Druids

Passing on plant knowledge feels holy... and fun

Fiddleheads unfurling this week.

We are holders of the secret fire. A green glow shines within us. We are druids of the modern age. We are the plant nerds. 🤓

Specifically edible plant nerds.

I am part of a tiny cabal of humans who have decided that acquiring an encyclopedic knowledge of edible plants and mushrooms (fun fact: mushrooms are not plants) is not only a rewarding and worthy pursuit, but is a borderline calling. For a few of us, it is a full-blown calling.

Admittedly, a substantial portion of the thrill is simply the satisfaction of quietly knowing that 99.9 percent of your species can obliviously walk past something delicious. And all but a precious few of us fall into this category at least a little: I have been accumulating plant knowledge for decades, in fits and starts, and I’m still learning new plants all the time.

This period of my life’s learning is a serious ramp-up. (See what I did there?) I was born in the East, where the flora are very similar to where I live in St. Paul now. But I had never been a “professional” plant nerd in this part of the world. That really blossomed (get ready for more nerdy puns) when I put roots down in California, more than 20 years ago.

My knowledge grew steadily there to the point where I was arguably one of the West’s Druid Lords. I could spot rare wild edibles driving 80 miles an hour down a highway, and had so many gathering spots I’d occasionally forget them for years, then rediscover them, a flood of memories washing over me like Gandalf remembering his way deep in Moria.

Then in 2023, I moved to Minnesota, where I had dallied in plants during the two years I’d lived here working as an investigative reporter in the early 2000s. Didn’t learn a ton then, but I solidfied my oldest knowledge. This time is different. It’s been a full-blown drinking-from-a-firehose experience for 18 months.

I have the advantage of knowing some fellow druids, and we plant nerds take care of our own. Jaime Rockney and Mike Karns for mushrooms, Alan Bergo and Sam Thayer for plants. Sam is universally regarded as the Grand Druid, the best of us all. I may be a better hunter and angler, but I cannot match Sam’s plant skills. Over the years, his breadth of knowledge, kindness, and childlike enthusiasm has lifted me up more than once.

Jaime and I are on a similar level with the plants here. She’s an expert with trees (maybe she’s a dryad?) and with mushrooms, but her plant knowledge isn’t as strong. So we’ve helped each other learn new plants these past couple years. Most recently sochan, a mildly tricky plant to identify in spring whose greens are among the best “spinach substitutes” you’ll find before lambsquarters show up in summer.

Sochan with a curly dock on the left, and dandelions on the right.

Many times we’ll refer to the work of Sam or Alan, cementing sight pictures in our heads the way wizards remember their incantations. I’m still in the process of learning the sochan spell, but I was confident enough to pick some with my friend Dani, who was out visiting from Oregon, this past weekend.

I’ve known Dani for years, and she’s always been interested in wild plants, but somehow we’d never done a walk before. It was worth the wait.

Her eyes were saucers as I pointed out plant after edible plant after edible plant — on a walk less than 2 miles long. Some were “edible,” like plantain, which should be called “plain-tain” because it’s so meh, but others, like stinging nettles, are among the finest greens you can eat, farmed or wild.

Dani has decided to become a hobbit.

Then I showed her Sam’s guidebook, and we spent several hours paging through it. If you haven’t seen this book, it’s amazing and hilarious. His smart-ass comments peppered throughout keep things entertaining. She’s hooked, a new druidic acolyte. What’s more, she wants to pass her newfound knowledge — once she’s confident — on to her children.

This. All of this.

The flow of information, back and forth, up and down and all around, is the real reason I spend sweaty hours scaling muddy hills in search of fiddleheads or hog peanuts or morels, or crashing through ticky ditches (wear permethrin!) to find such delicious oddities as “hot mermaid” or duck potatoes.

I love this stuff so, so much! I love the eating, I love the lifelong learning, and I love the sharing. Dani’s experience last weekend was emblematic: Even a few hours of walking the woods, fields, swamps or shores with one of us “druids” will leave you thirsty for more, because human-to-human contact, the personal sharing of knowledge, is the best way to learn something — especially when it comes to unknown foods.

We can calm fears, easily help you cement differences between wonderful edibles and toxic look-similars, and provide context for it all. And we’re usually quirky and funny… or at least we like to think so.

Armed with this knowledge, you too can pass it along to those you care about, and in so doing we all benefit. You don’t need to go as far as we plant-nerd-neo-druids do. We want to know all the plants. But even we realize that’s, um, a bit much. Start small. Maybe it’s dandelion greens. Lawn onions. Morels, dewberries, prickly pear fruit, hickory nuts or chokecherries. Get to know a few that thrill your heart, or are at least tasty and close by.

Then learn another. And another. Eat them. Maybe plant one in your yard. Revel in the journey. Pass it on.