Re: edibles
- Subject: Re: edibles
- From: R* D*
- Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 00:43:25 -0400
At 06:01 PM 7/26/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>Hello Guys,
>I was just wondering if anyone had info on the edible status of cosmos. I
wanted to use the orange ones for decoration on my daughter's birthday cake,
but don't know if I will end up with 17 teenage girls with stomach ailments.
Anyone out there have the skinny on these?
>Thanks,
>Karrie Reid
>Folsom Gardener
I seem to remember from the old Rodale books that calendula (tribe Inuleae)
petals and maybe tagetes (tribe Helenieae) petals were OK. I don't know
about whole flower heads. I do know that groundsels (Senecios, tribe
Senecioneae) contain toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids that poison cattle who
graze the flowers and render toxic the bee honey collected from the flowers.
Most, but not all, cousins of camomile (tribe Anthemideae, including
Artemisia, Anthemis, Achillea) are fairly safe.
It very much depends on the particular tribe of Asteraceae Cosmos comes
from. Cosnos is in the tribe Heliantheae along with Bidens, Ratibiia,
Rudbeckia, Echinacea, Zinnia, and Spilanthes.
As to relying on the chemical systemics, I would go by the species to be
sure, using the same caution one uses for mushrooms. Some generally toxic
genera.of mushrooms have edible members, and vice versa.
I would start by searching Google using the search terms "Cosmos xxxx" and
"toxic" where xxxx is the species name of the cosmos you are interested in.
There were 1,960.hits on "Senecio" "toxic" Here is what my Google search on
Cosmos turned up:
http://www.calpoison.org/public/plants-safe.html
http://www.centralsan.org/education/ipm/plants.html
Richard F. Dufresne
313 Spur Road
Greensboro, North Carolina 27406 USA
336-674-3105
World of Salvias: http://www.eclectasy.com/gallery_of_salvias/index.htm
Salvia email list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Salvia
