From a forager’s perspective, our Vashon forests are more bountiful now than any other time of year, and the other day I was able to prepare a lunch exclusively with ingredients I collected myself.

For a truly seasonal local salad, I mixed together new huckleberry leaves and flowers, sweet cicely leaves, heal-all leaves, miners lettuce leaves, geum flowers, nipplewort leaves, dock leaves, dandelion leaves and flower petals, madrona flowers, young salal leaves, young Indian plum leaves, young salmonberry leaves and flower petals, young hazelnut leaves, fringe cup flowers, shotweed leaves, flowers and green seeds, and the bright green branch tips of the Douglas fir. I chopped this mix finely and sprinkled it with pink nettle vinegar that I had made earlier this spring.

As a complement, I sautéed some oyster mushrooms I collected from an alder snag. For my beverage, I steeped madrona flowers, evergreen huckleberry flowers,

salmonberry petals, wild violet flowers, geum flowers and Douglas fir flowers in hot water for 15 minutes.

Knowing how to safely forage for wild plants is a handy and potentially life-saving skill. Unfortunately, misidentification of a wild plant could also possibly kill you since there are a few deadly native plants that resemble other safe edible wild plants.

Recently, a Tacoma woman died from ingesting poison hemlock, a plant that somewhat resembles the edible sweet cicely. It can take years to learn the unique botanical characteristics that enable one to correctly distinguish a poisonous from a harmless plant. Fortunately there are very few toxic native plants, yet the potential for becoming sick or even dying because of misidentification elucidates the importance of absolutely positive identification.

Since modern humans are so disconnected from their inherent knowledge about which plants are safe to eat, misinformation about the toxicity of native plants is rampant in identification books.

For example, several reputable books list our native red elder as poisonous, and yet the plant has a long history of use by native Americans.

Ethnobotany books describe how Northwest coast tribes ate the ripe red berries after cooking and removing the seeds. The berries were also mashed into a cake and dried for later use; this cake was then rehydrated in soup, adding a dose of vitamin C during the long winter. In fact, caches of elderberries have been found in archaeological sites dating back hundreds of years. The red berries are still made into a tasty jelly today, which is quite popular in Alaska.

The leaves and bark of the red elder are also listed as poisonous in many books since they contain strong purgatives. However, in correct dosages by a knowledgeable medicine healer, this property of the plant was used by many Native American tribes for treating illnesses that required a strong laxative.

Red elder leaves are also a well-known insect repellant, and dairies traditionally hung branches on walls during cheese-making to repel flies. Red elder leaves can also be infused in water and sprayed on plants to repel aphids. I have used this remedy as an effective mosquito repellant.

Some harmless plants get a bad name simply because they share a common name with a deadly one. When I offer guests a cup of hemlock tea, I am usually met with a shocked look. In fact, our native Western hemlock tree is high in vitamin C and makes a refreshing cup of tea. It is in no way botanically related to the poison hemlock tea that Socrates drank or that the Tacoma woman ingested.

The best way to positively identify any wild plant is to wait until it is in its flowering phase, as each plant’s flower structure is as unique as our fingerprints.

Learning how to safely incorporate native wild plants into your diet and how to make them into your own homemade herbal remedies is an important skill. And, like any skill, it takes time, dedication and practice to truly integrate the information. However, this important survival skill is one that all modern humans would be wise to learn again.

— Erin Kenny is a longtime Vashon resident and the executive director of the nonprofit Cedarsong Nature School.