Talk:Psoralidium tenuiflorum

A fact from Psoralidium tenuiflorum appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 26 January 2021 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the root of the slimflower scurfpea can be eaten raw or cooked, or ground up and used as an ingredient in bread-making?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2021/January. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Psoralidium tenuiflorum.

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Did you know nomination[edit]

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 23:49, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Slimflower scurfpea

... that the root of the slimflower scurfpea can be eaten raw or cooked, or ground up and used as an ingredient in bread-making? Source: "Root - raw or cooked. It can also be dried, ground into a powder and used in soups or with cereals for making bread etc."
- ALT1:... that the root of the slimflower scurfpea can be eaten raw or cooked, or ground up to make bread?

Reviewed: Eugene Goodman (police officer)

5x expanded by Endymiona19 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk). Nominated by Cwmhiraeth (talk) at 07:06, 21 January 2021 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Epicgenius (talk) 17:50, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is actually a poisonous plant, and inedible -the sources are bad![edit]

Lucky the thin woody taproot is also impossible to harvest, and so distasteful poisonings are rare -but poisoning by this plant causes a disease in sheep where they ram their head into a wall until they die. Don't believe Wikipedia! 86.83.56.115 (talk) 19:52, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Can you cite a reliable source for this information? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 20:06, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, I can! Here's another ref, and another. As far as I can tell, what has happened is that the old common name was Indian turnip, and that caused George Usher, the author of the 1974 work A Dictionary of Plants Used by Man, to be confused with the species Psoralea esculenta (which it resembles). He appears to be the first to claim it can be eaten. Let me see if I can find a copy, if Usher also claims it has succulent tubers (which looks likely), he's clearly mistaken. This species is differentiated from its congeners by being the only Psoralidium with a rootstock which goes vertically down, instead of growing horizontally. No Psoralidium species have tubers. Cwmhiraeth, do you know Dr. Duke's Database? If there is no mention of a US plant being eaten in this database, it's a reason to be suspicious. 86.83.56.115 (talk) 21:06, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, oldest source is H. D. Harrington, Edible Native Plants of the Rocky Mountains, 1967, who claims it was consumed dried and pounded by the Kiowa. I have a good book about this group, see if I can corroborate him... 86.83.56.115 (talk) 21:43, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]