Edible weeds

This forum covers all aspects of tortoise diet and nutrition, including mineral and vitamin supplementation and foods appropriate for different species.
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Yahtzdog
Posts: 16
Joined: 23 Apr 2020, 20:43

Edible weeds

Post by Yahtzdog » 07 May 2020, 16:55

Does anyone know if any of these are edible for a tortoise? Trying to identify weeds growing near the house.
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lin
Posts: 1034
Joined: 16 Mar 2017, 11:27

Re: Edible weeds

Post by lin » 07 May 2020, 21:12

Hi and thanks for the photos. You've posted pretty much the same ones in the thread about safe soil, but I'll answer the ones here, so we're in the same place. Also, in future if you post plants for ID (and please do as they are always welcome), it's good to post them in the Plant ID section of the Forum -- and there is a section for plants from outside the UK where you could post yours.

It's a bit difficult to ID many plants from only a leaf. This is because many plants look very similar, and in order to get an accurate ID you need to see the way in which leaves come off the stem or out of the ground, as well as many other features. So the best photos to send us are ones showing the whole plant growing in situ, and then close-ups of leaves, flowers and seed heads if there are any -- that would be a great help.

In order to avoid confusion as to which leaves I'm referring to, we've added numbers onto your main photo to differentiate between them.
I'm giving you the Latin names of the plants because they might well have different common names in the USA from the ones we use here). So here is what we think:
Plant no. 1. I'm afraid this is one where the leaf on its own isn't enough, as there are quite a few plants with leaves like this, some of which are toxic. We think it might be one of the umbillifers (the Apiaceae family, which contains plants as different as carrot, poison hemlock, parsley and dill and many more). Could you send us a photo of the whole plant where it is growing, plus close-ups of any flowers?

Plant no. 2 Ground Ivy (also called Creeping Charlie), and here is our entry for it: https://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/pla ... rRoY8B7m9s (which tells why it is a 'no feed').

Plant no. 3. One of the Galiums. Put Galium in the search box on our website and you'll see the entries we have, but we think yours is Galium aparine (Goose Grass/Sticky Willy).

Plant no. 4 I'm afraid we have no idea -- that leaf isn't enough for an ID, so a photo of the whole plant would be appreciated.

Plant no. 5 One of the Plantains (Plantago).. If you put Plantain into the search box you will see about five entries but three of them (narrow leaf, broad leaf, and buck's horn) are the three most relevant, and they are all edible.

Plant no. 6 Again, difficult from one leaf but it's almost certainly one of the Vetches (Vicia). Here is a link to the most likely one (but you can type Vetch into the search box and see if any of the others apply. https://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/pla ... rRyAcB7m9s

I hope that helps, even though we couldn't ID all of them. It does help, if you are having more than one plant in a photo to number them. or otherwise send in separate photos of each plant and then refer to the photo by a number.

Best,
Nina

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Yahtzdog
Posts: 16
Joined: 23 Apr 2020, 20:43

Re: Edible weeds

Post by Yahtzdog » 07 May 2020, 23:06

Thank you Nina. I will do a better job next time following directions for uploading photos and placing them in the correct category on the page. Again, I am newbie, so I greatly appreciate your understanding. Thanks for your help!

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Nina
Posts: 2003
Joined: 16 Mar 2017, 11:22

Re: Edible weeds

Post by Nina » 08 May 2020, 10:10

Hi Yahtzdog,

Please don't think I was criticizing you -- we are always happy to ID plants for you. I was just giving some tips to make it a bit easier for us to give you an accurate identification. We look forward to seeing more and well done for trying to give your tortoise a good diet!
Nina

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