Ashwini Dont eat it the sap may be toxic. what I remember is renal damage
wild lettuce Lactula affects brain, induces sleep... and spuriously causes hypotension, so much that person has to lie down to get some blood to the brain (personal exp while on a weekend wild foraging expedition and many of the class mates during such weekends related similar experiences) . ANd Culpepper all those hundreds of years ago and romans too used lactula the wild lettuce to induce sleep... is toxic in hands of lay persons... you have to be an experienced herbalist to use it.. or a modern forager with a lot of experience.. ((Some commercially grown lettuce varieties from some farms in countries where a large variety is grown has been known to do this... induce hypotension and or sleep.. which seed lot or variety did this we dont know... in India I only find the light green leafy and sometimes iceberg heads from Bangalore region. i have not noted any problem other than need to wash 'em in water , vinegar soak or permanganate soaking etc because of many possibilities of parasites ... often dangerous ones. )) Sonchus and lactula are very closely related and I would not want to take a chance... Its not in normal use for a reason...since all our edible vegetables ultimately arose in the wild ones... and natural selection or observations brought us the most suitable for human consumption to horticulture and then to the market place. If sonchus was really that good ( as good as the foragers say they find it...) why was it not introduce to the horticulture.) something to think about. Also these foragers were bred to it... they grew up in forested areas of europe or the american midwest or deep rural areas on farms where they grew up with these and foraged, ate them with their grannies for a long time. We urban Indians did not... I surmise you are an urban Indian. Just reading about something on the net ... internet is full of hyperbole and half truths .. so do not eat any wild food... probably not good for you. if your grandma and pa or parents took you in their hikes or into their fields or farms and taught you to eat the wild stuff, do what they taught you. *** ALL FORAGING TRIPS LEADERS including Steve Brill and even Bradford Angier who wrote a famous book : "Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants" always started classes with many many cautionary tales. And yet Professor Nancy Turner, an ethnobotanist who always finds something objectionable in almost everything...always cautioned about toxicity of everything under the son is curiously silent about the lactulas and thistles... well!!! *SO I am a bit on the cautionary side , mostly because of possible renal damage.. we in the modern-times are exposed to so many toxins, why add another deliberately. Kidney damage is not fun.* *DONT EAT THEM...* --------------- If you want something more than the store bought bland lettuce, try this: sutton seeds sells seeds for salad greens including rocket/arugula (good detoxifier) ... grow and eat them... I do , even in the balcony tubs.. Come to think of it... you are in Dharamsala ... a wild mix of Tibetan herbalists and European or American folks who may know and run classes ... if there are some serious people who really know .. and see if they run good classes ..... usha di On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 9:21 AM, Ashwini Bhatia <[email protected]> wrote: > > Thank you Ushadi. Your diagnosis and the first link leave no doubt that it > is *Sonchus asper*. > > Dr Gurcharan and Dr Narain had given their opinion before but I was hoping > they confirm the first tentative diagnosis after new pictures. > > But no other replies so far. > > The person in the first link considers it nutritional food while the one > writing the second blog advises to get rid of it. I am inclined to support > the first. What do you think? > > Warm regards, > Ashwini > > On 13-Dec-2014, at 06:21, Ushadi Micromini <[email protected]> > wrote: > > this thread got buried ... > Ashwini did you get to see this yet... > so... what response... > > > On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 7:25 PM, Ushadi Micromini < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> Ashwini: >> good show >> >> you are thorough >> >> Yellow flower heads: dandelion and Sow thistle (sonchus) >> Hollow stem: Dandelion and Sow thistle >> >> so far both >> >> but your diagnosis clinching picture is number three in this lot.. >> *A:* leaf has prickles >> >> (though leaf itself is much narrower than I have seen, >> but I saw them in summer herbal seminars in the field >> and even ate the young leaves) >> >> *B*: stem hugging start of the leaf: sonchus >> sometimes this phenomenon is called "ear like " >> or "complex auriculate" attachment of the leaf >> >> *C: * red stem is sometimes shown in pictures of Sonchus asper. >> ( i have not seen them, all we ever saw were green with slight ridges) >> >> stem hugging leaf : shown very well in tweo blogs that talk of weed in usa >> 1: https://wildweedwisdom.wordpress.com/tag/sonchus-asper/ >> 2: http://sparkleberrysprings.com/v-web/b2/?p=164 >> >> >> Hope this helps >> >> NOW I wish Gurcharanji will give us his wisdom >> >> usha di >> >> >> >> On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 6:45 PM, Ashwini Bhatia < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Here we are Ushadi. The yellow flower is roughly 1cm in diameter. There >>> was a little white sap when I plucked the stem and the stem has thick walls >>> and a little tunnel. A different plant had dandelion like wispy >>> attachments. Where does this lead us? >>> >>> Thanks. >>> Ashwini >>> >>> >>> <IMG_1591_11Dec14.jpg><IMG_1592_11Dec14.jpg><IMG_1596_11Dec14.jpg><IMG_1598_11Dec14.jpg><IMG_1602_11Dec14.jpg> >>> >>> On 10-Dec-2014, at 6:10 am, Ushadi Micromini <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>> Looks like the prickly lettuce >>> >>> >>> *Lactula sp* >>> has milky sap that sticky >>> >>> if lactula: >>> differentials include L. serriola and L. canadensis >>> >>> close ups of the basal leaves, flattened >>> stem if prickly or not >>> and diameter of the flower after they open >>> >>> and the full plant in profile >>> >>> would help you differentiate lactulas >>> >>> ==== >>> if not lactula... best way to know is to see if the stem is hollow or not >>> Dandelions have hollow stems, as do the sonchus >>> *sonchus* sow thistle also have yellow flowers on branched stem , but >>> the stem is hollow. >>> Lactula does not.. >>> === >>> if neither of these features >>> then >>> autumn hawkbit... >>> an eastern european weed >>> smooth basal leaves in description but pictures do not tally with some >>> pic on the net >>> ==== >>> >>> difficulty arises with autumn when leaves start curling up >>> some leaves and stem ...go red >>> junk accumulates... >>> >>> most descriptions are for "weed"s growing in fields or grassy lands >>> >>> you have mountainous rocky terrain... may make for biological >>> differences.. >>> and a large tourist and immigrant population, gods only knows what they >>> knowingly or unknowingly in their luggage, shoes etc carried in to >>> Dharamshala over the decades.. >>> >>> if not them, then the caravans.. >>> >>> *but a careful following of a key would help...* >>> better than jumping to a conclusion... >>> >>> heres a key to this difficulty... >>> read it then take more pictures... of several plants >>> >>> >>> >>> http://www.wildlifebcn.org/sites/bcnp.live.wt.precedenthost.co.uk/files/files/yellow%20composites%20key_po%20v2_1.pdf >>> >>> >>> good luck >>> >>> usha di >>> >>> if someone from an indian univeristy has studied this group they would >>> know it in a jiffy.. and can tell us why they think what they say it is... >>> that would make it simpler... but I did not find any names... but that's >>> not here nor there. Somebody in our membership will know the plant or a >>> professor who knows.. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 10:17 PM, Ashwini Bhatia < >>> [email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> This one was growing next to the Flax on the wall. It's leaves are >>>> characteristic. If I am not mistaken it has a yellow dandelion like flower. >>>> Please advise. >>>> >>>> Thanks. >>>> Ashwini >>>> >>>> <IMG_1564_09Dec14.jpg><IMG_1566_09Dec14.jpg><IMG_1567_09Dec14.jpg> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>>> Groups "efloraofindia" group. >>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>>> an email to [email protected]. >>>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/indiantreepix. >>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Usha di >>> =========== >>> >>> >>> >> >> -- >> Usha di >> =========== >> > > > -- > Usha di > =========== > > -- Usha di =========== -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "efloraofindia" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/indiantreepix. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
