The Daylilly is a wonderful wild edible weed – wild edible flower. You can harvest just about everything from the Daylilly at one point or another, and it is a delicious wild edible that just has to be shared with a friend.
Warning: Be absolutely positive you are harvesting Day Lilly – if you are a beginner – harvest only when it is flowering. If you really want to get good at identifying day lillies – compared to poisonous lillies – visit a green house and ask to be shown both day lilly and other lilly plants. Your eyes will be opened.
Once you get to know the edible day lily well, you’ll find that the leaves are edible in the early early spring, the shoots are edible as long as they are tender, and the flowers and the flower buds are edible once they appear. Even the rhizomes (roots) are edible – just about anytime – raw or cooked – they are an awesome treat.
The Chinese Connection.
In chinese medicine the leaves were used as a painkiller in traditional times. You also can dry the flower petals and use them like the chinese do as well, in soups. Stock up for winter!
How to Identify Day Lillies
The fastest method to positively identify edible day lilies is to check the roots.
Edible Day Lillies – Hemerocallis Species grow from network of underground tubers resembling tiny potatoes, while many poisonous look alike plants grow from bulbs.
The day lily flowers last only a single day, this is where the name comes from. Other lilly flowers (not daylillies) will face down, last more than one day, and often have thicker petals.
Take your time, and be cautious. Learn from experts what you can eat, and what will cause you to push up daisies.
And enjoy the amazing supermarket nature has to offer you!
Mr Twenty Twenty
Learn 27 Edible Plants this year for $5 bucks! Click here to check out Carol Wingert’s 27 Easy Edible Plant’s book!