Stalking the Wild Groundnut

Peanuts are called peanuts in Britain.

Both are from family Papilionaceae (Oh, my. I really said Apiaceae?) but two different plants. It seems that here you eat the root and in the classical peanut (mani, cacahuete) you eat the seeds. Interesting plant in any case I didn't know it.

You need to be careful with this family, is not so directly brutal as the Apiaceae or Solanaceae that are poison maker masters, but can be tricky. Some "edible" wild species are dangerous for the health at long term (Damages in the nervous system). This is also the reason for not having "peas flour". You can't eat it raw and need to cook almost all legumes, poisonous in raw.

This could be the reason for the plant being relatively obscure and unknown.

The article is about Apios americana (groundnut), rather than Arachis hypogaea (peanut). They share the same order and family, but are a different genus.

The article comments that "groundnut" is ambiguous, and refers to a variety of different plants (including peanuts):

> "The plant was Apios americana, also known as wild bean, Indian potato, potato bean, and, most commonly, groundnut (though other plants, including peanuts, are also called groundnuts)."

I'm also growing them, on year 2 now. Weeds tend to get ahead of them in early spring, but they're vigorous once they get off the ground. I'm also growing edible air potato one bed over.

Anybody who's interested in this stuff should check out the books Paradise Lot and Perennial Vegetables, both by Eric Toensmeier.

Yeah, Sam Thayer's comments about racism with respect to eating native plants are what made me want to post this. I hadn't heard that before.

In terms of the allergy, I agree that it's most likely either the latex or something else that's present when they're not fully cooked. I'd also be curious as to whether either the person digging them up or the person cooking them is more likely to have an allergic reaction than the people merely eating them.

I think that's a different lotus; Nelumbo nucifera (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelumbo_nucifera) for India and Nelumbo lutea (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelumbo_lutea) for America.