Page 135 - The Lost Ways

base for a green salad. If you come across a large crop, you can collect the young leaves
and dry them for later use as a potherb. When the plant is mature, collect the seed heads
and thresh them for the tiny black seeds. Seeds can be eaten as is or ground. Both ways
have merit in a variety of recipes.

Plantain (Plantago major, Plantago minor)

Annual herb; harvest spring through fall

Here is another great plant that gets treated like a weed. Plantains hitchhiked from
Europe and have made their way across the country and back again a few million times.
Unless a lawn is treated with copious amounts of weed-killing poisons, chances are there
are plantains growing somewhere.

There are species of plantain growing everywhere, and none of them are poisonous. They
have no deadly lookalikes either, so finding a good-sized patch is quite a score.

The plant has a short or non-existent stalk. The leaves grow out from the center at ground

level. These can be long and thin or rather fat. They can be toothed, wavy, or smooth.
Likewise, depending on the species, the leaves can be rough, smooth, or hairy. One thing
all breeds have in common is that the flowers are found on spikes that shoot up from the

134