Survival Plants Memory Course

NOTE BEFORE THE MNEMONIC: Of the 52 plants shared in this course, there are 3, including this one, that resemble the shape of a bottle brush. They also have tiny white flowers (they represent soap bubbles on the brush) and roundish seed pods. These 3 plants are referred to, in their mnemonics and nicknames, as bottles. Now when you see a bottle brush (with roundish seed pods) in the field, the first thing to do is determine what kind of bottle it is. Start from the first stage in life: 1) As a baby you drank from a “milk” bottle. Virginia Pepperweed’s nickname is milk bottle because, like a baby it’s hairless (or mostly so) and has tiny hands, which represent the tiny seed pods of the plant. AMENDED: Virginia Pepperweed’s main stem has no ribs. A baby, because of it’s baby fat, appear to have no ribs also. 2) As a teenager you drank from a “soda” bottle. Field Penny Cress is nicknamed soda bottle because you can not only see the fizz/carbonation rising along the inside of the bottle (represented by a longitudinally ribbed main stem); you can also see the coins that come with the plant, to buy sodas from the machine (represented by the large coin-like seed pods). 3) As an adult you can drink out of a “beer” bottle. Field Pepperweed, the plant featured here, is nicknamed beer bottle because, in this case, the beer bottle is associated with a hairy/burly man (represented by the dense hairs all over stems and leaves). Now that you’ve determined that the bottle brush is for a beer bottle (for this particular plant) it’s time for the beer bottle mnemonic... MNEMONIC EXPLAINED: You’re in a survival situation and have found a brown beer bottle on the brown ground (the color brown is associated with beer bottles). Think. What are the best uses for it? Well, beside flint knapping the bottom for arrow heads (which is unlikely without the skill and a deer antler), it’s best use is to break it for a cutting tool. With the sharp glass you can now cut all of the arrow heads you need from the plant’s stems that are covered with them (main stem covered with arrow shaped leaves that are without stalks [like real arrow heads]). Arrow shafts are provided by the plant’s stems too (plant's stems are somewhat erect).

MNEMONIC EXPLAINED: Rabbits (flowers bare rabbit features and profile; upper lip arched like a hood; lower lip pouch shaped; 2 small rabbit ear shaped lobes at top of pouch; hairless inside; hairy outside; topped with a thick head/hood of hair), after being skinned alive (flowers/rabbits are pink to purpleish [the color of veins in the skin]; they can also be white [the color usually associated with rabbits]) by a cruel person, all came together in order to keep a lookout for others who might do the same thing to their kittens after they hatch (wink, wink). They chose a plant with a build-in platform (upper stems bare 2 opposite leaves that form a collar around the stem) to place their eggs upon (leaf surface bares oval patterns, leaves can be oval in shape and they have rounded edges; like eggs). The platform allows for a 360° view (upper leaves, that are opposite of one another, form a roundish collar) and it also has a soft surface (leaf surface is hairy) so the eggs won’t break. The perfect watchtower (platforms or collars occur on upper stems only; lower stems bare opposite leaves that have stalks). Now, as you can see, they watch over their eggs by standing up on their hind legs (reminds you that the plant, not the flower, is 6 to 18 inches tall; about as tall as a standing rabbit) constantly on the lookout (flower/rabbit profiles appear to be looking out for something) for humans. As you approach them, because they are skinned, you can literally see their hearts jump out of their chest, out of fear, and it then falls to the platform (each leaf, that make up the platform, can be heart shaped; the blood of the heart, that falls to the platform/leaf, represent the tendency of leaves having red edges) . As you get closer, you watch them collect their hearts and eggs before dashing inside of a safe room or box to hide (stems are square and hollow).

MNEMONIC EXPLAINED: Grasp the broom with both hands (leaves clasp the stem). Now start sweeping around the edges (spikes grow around leaf edges), along the base boards, of your kitchen. What you are sweeping up are a trail of ants that are attracted to something. Keep sweeping around the edge in order to follow the ants’ trail. The ants’ trail diverges suddenly away from the edge of the kitchen and goes straight down the middle of it (spikes also grow along leaf stalk; midrib; underneath). The ants’ trail leads right to your kitchen table! Someone has left a half eaten sandwich (leaves bare “C" shaped edges, like someone had been taking bites out of them) and a glass of milk (the entire plant oozes a milky white sap when cut), which has spoiled, upon it. You proceed to pour the spoiled milk into the sink and throw the half eaten, ant covered, sandwich into the trash can. Then, of course, you open the door to take the trash out. As soon as you open the door a huge gust of wind starts blowing a variety (alternate) of leaves (leaves alternate on the stem) inside. You quickly set the trash bag just outside of the door then shut it again. Now you must sweep up the large variety of the leaves. This time, when you open the door to take the trash out, you are shocked to find a full grown lion (flowers are dandelion-like) at your door. It’s gotten into the trash bag you had just left outside and it’s now eating the rest of the half eaten sandwich. You startle the lion when it sees you and it turns white as a ghost (flowers are pale yellow but can appear to be white from a distance due to the wooly hairs [pappus] on each seed ofter the plant flowers). Then the lion stands up on it’s hind two legs and throws it’s front paws into the air like hands (stem leaves twist to point skyward); as if you were a police officer, then it backs away slowly. When the lion is gone you are finally able to take the trash out to the curb.

