Japanese Knotweed Spreading

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Thu, 05/09/2019 - 07:37
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The Second Circle: Food and Water

I saw this recent article from Slate -- https://slate.com/technology/2019/05/japanese-knotweed-invasive-plants.html -- about the spread of Japanese knotweed.

The plant is very upsetting to some, though, on a more hopeful note, I recall a foraging instructor pointing it out to us as a wild edible.

Serinde's picture

Serinde

Thu, 05/09/2019 - 09:47

Maybe we can eat it into submission. Seems to work for other things like herring and mackerel (at least here). Candied knotweed decorations for cupcakes to replace angelica, anyone? There are two other plants everyone here is on the alert to destroy: Himalayan balsam and giant hogweed. Plus the trend about ten years ago for importing Phormium from New Zealand gifted us the New Zealand flat worm that eats earthworms. There's a lesson here, I think.

David Trammel's picture

David Trammel

Sun, 05/12/2019 - 16:40

Here's another article on Japanese knotwood.

https://slate.com/technology/2019/05/japanese-knotweed-invasive-plants.html

I can't believe the hype and legal stuff about this plant in Britain. Even suicides!

Darwinia

Fri, 07/19/2019 - 10:50

Stephen Harrod Buhner suggests it's use in helping to relieve the symptoms and inflammation caused by Lyme Disease. He has several books out and I believe I read this in his "Healing Lyme" book. Also there's another book out by Timothy Lee Scott called "Invasive Plant Medicine" that also suggests Japanese Knotweed for Lyme. So, we can not only eat it, but we can use it to help cure Lyme - pretty good press in my book!