All plants /Shrub /Farkleberry
Farkleberry
Vaccinium arboreum, heath family. Common in East Texas.
At a glance
- What
- Small black berries
- How
- Cooked; raw only a nibble
- When
- Fall
- Where
- Sandy East Texas woods
- Value
- A wild relative of the blueberry
Caution: Edible but dry and seedy raw; best cooked. Never eat a wild plant on this guide's word alone. Confirm identity against several sources and learn the look-alikes first.
Identification
A tough evergreen blueberry cousin whose small black fruit stays hard and seedy. Not a trailside treat, but a real ingredient once cooked down.
In the kitchen
Simmer with sugar and a splash of water to coax out what sweetness there is; the flavor is genuinely blueberry.
Photo: sonnia hill, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Forages well with
Forage safely. Never eat a wild plant on this site's word alone. Confirm identity with several sources, learn the look-alikes, and when in doubt, leave it in the ground.