Fouquieriaceae

Ocotillo Family

Ocotillo

FAMILY: Ocotillo family (Fouquieriaceae) – Fouquieria genus.

SPECIES: Ocotillo or coach-whip (Fouquieria splendens Engelm.).

TO UTILIZE AS FOOD: The leaves, flowers, and seeds of ocotillo are reported to be edible. None of these parts taste very appealing, and caution is advised because they can be very acrid.

Ocotillo flowers are brilliant red, loaded with nectar, and cursed with astringency. The buds taste more like leaves than flowers. Gathering is best done after the buds blossom. Flowers readily detach from the clusters. Calyces taste bitter and need to be removed. Corollas, pistils, and stamens represent the best-tasting parts of ocotillos. Astringency is lowest in these parts, but it’s not always low enough. Some flowers are more astringent than others. When eaten fresh, the flavor ranges from unappealing to reasonably good. At best, ocotillo flowers make poor salad material free of acrid, soapy, resinous, and perfume-like qualities. The texture is pleasant, but rather dry. Boiling draws out astringency and yields wastewater rather than broth. Soaking the flowers in cold water for a few minutes yields a refreshing beverage. Using hot water leaches astringency and turns the beverage bitter. Ocotillo shrubs normally grow 2-4 meters tall. Flower clusters are positioned atop thorny stems that are flexible enough to bend without breaking, yet brittle enough to break when bent excessively. Flower clusters are free of thorns and relatively free of bugs. Gathering a supply is easy. Overall, ocotillo flowers are a fair resource available in mass quantities throughout the year.

Ocotillo leaves are edible, but they rarely qualify as palatable. When eaten fresh, the flavor is similar to lettuce combined with excessive astringency and a terrible burning sensation. Intensity of these unappealing aspects varies among ocotillo populations, but the leaves rarely taste mild enough for salads. Sampling a few leaves prior to gathering a supply is wise. Gathering young, healthy, vibrant green leaves should be a priority. Mature, dark-green leaves consistently taste worse. Cooking fails to adequately improve the flavor. Boiling reduces astringency, but it barely affects the burning sensation. Oxalate crystals are generally responsible for this type of irritation. Ocotillo leaves can appear almost anytime in response to rain. Gathering the leaves requires patience. A careful hand can negotiate the stiff spines, but tongs are certainly helpful. Overall, the leaves are not a good resource.

Ocotillo seeds are essentially worthless as food. They were allegedly ground into flour, but exactly how they were processed is unclear. Making flour is easy enough, but eliminating the stinging sensation is not so easy. Eating unprocessed ocotillo seeds is comparable to chewing a ball of fur followed by the feeling of fiberglass lodging in the throat. Oxalate crystals are often responsible for this type of irritation. Ocotillo seeds are flat, oval, and hairy. The hairs often align to form wings. Burning off the hairs is easy, but standard preparation techniques fail to subdue the stinging sensation. Consumption of ocotillo seeds can be outright painful. Gathering the seeds is easy, but finding seeds to gather can be challenging. They tend to fly away as the capsules burst open. Overall, ocotillo seeds are best left alone.

NOTES: Edward Castetter (1935-b p. 28) states, “Nectar pressed out of ocotillo blossoms (Fouquieria splendens) hardens when dry like rock candy. This is chewed as a delicacy.” Regrettably, all of my efforts to obtain a sufficient supply of ocotillo nectar to make this desert confection were unsuccessful. The flowers were simply too dry, even after considerable rainfall. I checked the flowers of numerous ocotillos at various times of the day throughout the growing season. At no point did the flowers produce nectar in quantities sufficient enough for gathering. Considering that ocotillo flowers are relatively rich in nectar, I wasn’t very impressed with the beverage produced by those flowers. Of course, this could be from bitter compounds competing with the nectar rather than a lack of nectar. I thought that bugs or hummingbirds might have been consuming the nectar, but that didn’t seem to be an issue. Apparently, dryness was the culprit.

IDENTIFICATION: The Fouquieria genus is represented by 1 species in the United States. Ocotillo is a well-known plant that dominates the southwestern landscape. Nothing else looks remotely similar to ocotillo: numerous, 2-4 meter tall, thorny, unbranched stems arising from a single point and bearing large clusters of bright-red flowers at the tops.

Description of ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens): FORM spiny shrub with ascending branches up to 4 meters tall; LEAVES simple; alternate or clustered; soon deciduous; blades egg- or spoon-shaped; margins entire; FLOWERS regular, perfect, ovary superior, and arranged in large terminal clusters; sepals 5; corollas red, tubular, and 5-lobed; styles 3-4; stamens 10-15; FRUITS capsules 3-celled and splitting open at maturity; seeds flat, the margins winged or hairy; HABITAT deserts; western Texas to southern California; blooming March to August.

REFERENCES: Ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens): leaves Couplan (p. 146); flowers Hodgson (pp. 195-196); seeds Hodgson (pp. 195-196) and Niethammer (1999 p. 13).