[tigermn]

We ran into some guy on Friday going up from Cascade Pass picking Glacier Lillies and saying how delicious they were as he munched a few down. I am always reluctant to just pick something in the wild like that and eat it. Does he have something here or is that nuts?

[graywolf]

Not sure if they're the same, but avalanche lilies are good.

[Seventy2002]

I like 'em with a little salt.

[Bedivere]

They're best when they first sprout.

[sticky buns]

Mmm, glacier lily leaves. Good stuff. Gregory Tilford's "Edible & Medicinal Plants of the West" says that leaves and seed pods are edible but may act as a laxative or emetic if eaten in large quantities.

[JennieEl]

I'm just going through Nancy Turner's book on food plants of the NW Coastal peoples. These were a staple. But it was the bulbs, not the leaves, that she talks about. And I think they were cooked first.

[pimaCanyon]

Jeffrey Shooting Star is also tasty. Little better flavor IMO than glacier or avalanche lilies, but those are good too.

[Mike Collins]

The lily family is very giving. Deer will browse on the leaves of the glacier lily but the First Nations would dry the large corm http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=958&bih=560&tbm=isch&tbnid=nVBqlKmRki7NeM:&imgrefurl=http://www.srgc.org.uk/bulblog/log2005/100805/log.html&docid=ozUOhdErdDkJoM&imgurl=http://www.srgc.org.uk/bulblog/log2005/100805/Erythronium%252520grandiflorum%252520bulbs.jpg&w=533&h=400&ei=gXHaTp_8GuGViQK6w5mKCg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=81&vpy=135&dur=4797&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=121&ty=219&sig=118243315372677470212&page=1&tbnh=109&tbnw=145&start=0&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0 to use as a winter food. The same starch that provides the needed energy for the leaves to poke through the snow gave people energy during winter. Toward the end of winter people were at times starving. In mid-March Indians still have their own "Thanksgiving" called the First Foods celebration http://www.grandronde.org/news/articles/first-foods-celebration-draws-more-than-50-to-native-feast/ Other lilies, camus and chocolate lily, were also used by Native Americans. Both grizzly and black bears will excavate these for foodstuff and in time immemorial we probably learned from them about this food source. When early Mormons entered Utah they were starving. The First Nations showed them how to eat sego, another member of the lily family. It is now honored as the Utah state flower. The only evergreen member of the lily family, bear grass, Xerophyllum tenax has its flowering stalk eaten by mountain goats and bear will eat the soft leaf bases. It probably gets its name though from bears using the leaves (tenax is Latin for tenacious) for bedding in their dens. The lily family is not all good though as it also gives us death camas and false hellebore.