MNEMONIC EXPLAINED: When you see a Sun Hat (like a sunflower but with a dome-like [space for your head] yellow, not flat brown, center disk; more like a complete/actual hat) put it on. Now look out at the view. You’re now on a sandy (texture of leaves and stems) beach! In front of you are 2 groups of people having a tug-of-war contest with a long thick rope (rhizomes root system). On the side that wins, all of the people fall backwards into the sand, one on top of the other, as usual; and the long thick rope falls lifeless to the ground (reenforces rhizomes root system). The anchor man, pulling at the end of the rope, of the winning team; jumps up and starts to celebrate the win by flexing his arm muscles, in alternating poses (upper leaves alternate along upper stem), right in front of you. Now picture this: He is tall (mature plant is 6 to 10 feet tall) and bristly or hair (describes leaves and stems). All he is wearing are leather (leaf texture) thong-like shorts to cover his privates (imagine early man with a single leaf covering this area in order to associate the thong with leaves). Plus, because of the fall backwards, all of his limbs and his thong-like shorts are covered with sand (reenforces texture of leaves and stems) from all of the sweat and tanning oil. You notice, what is typical, that his legs are skinny (plant stems are thin). He does not flex them. They remain still, opposite of one another (lower leaves are opposite along lower stem). He should just wrap a towel around his waist (lower leaves can whorl, in groups of 3, around lower stem) in order to cover those bird legs. Anyway, all of his upper body movement, from all of his alternating poses, has caused his feet to sink ankle deep into the sand (this is where you must picture his feet under the sand; his toes represent the edible tubers). This is another reason why his legs don’t move. To change the view you start to play fetch with your dog on the beach. Now, throw a partially deflated football (leaves can be football shaped). Your dog runs to retrieve it. He or She bites into the ball (the edges of all leaves have teeth) and brings it back to you. Your dogs bite was so powerful that the football was bitten in half (leaves can also be lance shaped).

MNEMONIC EXPLAINED: When you see a blue to violet bugle (flowers are funnel shaped) at or near the top of the stem, think of it as being on top of the world (flowers develop at on near the top of stem); the north pole, where it’s cold. Ice (blue) cold and violently (violet) cold (flowers are blue to violet). An army unit is deployed there for arctic training. Each day starts with a bugle call. Now imagine the bugler’s face. He is allowed to grow a thick beard (there’s a patch of hairs inside the tube) to protect his face from the extreme cold but his nose is purple (there’s purple spotting inside of the tube); nearly frost bitten from the extreme cold temperature. Now imagine his hands (leaf veins radiate from on point, represented by fingers radiating from the palm; leaves are nearly round/heartshaped, like an open hand is; and leaf edges bare small rounded teeth, represented by finger tips along edges of hand). He warms them up, before touching his bugle, by rubbing them together (when the hands are put together they become opposite of one another; leaves are opposite of one another, not alternating, along the stem). He then steps upon a wooden box (it’s there to remind you that stems and flower funnel’s are square shaped [bilateral]), puts his hand over his heart (to reinforce heart-shaped leaves) and makes the bugle call. At the sound, soldiers rush out of a large arctic tent and stand in formation (rows). It’s not long, while standing in formation, before they can’t move their feet because their boots (rhymes with roots and are on the ground) are frozen to the ice (imagine all of the boots/roots stuck in rows along the ground; this helps you to remember that the stems crawl along the ground and root, at intervals, at the nodes or joints of the stem). The sergeant finally, because it’s so cold, tells them all to go back inside of the tent and challenges them to build a fire without their being any trees in the region. What the soldiers do is bust up the bugler’s box (reinforces stems and flower funnel’s are square shaped [bilateral]) to burn; but it won’t stay lit. With so much time spent with their hands in their pockets, to keep them warm, one of the soldiers suggested collecting all of their pocket lent for tender and it worked. The strange thing is that the fire did not smell like wood. The lent, burning in the tent, made the smoke smell like mint (the plant, mainly leaf and stems smell “similar” to mint when crushed). One or more of the soldiers must have had mint candy in their pockets.

