Fireweed: Chamerion angustifolium

Fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium) always make me think of hunting season, for the reason that I snack on the flowers and shoots a lot when wandering around in the woods looking for deer. They are considered a weed in a city setting as they grow easily and form large clumps in otherwise unvegetated areas, or areas that have had forest fires. Sometimes a whole formerly logged section of a mountain would be covered in meadows of fireweed. The seeds can lie dormant for many years in the ground, until a fire breaks out - they are one of the main colonisers after a fire. Hence the name.

The young shoots and the flowers are also quite sweet when eaten raw, and it has a surprising high content (67%, raw leaves) of sugars. Which was why I snack on them a lot. I call them "deers' Ice Cream" as I'm pretty sure they deer loves to eat them to fatten up before the winter, due to the high sugar content. People also make tea out of the leaves and flowers, either fresh or previously dried.

Not much protein content, compared to Goosefoot, but it has a high mineral content, including calcium and other trace ones like manganese. Higher vitamin C content than Goosefoot, too. Supposedly the high mucilage content is soothing for IBS -- I'll let you know if my GI is behaving well tonight after dinner. It's been bugging me lately.

Bees that make honey from mainly fireweed flowers produces honey that are said to be berry-like and spicy. I've yet to try it, though, but I'll be just as happy chucking some fireweed shoots into my stir-fry for dinner tonight.

These clumps of fireweed are right next to my garden plot. I think I will keep these instead of "weeding them out" as they are attracting a whole bunch of bees - I would love to have them pollinate my tomato flowers!

Edit to add: It seemed that my digestive system really liked having Fireweed and Goosefoot for dinner! I did not have to take any H2 blocker last night, and no resulting GERD symptoms from my spastic GI!

NOTE: Talk to you doctor first before discontinuing any medications. I use H2 blockers in conjunction with H1 antihistamines due to my severe histamine reactions to some food. Part and parcel of the joys of living with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome complications. I'd like to be able to reduce the amount of H1 and H2 I take daily to give my liver a break once in a while.