Araliaceae

Ginseng Family

American Spikenard

FAMILY: Ginseng family (Araliaceae) – Aralia genus.

SPECIES: American spikenard (Aralia racemosa L.).

TO UTILIZE AS FOOD: Roots, shoots, leaves, and fruits (berry-like drupes) of American spikenard are edible fresh or cooked. All these parts, except for the fruits, are better cooked due to a bad flavor imparted by acrid saponins and aromatic resins. From a forager’s perspective, the berries are considerably more valuable than other parts.

Roots of American spikenard are sizable, but unappealing. New plants arise from tangled root systems. All sections of the roots are white with brown skins. Most sections are soft enough to chew without much effort. Even the cores are reasonably soft. Outer portions are the best part, so be careful when peeling the roots. Skins can be scraped off with a knife, but they don’t need to be removed. Fresh roots taste awful due to an abundance of acrid saponins and aromatic resins. Boiling improves the flavor, but it doesn’t completely remove these compounds. After thorough boiling, the roots acquire a flavor that’s almost suitable for soups or stews. Aside from the harsh overtones, the flavor suggests parsnips combined with a hint of ginseng. The pale yellow wastewater has a medicinal overtone and sticky resins floating on the surface. Despite the bad flavor, the roots are sustaining. They can be gathered anytime, but finding them in winter or when the aboveground parts of the plant are not present is very difficult. Based on the plants sampled for this reference, American spikenard roots are rather unimpressive.

Young shoots and leaves of American spikenard taste acrid. They’re unsuitable as salad material and barely suitable as potherbs. At first, they strike a forager as mild, but soon a more acrid nature prevails. Simmering yields a vivid green broth with a “planty” character. It’s not as bad as broth made from the roots, but it barely qualifies as palatable. No method of preparation seems able to sufficiently improve the flavor of these parts. Young shoots become available in late spring or summer, and leaves soon afterwards. Based on the plants sampled for this reference, only the fruits are worth gathering.

Fruits (berry-like drupes) of American spikenard might seem like an excellent wild food, but references to their edibility are infrequent. They taste somewhat like grapes combined with blackberries. They’re pleasantly sweet and slightly resinous. No harsh flavors are present. The aroma of fresh fruits is also sweet, fruity, and resinous. It’s somewhat balsamic in nature. Discriminating foragers shouldn’t have any objections to the texture. Fresh fruits have a texture more like berries than drupes. Seeds are firm, but soft enough to chew. Any unappealing overtones in flavor come from the seeds rather than the juicy flesh. American spikenard fruits average 4-6 mm in diameter and turn from green to red to purplish-black. Interiors are seedy, but pulp is plentiful. Crowns of hair-like stigmas normally persist. These stigmas (usually 5 per fruit) are soft and harmless. They don’t pose any problems. American spikenard grows along mountain streams and produces impressive clusters of fruits that mature from August to September. Elevation influences the harvest time, but this time is fairly consistent. Hundreds of fruits can occur in each cluster and bend the stems to the ground. Ripe fruits readily detach from the clusters, leaving the stalks behind. Gathering and processing the fruits is easy. Dried fruits look like tiny raisins and taste even better than fresh fruits. Based on flavor, American spikenard fruits seem to be a good wild food, but little is known of these fruits, so caution is advised.

NOTES: American spikenard is hard to miss. It may be hard to find, but once found, it’s very attractive. The forest road heading east out of Mogollon, New Mexico has an ample supply of this shrub-like plant. Stephen Facciola (p. 25) indicates that the “berries” of American spikenard have been made into jelly, but very few authors mention any food uses for the fruits and Merritt Fernald (p. 282) indicates that they are considered inedible. The roots and shoots are the parts most often mentioned. In 1923, Huron Smith (p. 62) wrote that the Menominee Indians of northern Michigan and Wisconsin prepared a “very fine” meal by combining American spikenard roots with wild onions, wild gooseberries, and sugar (presumably maple sugar). This appears to be the earliest reference to the roots being used as food, and it’s often cited by more recent authors. Based on my experiences in the Mogollon Mountains, describing American spikenard roots as “very fine” seems a little off target, but these mountains are a long way from the Menominee’s homeland and I ate the roots without added ingredients. Steven Foster (2006 p. 336) described American spikenard roots as “licorice-like” and Doug Elliott (p. 50) described them as “mild flavored.” Since these descriptions differ considerably from my experiences, there’s probably a greater variation in flavor than my assessment indicates. American spikenard was used as medicine more often than it was used as food, which suggests that it’s inedible or only edible in small amounts. Any “edible” plants lacking a solid foundation in the ethnobotanical record should be approached with caution. The Mogollon Mountains are an excellent place to forage and hopefully they’ll remain that way for future foragers seeking plants such as American spikenard for food, medicine, or other purposes.

IDENTIFICATION: The Aralia genus is currently represented by 8 species in the United States. Of which, only 2 species are found in the Southwest. American spikenard is a shrub-like plant with huge leaves. It’s very easy to recognize.

Description of American spikenard (Aralia racemosa): FORM spineless, aromatic, shrub-like plant about 1-2 meters tall emerging from a thick, tangled root system; LEAVES compound; alternate; 2-3-pinnate; blades huge, up to 1 meter long and equally wide; ultimate leaflets broadly oval, lance- or heart-shaped; tips usually pointed; margins toothed; FLOWERS regular, perfect (or unisexual with both genders on the same plant), ovary inferior, and arranged in dense panicles terminating in umbels; sepals 5, green, minute; petals 5, white, free; styles 5, free or partially united; stamens 5; FRUITS berry-like drupes purplish-black, weakly 5-angled, and arranged in dense clusters; stones soft, up to 5 per fruit, each with 1 seed; HABITAT mainly the eastern United States, extending westward to Arizona and Utah, preferring riparian areas at 1,000 to 2,500 meters (3,500 to 8,000 feet) elevation; blooming in summer.

REFERENCES: American spikenard (Aralia racemosa): roots Couplan (p. 319), Foster (2006 pp. 336-337), Gladstar (pp. 210-214), Moerman (p. 50), Smith (1923 p. 62), and Yanovski (p. 47); shoots Foster (2006 pp. 336-337) and Yanovski (p. 47); leaves Couplan (p. 319); fruits Cheatham (p. 425), Facciola (p. 25), Foster (2006 pp. 336-337), and Mars (pp. 173-177).