MNEMONIC EXPLAINED: You have just found some lace panties (flowers form lace-like clusters) with a red dot (flower clusters usually have reddish purple spot in middle) in the middle. They tell a story about a young woman who was previously there for weeks (she could not shave her legs). She started her minstrel cycle and did not have a tampon so she dug up the carrot (root) of this plant and inserted it to stop the flow but the carrot did not absorb. When she removed it, by pulling on the leaves (leaves of this plant are like those found on carrots in the store [parsley-like]) that were hanging down (bracts are leaf-like and tri-forked; the leaves that were hanging down [beneath the woman like bracts beneath flower cluster] represent leaf-like and the middle prong of tri-fork; the woman’s legs represent the left and right prong of tri-fork), the blood gushed out and ran down her hairy legs (stems and leaf stalks bare white hairs) and onto a white rabbit that was beneath her (it was attracted by the carrot smell [root and leaves smell like carrot when crushed]). The white rabbit opened an umbrella (each small flower radiates from on point atop the stem) and used it, to protect it’s fur (re-enforces stems and leaf stalks bare white hairs), until the flow stopped. When the white rabbit put the umbrella away, to sniff out the carrot (re-enforces root and leaves smell like carrot when crushed); a large bird swooped down, flew between the woman's legs, snatched the rabbit with it’s strong talons and carried it away to it’s nest (as flower cluster ages it folds up and looks like a bird’s nest) where hungry young birds were waiting to feed.

MNEMONIC EXPLAINED: When you see a Prickly Vase you see a plant that is hairy all over but has all that it needs to shave. It has the vase (shape of seedpod surrounding flowers) that’s full of water, a shaving brush (shape of flowers), lather-er (flower color usually lavender), razors (represent multiple wings along stem) and last but not least; there’s a shaving octopus inside the vase too. You watch in amazement as the octopus uncorks the shaving brush from within, it slowly crawls out, snaps some razors off the stem, lathers up the entire plant and begins to shave the plant from top to bottom. Now, as soon as the octopus reaches the bottom (represents bottom rosette of leaves), and the shaving is finished, you spear/knife/arrow (leaf lobes are spear shaped) the octopus for food and cook it with the plant.

MNEMONIC EXPLAINED: Looking up at a glass (the transparent blades appear to be the some color of the sky; usually sky blue but can also be purple, pink and white; like the sky) windmill (strap-shaped petals). It powers an underground refrigerator that's full of many glasses of milk. You detach the circular saw-like (petals have five fingered or toothed tip) windmill to cut through the stem that leads to the underground refrigerator (root contains milky sap). When the cut is made milk comes up through the stem (round and hollow like a straw), overflows (stem exudes milky sap when cut), runs down the stem and collects in cups along the stem (stem leaves have no stalks but clasp [attach directly to] the stem). You start to drink from one of the cups but stop because it has hairs, from the cow, inside and out ( leaves are covered with rough hairs on both upper and lower surfaces).

MNEMONIC EXPLAINED: A fat goose. He got that way by eating too many sugar coated peas (from a distance the seedpods resemble tiny peas). Desiring to loose weight the goose goes to the freezer and pulls out all of the sugar coated peas (from a distance the seedpods’ resemble tiny [remember that they’re not regular size] peas [like peas the seedpods have no stem] that are frozen [stuck together in a cluster] with a mealy white [frosty/sugar coat] outer surface). Rather than throw the frozen peas in the trash the goose comes up with a way to loose weight and make money at the same time. He will go into the wine making business! Sugar when mixed with yeast, creates alcohol; so the goose then goes to the pantry, pulls out some yeast and adds it to the sugar coated peas that are already in the bath tub. The goose begins crushing the peas (and exercising) by stomping them, and the yeast, with his feet (leaves are shaped like goose feet, goosefoot shapes get more pronounced toward the bottom of the plant [goose feet are at/towards the bottom of the goose] the lobes or teeth of the leaves point toward the tip/top like goose feet toes do, the leaves have a clammy-feeling and have a waxy-coat/unwettable like goose feet, the leaves have a mealy white underside like goose feet after stomping the peas mixed with sugar and yeast, it's also easy to imagine the edges of the goose's feet being red and wavy [from all of that stomping] like the leaves can be). When the pea wine was ready, the goose designed a 1 to 5 star rating card and invited some of his goose friends over for a wine tasting. In the end his friends gave the wine a 5 star rating (when seedpods open, the flower is star-shaped)! The biggest complement came when his female goose friend noticed the weight lose. She said “you’re so skinny I can see your ribs” (the main stem of the plant is longitudinally ribbed). They fell in love, made love then she laid an egg. You take the egg for breakfast (the 5 sepals of the calyx, that eventually open from a seedpod into a star-shaped flower, is represented by the fingers of your hand. As a seedpod the sepals [your fingers] curl inward and wrap around seed [the goose egg], more or less obscuring it from view, except for a tiny opening at the top) but squeeze it so hard that it breaks in your hand leaving yellow yolk dripping from your fingers tips (the tip of each star [stamen anthers] is yellow).

