Edible lichens a great famine food! Usnea Nature's antibiotics!
Lichen benefits
So boil, drain, let sit in FRESH water for 2 days, changing water every 2 hours. Toss the water? No nutrition in the boiled water? Then boil again, drain. Then what? Chop up for salad with dandelion leaves? Dry like seaweed? Just eat it wet? Throw in soup? Fry with?
And what about the crusty stuff stuck on the branches underneath that? scrape off & eat?
Have lots in Alaska. Can we pick it & keep awhile before processing? I have some dried out in my home. Cool decor.
Side note: When we get clams, we leave them in a 5 gal bucket in a cool spot outside, putting cream of wheat or oatmeal in there, changing fresh ocean water at least once a day for 2 or so days. Clams eat the oatmeal or cream of wheat, clean the sand out of themselves FOR US! Keep protected & away from dogs, it is a toxin & can hurt or kill them...
"Old mans beard" - have to go look again, but pretty sure that's yellow. If possible, please show a pic of the poisonous kind. Of course, ppl don't pay attention, so you'd have to REPEATEDLY say, "THIS IS POISON!!" LOL.
How about telling us how long to boil skunk cabbage leaves? I know it'll cut you up inside if you eat it raw.... but in a "famine" situation, I would like to know that too.
Thank you
P.S. I subbed. Am NUMBER 17! if you get that reference. : )
Do these type of lichen also grow on rocks? I saw lichen growing on rocks on a recent hike. It looked like the little trees and shrubs that people use to landscape miniature train sets. It is the same as what you had in your hand? It was NOT yellowish.