Jeremy Bartlett's LET IT GROW blog

The wonder of plants and fungi.

Giant Puffball, Calvatia gigantea

Posted on 29 September, 2014 by Jeremy Bartlett29 September, 2014

It has been a dry September, although that is not particularly unusual in Norfolk. But rain at the end of August and very early in September made this a good year for the Giant Puffball, Calvatia gigantea. This is one of my favourite fungi: easy to identify, good to eat and spectacular in size.

Giant Puffball – just fresh enough to eat

The Giant Puffball occurs in Europe and North America on roadsides, in nettle beds, in meadows and fields and in deciduous forests. It is relatively common in the UK but is rare in Lithuania, protected in parts of Poland and considered to be of conservation concern in Norway. The fungus’ spectacular fruitbody is usually found in late summer and early autumn. However, the hot and dry early summer of 2006 was followed by heavy rain in early August and this caused Giant Puffballs to appear in large quantities.

The Giant Puffball is a large white globe around the size of a football (or soccerball if you’re American). It has no stem or gills, but attaches at the base to a fine strand, which connects to its mycelium growing beneath the soil. The diameter is usually around 30cm (12 inches) but the biggest specimen recorded was 162cm in diameter (64 inches). It is an unmistakeable fungus – although John Wright (“Mushrooms”, River Cottage Handbook No. 1, Bloomsbury 2007) admits to clambering into a field to pick a white duck!

The Giant Puffball is basically a bag of spores. If you want to eat your specimen, cut it open to check that it is pure white inside its skin , which feels like kid leather. Older specimens start to turn yellow and then olive-brown as the spores inside mature. Eventually the skin splits open and the spore-bearing material inside (the gleba) takes on the texture of crumbling foam rubber and masses of spores are released every time the puffball is disturbed, perhaps 7 trillion per puffball.

Giant Puffball – too old to eat

Last year I collected a Giant Puffball while out on a cycle ride in North Norfolk. It looked fresh enough, but I didn’t cut it open until I reached home, at which point I discovered that the inside was a yellowy-brown colour. So I left it on our back lawn and throughout the winter I kicked it around to disperse the spores whenever I went out into the garden. Whether I’ll ever have my own crop of Giant Puffballs is debatable – they are said to be difficult to cultivate.

I’ve only ever cooked Giant Puffballs by dipping slices in egg and breadcrumbs and frying them. The pieces melt in the mouth and have a texture like the very best tofu. More elaborate recipes exist and one day I hope to try The Puffburger recipe in John Wright’s book.

Giant Puffball – young and delicious to eat

The Giant Puffball has been used in medicine. It was cut into strips and used as a styptic dressing for wounds. Young fruitbodies contain calvacin, which acts against tumours, but it is only present in minute amounts.

Smouldering pieces of Giant Puffballs and other fungi were sometimes used as a soporific by beekeepers to calm their bees and allow access to the hive. Another use was as tinder – a means of carrying fire from one place to another in the days before the invention of matches.

The scientic name Calvatia means ‘bald head or skull’ and gigantea means ‘giant’ – so the Giant Puffball means ‘giant bald skull’. Perhaps that’s another reason why I feel an affinity with this fungus.

Persicaria polymorpha, White Fleeceflower

Posted on 6 August, 2014 by Jeremy Bartlett6 August, 2014

Back in October 2012 in my post “In Praise of Persicaria” I wrote about a couple of my favourite herbaceous plants of late summer and early autumn: Persicaria affinis and Persicaria amplexicaule. Now I must add a third to my list of favourites: Persicaria polymorpha.

Persicaria polymorpha in our back garden.

Persicaria polymorpha is a dramatic plant. Although it is as tall and statuesque as Japanese Knotweed, it is a well behaved plant and is generally reckoned not to have its relative’s invasive tendencies.

I was given my plant last June. It had been cut back and was just a root ball with some short shoots but I was given a photograph of the plant before it was cut back and I knew this was a plant I wanted to grow. The plant dies back in the winter and it wasn’t until late April or early May that sizeable shoots started to emerge. By the end of June the plant was around five feet (150 cm) tall and it started to flower in the middle of July. When mature, the plant should reach 6 feet (180 cm) tall, with a similar spread.

The flowers are a lovely white froth, hence the English name White Fleeceflower. The flowers fade to pinky bronze by September. It is far prettier than Japanese Knotweed.

I’m growing my specimen in the lawn in the semi-shade, as our soil is very light and I want the plant to have enough moisture. Finegardening.com reckons that the plant can tolerate some shade and drier conditions, though it prefers moist soil. In our garden, not many insects seem to like the flowers.

Persicaria polymorpha works well as a single specimen in a lawn or can be planted in a wild garden. If you have a large border it would be great at the back, perhaps with grasses such as Miscanthus, as a foil for shorter, colourful perennials. It doesn’t need staking but heavy rain will push the foliage down, increasing the plant’s spread, so allow for this. The plant can be divided in the spring.