MNEMONIC EXPLAINED: You're much smaller or the plant is much larger. Now, climb the spiral staircase (fruit are borne on long stalks that resemble a spiral staircase going up the main stem) in order to collect the fish (each flower is replaced with fruit that resemble a fish's tail) that's on each step (the long stalk). Once you get to the top, coat the fish with the white flour (flowers are white) you'll find there. You'll also find a white cross (the 4 flower petals are arranged in a cross formation) at the top, made out of eating spoons (each petal is spoon shaped). The white cross and the spoons remind you to say grace before you eat. Somehow (use your imagination) you fall from the top of the plant and one of the stem leaves hook you (stem leaves are pointed, they are erect, they point upward), like a fish, by the collar. While dangling there, you instinctively grab the main stem (stem leaves have no leafstalks; they clasp the main stem) out of fear and for stability. Rescuers push one of the bottom rosette leaves, while it's still in the ground, up towards you. It's lobes are pointed up or out to the side, so it's the best makeshift ladder available. If the lobes were pointed down (like the dandelion's rosette leaves) you would just slip off and fall further.

MNEMONIC EXPLAINED: A high school senior jock with a 4x4, monster pickup truck (the senior and monster truck tires represent taller or bigger; the 4 represents petals [the tires], the "x" represents the shape petals are in, the other 4 represents the "taller or bigger" stamen). He lays out some mustard packs (your first clue, while in the field, are yellow flowers in packs [clusters]) on the street. When a couple of freshman geeks (a brother and sister) walk by he drives over the packets to squirt the two (the word "freshman" represents shorter or smaller; there are two [brother and sister] short stamen and 4 tall [6 total]). They run upstairs (seedpods ascend the stem in a spiral staircase format) to the roof-deck where their father is sun tanning (again, referring to the yellow flowers at top of stems/stairs) and tells him what happened. The father runs downstairs and puts a leash on his blood hound dog in the back yard . They track down the senior jock by the strong mustard scent emanating from the street (reminds you that the leaves emit a mustard order when crushed) by the 4x4 truck tires. The father demands that the senior jock pay to have the clothes dry cleaned.

MNEMONIC EXPLAINED: A high school senior jock with a 4x4, monster pickup truck (the senior and monster truck tires represent taller or bigger; the 4 represents pedals [the tires], the "x" represents the shape pedals are in, the other 4 represents the "taller or bigger" stamen). He lays out some mustard packs (your first clue, while in the field, are yellow flowers in packs [clusters]) on the street. When a couple of freshman geeks (a brother and sister) walk by he drives over the packets to squirt the two (the word "freshman" represents shorter or smaller; there are two [brother and sister] short stamen and 4 tall [6 total]). They run upstairs (seedpods ascend the stem in a spiral staircase format) to the roof-deck where their father is sun tanning (again, referring to the yellow flowers at top of stems/stairs) and tells him what happened. The father runs downstairs and puts a leash on his blood hound dog in the back yard . They track down the senior jock by the strong mustard scent emanating from the street (reminds you that the leaves emit a mustard order when crushed) by the 4x4 truck tires. The father demands that the senior jock pay to have the clothes dry cleaned.

A mnemonic or memory technique to help you remember all of the distinguishing characteristics of of this pant by just imagining a mamma and baby elephant. If you spot an elephant's tail or it's ear, while in the field, it might be the Elephants plant.

Just 1 mnemonic for identifying over 60 species of amaranth. None are poisonous, all are edible and are used the same medicinally. For hand and spine photos watch video for this plant at SurvivalPlantsMemoryCourse.com

Just 1 mnemonic for identifying over 60 species of amaranth. None are poisonous, all are edible and are used the same medicinally. For hand and spine photos watch video for this plant at SurvivalPlantsMemoryCourse.com