Native Fruits and Edibles Observed in the Wild

[kelbot]

I’ve been going on hikes with my 18 month old first thing in the morning lately and discovering all kinds of awesome native plants. The edible ones interest me the most but also like finding cool wildflowers. I’ve always been interested in native plants but this is the first time I’ve observed many of these out in their natural setting. Pretty fun walking through nature and finding all of these.

Shiny Blueberry

Darrow’s Blueberry

I have found tons of wild muscadine grapevines but almost never find ones with flowers or fruit. Today, I found a bunch of flowering vines.

Also, came across a few Calusa Grapes.

One I did not expect to find but was delighted to notice. American Groundnut (apios americana)!

And finally, an absolute boatload of Persimmons! I’m definitely going back to this particular trail in the fall to check some things out when they are fruiting.

[sharq]

Where is that?! I rarely see any of those besides muscadines (and pontentially Calusa grapes as I didn’t know they were different). Very very cool.
Makes me want to take a hike through the woods here and see what I can find. Other than oranges.

[kelbot]

This was at Marshall Hampton Reserve.

Oh and a couple other things I saw.

This awesome purple thistle.

I think this is a maypop passionvine.

[Kaartinen]

We have plenty of edible native plants, however it seems I mostly take photos of the wild asparagus, which I suppose originally likely came to NA from Europe.

[kelbot]

Another hike this morning and some more cool plants observed.

FL native netted pawpaw. Found a big ole patch of them. This next photo is mostly netted pawpaw in between the grasses. I found a few different spots like this.

FL prickly pear

[snarfing]

if any of those paw paw have superior fruit, thats of great interest to the paw paw community! check back when ripe

We need more florida fruit explorers because right now our options from the florida paw paws is pretty bad