This Abandoned Lot is Full of Useful Plants!

[00:00:00]You might see an empty lot behind me, but I see a grocery store. Let me introduce you to all of the useful plants growing in this abandoned city lot.

[00:00:10]Starting off with a banger, this is prickly lettuce. And you can tell why it's called prickly lettuce. She's very prickly. Can you use the leaves like lettuce? Yeah, you can. They're a little bitter, though, especially this time of year once it's already bolted. But the thing prickly lettuce is mostly famous for is this milky sap that it oozes when it's broken. It contains lactusenin which is mildly analesic and seditive.

[00:00:35]People will make medicine out of this uh to help with pain and to help fall asleep. Hello there. Sorry to interrupt.

[00:00:41]It's science Alexis here to talk to you about two of the activives in prickly lettuce. Honestly, you find them in most wild lettucees and you can even find them in small quantities in dandelion root. The two activives that we believe are responsible for the analesic and seditive properties are lactusenin and lacto lactuopicrine.

[00:01:02]That one always trips me up. There's some pretty fun studies using the two of those compounds. The one that I see getting quoted the most is a tail flick study in mice. Now, keep in mind mice, contrary to popular belief, are not humans. That being said, there has been a good amount of positive evidence in the last couple of decades that lactusen and lactoer.

[00:01:29]Oh my god, lactoicrine.

[00:01:33]No, lactuicrine, there it is. Lacticrine also have seditive and analesic effects on our nervous system as well. Ooh, lactusin and lactuopicrine have also been found to be antimmalarial. Additionally, lactopicrine is also known to be an acetylcholine eststerase inhibitor, which means it leads to acetylcholine staying in your system for longer because it inhibits the enzyme that breaks it down. Acetylcholine acts as a neurotransmitter in our body. It helps with signaling our skeletal muscles.

[00:02:05]It's responsible for a lot of things.

[00:02:08]This is becoming about something else.

[00:02:10]Thanks for hanging out with science Alexis. Back to the great outdoors. Bye.

[00:02:15]This is Daisy Flea Bane. The flowers make an excellent tea and the leaves are edible, but I'd cook them first cuz they're a little hairy. All of these dooblydos belong to lance leaf or rib wart plantain. And I'm sorry, it's not plantain like the banana. This is plantain like the genus plantago.

[00:02:33]They're also edible. They also are a really good anti-inflammatory. I use it when I get mosquito bites. I just chew up a leaf and put it on the bite. You can also just scrunch it up really hard to make it juicy, but I was a feral outdoor child all of my summers growing up, so I chewed it. Oh my god, these guys that look like balloons in front of me here. Let me get it to focus. These are the little soon to be baby bulbs of field garlic or onion grass. So, if you let your onion grass keep growing, it eventually makes these. I'm going to pick one off. They're super delicious to eat raw if you love onions and garlic.

[00:03:12]But these guys also pickle like a dream.

[00:03:16]My breath is stinky now. Oh my god, we were just looking at riwart plantain.

[00:03:21]This is broadleaf plantain because, you know, its leaves are broader, but it can be used all the same ways. Uh, I also use its seeds as like a thickener for baked goods since I'm a filthy vegan and I don't use eggs. These guys seeds make a really good standin. When you add the seeds to a liquid, they get like gelatinous and gooey just like chia seeds do. I'm having too much fun with this. Here we have some curly dock that has gone to seed. These seeds will be ripe for the harvesting super soon. Love doc seed flour. Oh, and there's some pink clover. They're so cute. And I love using these flowers for tea and to flavor jellies. Oh, we have some Queen Anne's lace. This flower is just about to open. Uh, you know, it's Queen Anne's lace and not poison hemlock because the queen has hairy legs. That's my favorite pneumonic device to give people who are learning the difference between the two.

[00:04:15]We also have a couple huge stands of one of my favorite flavoring agents, yellow sweet clover. If you take these guys home, dry them thoroughly, because if they get moldy, they can become a blood thinner. Whoops. But if you thoroughly dry them and then put the dried material into vodka, you can make yourself a knockoff vanilla extract.

[00:04:37]The Canada thistle's looking very floofy right now, but earlier in the season, it has edible roots. Also, we have some common milkweed, which in my opinion is one of the most useful and wonderful plants ever. It's a food source. It's a fiber source. It's a great habitat for so many amazing pollinators and insects.

[00:04:56]She really can do it all. This is Chory, but she looks boring now because it's too late in the day for her blue flowers to be open. A lovely evening primrose specimen. Edible roots. The leaves are technically edible, but they make a lot of people's mouths feel weird. I also love using the seeds. They're oily and delicious and really tasty when they're roasted. Oh my god, look at these beautiful feral oxide daisies.

[00:05:21]They have edible greens. And I also just like love looking at the flowers.

[00:05:26]They're so pretty. Ooh, some common mow.

[00:05:31]A completely edible from root to shoot.

[00:05:34]My friend JB has me hooked on the roasted little cheese wheel seeds.

[00:05:42]Really good for thickening soups and stews in a similar way to okra because, well, they're both mows. And that slippiness can be really soothing when you have a scratchy throat. I got to remember to come back here when more of these seeds are back so I can make some roasted ones. Yes. Yes, dandelions are here. But if you're following me, I'm like so sure that you already know about them. One lot, so many foods, and a couple types of medicine. You just don't know the magic that you are walking past sometimes. And then when you do, the world just seems like a much more interesting, much more lovely place. Did you learn anything new today? Please let me know. Did you think I missed anything that you saw? Let me know that, too.

[00:06:24]Thanks for hanging out. Happy snacking, don't I? I'm coming back for this prickly lettuce to make some