***These are not seeds. These are live tubers that have been packed in ziploc bags with damp peat moss.
Sagittaria latifolia
Origin: Eastern North Carolina
Improvement status: Wild
Tubers per packet: 3
BOTANICAL SAMPLE - NOT GERMINATION TESTED
Life cycle: Perennial
Broadleaf arrowhead, as it's known in English, is a beautiful aquatic perennial vegetable long eaten by Indigenous peoples from what's now called Canada south to Ecuador. Cousins of the plant are eaten around the world. The late summer buds and young fruits are also edible, but its the large underwater tubers that are most widely consumed. We've previously sold seed of "Katniss" — the Lenape name, used by the original inhabitants of the region where that seed was foraged — but the Chinook name "Wapato" is more commonly used, especially in and around the Chinook homeland in what we call the Pacific Northwest today. Other names include "duck-potato" (though ducks pretty much only eat the seeds) and "Indian potato" (among o ther plants). These tubers come our way from our friend Tyler Neitzey of North Carolina, where this same plant has long been used as food and medicine by Cherokee and other peoples. One source says Cherokee people would bathe a feverish baby in wapato leaf tea and give the child one sip of the tea as well.
The tubers of wapato float, so the traditional method of harvesting involves dislodging them with one's feet (or a stick or a pitchfork) and then grabbing the tubers once they rise to the surface. After harvesting, tubers can be eaten raw (when they can be somewhat bitter) or cooked or sliced and dried and pounded into flour. Pretty much anything you might do with a potato you can do with wapato (the great forager, cook, and all-around awesome human Linda Black Elk told us she's made some excellent wapato latkes — Jewish-style potato pancakes). They can be roasted, fried, boiled, steamed, sauteed, mashed, etc. The tubers are incredibly nutritious, rich in protein, Vitamins B1, B5, B6, as well as iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and potassium. Beavers, muskrats, and porcupines are known to eat the whole plant, including the tubers.
GROWING TIPS: Wapato grows in shallow water (roughly half a foot deep to a foot and a half deep) that is still or barely moving. It is usually found around the edges of wetlands like ponds, swamps, marches, old canals, and slow-moving streams or rivers. These tubers can be stored in the fridge until spring, or if the water to which you have access is not frozen, you can lodge them in the mud beneath a few inches of water (so long as you're confident they will stay submerged) as soon as you can. They will lie dormant until the water and mud warm in the spring, at which point they'll start growing their beautiful arrow-shaped leaves. The plants spread by rhizome, developing new tubers at the end of each rhizome.
