 Hi everybody, my name is Eric Joseph Lewis. I'm a forager, permaculturist and all-around plant lover from the Mid-Atlantic region and today I'll be sharing my top five wild edible nuts with you and I hope you enjoy. Thanks so much for being with us. Number one nut tree of all time is the Mighty Hazelnut. So the whole Corillus genus, I have so much love for. Corillus Americana has a small nut with a hard shell and grows abundantly in the wild and is super resistant to a disease called Eastern Filbert Blight. This one, Corillus Avelina is the European Hazelnut and this one is not so blight resistant but it has incredible huge nuts. I got a couple in my pocket here so you can see. This is a great size for a Hazelnut and the shells are pretty thin and they crack out very easily. So this is one that I feel has a tremendous viability for backyard growers as well as commercial potential and in the Willamette Valley people are growing European Hazelnuts with great success and yielding as much as two to four thousand pounds per acre and these are nuts that are twenty eight hundred calories per pound. So this is on a calorie basis almost competitive with corn and the interesting thing and one of the beautiful things about the Hazelnut to me is that being a smaller shrub it starts to yield nuts in as little as three years. So this is absolutely one of the real blessings in the nut tree world and I highly recommend everybody get into finding Hazelnuts and planting Hazelnuts wherever you can. Corillus the Hazelnut genus number one on the list. Number two on my list is the chestnut and I love this tree for so many reasons. Unfortunately the American chestnut is what we call functionally extinct because a blight called Cryfonectria parasitica came into this country and made it impossible or made it very difficult for chestnuts to reach maturity. But we do have Casanella mollissima that has been planted out by lots of people and now has been spread around by lots of squirrels since the early nineteen hundreds. So we can still find lots of semi feral and cultivated Chinese chestnuts often which are greatly underappreciated and so you can go and knock on your neighbors doors and ask them if it's okay to harvest the chestnuts. These things are super delicious. They're easy to gather. They store very well. They make an incredible flower. You can steam them up. The list goes on and on and so does my love for chestnuts. So yeah. Number two on the list is Casanella mollissima, dentata, sativa, the whole genus, the whole chestnut genus. I love them all. All right. Number four on the list is black walnut jugglins nigra and one of the things I really love about this tree is it's exceptionally reliable. On top of that, the nuts have around twenty eight hundred calories per pound and they're loaded with really amazing omega three fats. They'll grow just about anywhere. I've seen them high up on hill tops and right here you can see this one is growing right by a little creek, a little stream slash overflow of a spring house. So yeah, they tolerate a wide range of conditions. They're very tough, very reliable, very tasty, and the best part of all is that they store very well in the shells. If you dry these things out fast enough, they can last in the shell for four or five years without getting rancid at all. So that's pretty amazing. Number four on the list is pecan. So this is Karya Illinoisensis Illinoisensis and pecans are originally from the Mississippi River Basin area, but they've been spread all over the country and even into Canada. Parts of Canada do have pecans that actually produce viable nuts and these are a really tasty treat. They're absolutely delicious. They're loaded with nutrition, high in omega three fats. They're in the same family as that black walnut and that juggling day CA family is known for being high in omega three fats. It's also loaded with phenolic compounds. The main issue with pecans is that in the north they don't fill out as readily. So this is one that you'll find very prolifically in southern states like Florida, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, even Tennessee. As you get north, these trees become more and more rare and more and more precious. But this one here is Mohawk and we're at Parker cobbles amazing tree nursery in Pennsylvania today to introduce you to this amazing friend here. But yeah, wherever you can find them pecans are incredible and wherever they're not growing, they're worth planting. So get some pecans in your life, pecan, Karya Illinoisensis. So last but certainly not least on our list is the mighty oak tree. I chose to bring this one in last because it's the one that I have the least experience with, but it's also the one that I feel holds the most potential in it. And I say this because every species of quarkus, every species of oak tree in the world is edible. They have varying levels of a class of compounds called tannins. And you know, so their desirability varies and their flavor varies dramatically. But this is an incredible tree and it's found all over the world and every species in the world has been or most every species has been a food source for humans at some point or another. And so it's one that carries a tremendous amount of potential. There's two main groups and you have kind of the red oaks on one side and the white oaks on one side. And they're relatively easy to differentiate between. So the red oaks have these pointed leaves and they have egg horns that are small and round with caps that are kind of bulbous. And yeah, so that's the, with the red oak, what you'll expect from the red oak and black oak groups. And then from the white oak tribes you'll get from the white oak related species, you'll end up with these rounded leaf edges and longer and skinnier oak trees or egg horns. So these are the kind that we find down a lot in Florida, things like live oak and laurel oak and members of the white oak tribe. But yeah, either way, you know, whatever species you have abundantly around you, they're all edible, they're all wonderful and well worth deepening your relationship with. So yeah, definitely number five on the list is the mighty oak tree. Thanks so much for watching the video. If you enjoyed it, please hit the like and subscribe button for sure, for Rob's channel. And also follow the links below to find my personal Facebook, Instagram, website, things like that. And as well in the links, you'll find channels to get to the people who helped with all the recording, the Meta Creative Crew. So yeah, thanks so much for being with us and keep on sharing the good vibes and connecting with the plants. Peace family.