can be harvested year round in the garden, notably nodding onion / Norw:prærieløk (Allium cernuum) which I’ve blogged about before. In autumn, new shoots of Allium carinatum subsp. pulchellum (keeled garlic / Norw: rosenløk) appear and with the mild weather we’ve been experiencing they’ve already reached about 20 cm high. They are hardy and can survive to at least -20C. It’s now in the autumn that this edimental Allium is most useful. I use the shoots in a similar way to chives (Allium schoenoprasum), which died back some time ago and won’t reappear until spring (unless I force them indoors), in salads, cut and sprinkled on sandwiches, in scrambled egg, quiches etc. I use them from October to April.

8. mars: Pizza greens, all harvested outside after most of the snow disappeared during the day. From the top and clockwise; Ficaria verna (lesser celandine / vårkål), Allium cernuum (nodding onion / prærieløk), Hablitzia tamnoides (Caucasian spinach / stjernemelde), Allium carinatum, Allium senescens (or hybrid), Primula veris (cowslip / marianøkleblom), Alliaria petiolata (garlic mustard / løkurt) and Taraxacum spp. (dandelion / løvetann)

There are two colour forms, pink and white which are particularly valuable as they last such a long time and are popular with pollinators:

There are also forms with bulbils which can be a bit invasive:

You’ll see the flowers used as a tasty decoration in my multi-species salads (bottom right in the picture):

Allium carinatum is also popular with pollinators:



Beans, Edientomental, Edimentals

Broad Bean Diversity contributes to Resilience

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Broad beans (favas / bondebønner) will easily cross with other varieties that are growing nearby.  In order to keep a variety pure, you need to isolate them physically. I’ve chosen a different strategy and manage to maintain a mix of different bean colour and size forms by selecting for these characteristics every autumn. This automatically gives different flower colours too (broad beans are beautiful enough to be included in the edimental category and are also edi-ento-mentals as they are also extremely popular with bumblebees). Here are my selections which I made yesterday after drying the beans for storage.

Each form will be stored separately and each variety will be planted close to each other in a large block of beans containing many different forms! I think that diversity within a species also contributes to a good harvest with better bean set. I have never had a crop failure using my own home saved mix of beans. I don’t offer the different forms as named varieties, but as a mix or composite “Væres Venner* Mix” through the KVANN / Norwegian Seed Savers yearbook (kvann.no) in February so that others can also select for separate forms!
*Væres Venner is the community garden where most are grown.
See also this post showing the diversity of flowers that produced these beans: https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=26183