Identifying Common Edible Plants on UK Heathlands

Reading the Heath Through the Year

Heathland is one of Britain's oldest landscapes and one of the least generous to a hungry forager. Acid soils, wind, grazing and the occasional controlled burn keep the plants low, tough and scattered. That is exactly what makes foraging here so satisfying. You learn a short list of ingredients properly, and you learn to notice them at the right moment rather than stumbling about hoping for a glut.

The four plants below will carry you through most of the year, with a few modest extras along the way. Everything here is common on lowland heaths and upland moors across the UK, but the timing matters as much as the identification.

Gorse: Flowers With a Coconut Kick

Common gorse (Ulex europaeus) is unmistakable once you have met it: dense, dark green and fiercely spiny, with bright yellow, two-lipped flowers that smell strongly of coconut. It flowers most heavily from late winter into spring, though you will find odd blooms almost any month.

Pick only the flowers, nipping them off between finger and thumb into a small tub. They make a fragrant cordial, a bright tea, or a floral vinegar that lifts a salad dressing. Leave the buds and seed pods alone; they are bitter and tough.

Western gorse (Ulex gallii) flowers later, in late summer and autumn, and dwarf gorse (Ulex minor) is smaller and low-growing. All three are fine. The plant worth avoiding is broom, which has bright yellow flowers but no spines at all, with smooth, rounded green stems and larger blooms. Broom seeds are poisonous, so if your "gorse" doesn't scratch you, step away.

Bilberry: Small, Dark and Worth the Crouch

Bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) is the prize of the heath. Called blaeberry in Scotland and whinberry in Wales, it is a low shrub with bright green, sharply angled stems and small, finely toothed oval leaves that turn red in autumn.

The berries ripen from July into August. They are dark blue-black with a dusty bloom, and the flesh inside is stained deep purple. That staining juice is your best confirmation. Crowberry (Empetrum nigrum) has similar black berries but pale, clear flesh and needle-like evergreen leaves, and its fruit is bland. Bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) has red berries and is scarce or protected in many counties, so leave it be.

Pick with a shallow container rather than a bag, and take only a share of each patch. Bilberries feed birds, insects and mammals, and a heavily stripped bush is a hungry one for everything else.

Heather: Tea, Syrup and Old Ale

Common heather or ling (Calluna vulgaris) flowers from July to September. Look for tiny bell-shaped pink-purple flowers on woody stems clothed in overlapping, scale-like leaves. The flowering tops give a sweet, faintly resinous flavour that makes an excellent tea and a deep amber syrup, and heather ale is an old tradition for good reason.

Bell heather (Erica cinerea) flowers earlier, from June to August, with larger, deeper magenta bells and needle-like leaves in whorls. Cross-leaved heath (Erica tetralix) prefers wetter ground, with grey-green leaves arranged in crosses up the stem and pale pink flowers. All three are usable, and a mixed handful makes a more interesting brew than any one alone.

Take a few flowering tops from each bush rather than stripping one plant, and never pull up the roots. Avoid areas that have been recently burned or sprayed, and give a wide berth to heather growing right beside busy paths.

Sheep's Sorrel and Other Modest Finds

Sheep's sorrel (Rumex acetosella) grows in the bare, sandy patches between the shrubs. Its leaves are small and arrow-shaped, often tinged red, with tiny reddish flowers on slender stems. The taste is sharply lemony, lovely torn into a salad or served with oily fish.

Go easy, though. Sorrel is high in oxalic acid, so treat it as a garnish rather than a vegetable, and skip it entirely if you have gout or kidney problems. Rowan berries, ready from September, make a fine jelly to serve with game, and wild strawberries hide along sheltered heath edges in early summer.

Toxic Lookalikes and Good Practice

• Foxglove versus comfrey. Foxglove leaves are soft, downy and alternate up the stem; comfrey leaves are rough, hairy and bristly. Foxglove is seriously poisonous. If a leaf feels soft and velvety, do not pick it.
• Avoid the umbellifers. Hemlock water dropwort grows in wet flushes and ditches at the edge of heaths and is one of the most poisonous plants in Britain. Unless you are already confident with this family, leave every white-flowered umbrella plant alone.
• Know where you are. Many heaths are Sites of Special Scientific Interest or nature reserves. Picking flowers, leaves, fruit and fungi for personal use is generally allowed, but uprooting any plant without the landowner's permission is an offence.
• Check before you eat. Wash everything, avoid verges and sprayed ground, and check yourself for ticks after a day in the bracken.
• Go out with someone who knows the ground. A good field guide and one experienced companion will teach you more in an afternoon than a season of guessing, and the habit of leaving anything you are unsure of is the one that keeps you safe for life.