Sow
Thistle - Sonchus oleraceus
This thistle is not prickly although the leavesare toothed at the
edge. The yellow flowers are small and pale yellow and clumped together
in small groups; each head may be at a different stage; in bud, in
flower or in fruit, with a pappus of straight white hairs.Common and
abundant weed of cultivated and waste ground, as well as walls, pavements
and other disturbed sites. Rich in minerals and vitamins, this is
a useful salad plant.
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Burdock
- Arctium lappa
Take a ripe sticky willie fruit and extract a seed, they are dark and
shiny and you can split them open with your teeth. Inside the starch
is tasty and a delicious outdoor snack.
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Spear Thistle
Cirsium vulgare
Take care here because the flowering heads are the bit you want to pick! Take a purple flowering head, pull it open carefully removing all the downy material. At the base right down in the middle is the fleshy part that you can eat, it's a bit like the principle of the globe artichoke, you can eat it raw or steam it gently, though nutritionally it is probably superior raw.
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Restharrow
Ononis arvensis
(Wild Licquorice, Stinking Tommy,Cammock, Ground Furze, Land Whin)
Once upon a time the young shoots were used as a vegetable, boiled and eaten as a salad or pickled.They have quite a sweet flavour.
It is a favourite donkey food - onos- the Greek word for ass. Snakes don't like the plant!
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