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Spring Beauty is an amazing, quite common plant in the Eastern U.S. There are many different species of Spring Beauty, but the primary thing to look for is 5 white petals with pink streaking through them. Some species have larger leaves.

The ones I find in my yard are somewhat grass-like they are so thin. Flower season is from March to April, which is the best time to find and identify this plant.

Although I find lots of this plant, always be cautious not to harvest too much in any one area and be sure you are allowed to harvest where you go. Some local parks do not allow the harvesting of any plants at all. Some allow you to pick nuts and berries.

Your own yard or a friends yard or farm is preferable. Harvest only a few of these in any one spot and then move on to another spot.

I want to reiterate this because normally I cover only very common weeds, but this is more a wild, native plant. However, this is an awesome plant to know because it can save your life in an emergency (backpacking trip gone wrong, zombie apocalypse, or even an unlikely international pandemic!) This plant may look tiny, but it has a reasonably sized tuber that can be eaten, providing much needed carbohydrates and it’s quite easy to harvest a lot of it shortly after a rain event.

Excellent boiled, added to soups, or sauteed, these tubers taste a little bit like chestnuts.

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