Guest Trichus Posted February 14, 2002 Thought everyone should know about some of the tasty weeds out there that they might be pulling out in order to grow "vegetables" with much pain. The first is Amaranthus viridus or green amaranth- couldnt find any pics sorry. A _very_ common plant that is heat and drought tolerant. Alternate diamond shaped leaves that taste like spinach (and not in the "just like chicken" way). Has a green seeds spike. Seeds are also edible (various species of amaranth are utilised throughout the world as leaf and grain crops)- pound, pop or just chew them. Amaranthus retroflexus (love lies bleeding/ redroot amaranth) is also edible but has furry leaves and the ripe seeds are best separated from the husks by pouring from one container to another in a breeze. There are heaps of other species and they are probably all worth a try. "Most if not all members of this genus photosynthesize by a more efficient method than most plants. Called the 'C4 carbon-fixation pathway', this process is particularly efficient at high temperatures, in bright sunlight and under dry conditions" Only bad stuff I could dig up Ive found is "Eating Amaranthus mangostanus L. is reported to cause photosensitivity in man (Cairns et al. 1968)"- more info would be good on this one (could compare to st johns wort or something) and the fact that if grown on heavily fertilized soil they supposedly concentrate more than average nitrate in the leaves (you dont need to fertilize it though and I doubt it would contain more than a bloated supermarket spinach). http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/CoopExt/4DM...ls/amaranth.htm a link with poor pictures of a few different amaranths. If someone could post good pictures of green and redroot amaranths it would be nice. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
theobromos Posted February 15, 2002 http://www.vidaverde.co.uk/leafgreens.html for leaf types and http://www.vidaverde.co.uk/cornandgrains.html for the grain types. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