If you’re in the United States, you may find the reviews on the Dave’s Garden website helpful.

Incidentally, I’m not the only person who loves Persicaria. Here is an excellent piece on the Ben’s Botanics blog.

Gallant Soldier or Guascas, Galinsoga parviflora

Posted on 30 July, 2014 by Jeremy Bartlett1 November, 2016

“Summertime, an’ the living is easy…“, or at least it would be if the allotment didn’t need quite as much attention. Happily, late July sees an abundance of courgettes, squashes, French and runner beans, tomatoes and cucumbers. Less happily, the weeds are growing well, in particular Gallant Soldier (Galinsoga parviflora).

A mass of Galinsoga parviflora on the allotment.

If you don’t know of Gallant Soldier, be thankful. It is a warm season weed of lighter soils and it grows in abundance on our allotment, emerging as a forest of seedlings that rapidly start to smother other small plants, such as the brassicas I transplanted at the end of June.

Galinsoga parviflora is an annual member of the Daisy family, the Asteraceae, and is a native of South America. It has small flowers with a centre of yellow tube florets and white outer ray florets, like a sparse and rather scrappy daisy.

In 1796 Galinsoga parviflora was brought to Kew Gardens from Peru. It soon escaped and by 1863 it was described as “quite as common as groundsel” in the area between Kew and East Sheen (see the NOBANIS – Invasive Alien Species Fact Sheet for the related species G. quadriradiata). It is now found on cultivated light soils in much of England and there are records for Wales and Scotland too, as can be seen in its online British distribution map. It is found in many US states as well and in other parts of the world, including continental Europe and Africa.

Galinsoga is named after the mid-eighteenth century the Spanish botanist and physician Ignacio Mariano Martínez Galinsoga and the English name ‘Gallant Soldier’ is simply a corruption of this name. Other English names for the plant include Gallant Soldiers, Soldiers of the Queen, Littleflower quickweed, Quickweed and Potato weed. ‘Parviflora‘ simply means that the flowers are small.

Gallant Soldier is a nuisance because it grows prolifically and fast. Its stems are fairly brittle and easy to snap and bases of stems left in the ground will regrow and flower again. The best solution is to hoe up small seedlings in hot, dry weather, so that they rapidly shrivel up in the sun and die. This expert tip from the United States gives some other useful advice on controlling the weed.

Like many weeds, such as Ground Elder, it is possible for gardeners to take revenge on Gallant Soldier by eating it. The Plants for a Future website tells us that the leaves, stems and flowering shoots are edible either raw or cooked and the plant can be eaten as a pot herb, or added to soups and stews or salads. The leaves can also be rubbed onto nettle stings (rather like a dock leaf).

In his article Herbs: Guascas or Gallant Soldier: History, Culinary Uses and Nutrition, Peter Bilton describes how the plant has been used as a food throughout South America, where it is generally known as Guascas. (The Costa Rican name is Mielcilla.) Galinsoga is used to flavour the traditional Colombian chicken and potato stew known as ajiaco Bogotano. In Africa, the leaves and stems are eaten as a leafy vegetable but the flower heads and buds are thrown away or used to feed cattle.

I nibbled on a few leaves of Gallant Soldier on my allotment and found them to be very palatable. I will use the next (inevitable) growth of new plants as ingredients in a salad.

Julia’s Edible Weeds gives information on the plant’s nutritional properties. Gallant Soldier may have medicinal uses too, as it contains ACE inhibitors, which help to treat high blood pressure and heart disease.

In parts of Africa, Galinsoga is useful as an alternative host for insects and viruses which destroy crops.

Before writing this article I had to check that the Galinsoga growing on my allotment actually was Galinsoga parviflora, for the closely related Shaggy Soldier, Galinsoga quadriradiata also occurs in much of England, including East Anglia. (The first British record was from Middlesex in 1909, from where it has rapidly spread.)

I consulted my copy of “Wild Flowers of Britain & Ireland” by Blamey, Fitter and Fitter (A & C Black, 2003) and discovered that the difference is in the scales in the yellow disc of the flower. G. parviflora has three-lobed disc scales, whereas those of G. quadriradiata are unlobed or scarcely lobed. Shaggy Soldier, Galinsoga quadriradiata, is a much hairier plant as well.

I have discovered that I have both plants on the allotment. It doesn’t really matter as far as eating goes – Shaggy Soldier is edible too. Here are a couple of recipes for either plant (and see below for a recipe for Ajiaco, added in May 2016).

Shaggy Soldier, Galinsoga quadriradiata

Update – November 2016

Thanks to Ruth, who runs a Colombian Street Food business in Camden, London called Maize Blaze, for sending me the following recipe for Ajiaco, and allowing me to share it with you. I tried it several times this summer and it is delicious. You can use tinned sweetcorn if you don’t have fresh corn on the cob. I use a mix of both species of Galinsoga.

I’ve now changed my view of these plants. Yes, they are still prolific weeds, but they are useful herbs as well.