permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

Keith Johnson wrote:

> Cornucopia lists 10 cultivars of ground nut and goes further to say that 
> the sweet starchy tubers are eaten raw, boiled, fried, roasted, or 
> otherwise perpared like patatoes. They can be added to soups, stews, and 
> casseroles, or mashed and used in breads. I've eaten them raw and cooked 
> and have grown them and harvested wild ones. I'd start with some of the 
> named cultivars first if I wanted to grow them. One of my clients has 
> them growing in her highbush blueberries, though I'd probably let them 
> crawl on something else like ornamentals. The floweres are fragrant and 
> pea-like followed by seedpods. The tuber is also a propagation unit. It 
> grows wild over most of the eastern US, mostly growing near streams.

Then there's "nutgrass", considered a weed. It has straight grasslike leaves
growing in a clump with small oblong underground tubers attached to the root 
system or perhaps runners.
I think it propagates itself by runners or maybe they are actually rhizomes. 
Is this an edible plant?