What Are Six Parts of Plants Eaten as Food?

If a plant has a part, there's a fairly good chance that someone has found a way to eat it. From top to toe, the plant world has more variety than you might imagine. Even plants that are traditionally considered to be part of one group (for example, root vegetables) may have other edible parts, such as their leaves. Does this Spark an idea?

Roots

Potatoes

Starting at the bottom, root vegetables grow both beneath and above the ground. Underground examples include potatoes, yams, parsnips and carrots, while above-ground vegetables include onions, beets and rutabagas. Root vegetables are often high in starch, a form of carbohydrate.

Stem

Rhubarb

The stem of a plant is also often edible. Examples include asparagus, celery and rhubarb, a sweet vegetable whose leaf stems you can use in pies. It's rather tart on its own, but you can use sugar to sweeten it or combine with a sweeter fruit, such as apples.

Flowers

Dandelion

With broccoli and cauliflowers, you eat the flower. However, there are other edible flowers: People make fritters out of elderberry tree flowers, for example, and other flowers, including dandelions, pansies and chive flowers, are edible.

Leaf

Cabbage

You eat the leaves of cabbage, lettuce, chard and some herbs, including mint and rosemary. However, you can also eat the leaves of less obvious vegetables, including beets and peas. Dandelion leaves are a salad vegetable, too.

Sap and Bark

Tapping maple syrup

Maple syrup comes from tree sap. However, it's not the only tree with edible sap: Two more examples are hickory and sweet birch. In the latter case, the sap goes into syrup, tea and beer. According to the University of New Hampshire Extension Service, birch sap production is now a cottage industry in Alaska and may be growing on the East Coast.

Sweet birch bark is also edible, according to Tom Brown in his book, "Guide to Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants." However, it requires significant skill to obtain without damaging the tree.

Fruit and Seed

Peas in a pod

Several plant seeds are also edible. Corn holds numerous kernels, which are both fruit and seed. Sunflower seed is edible, as are peas, beans and peanuts. Fruit trees carry the most obvious types of fruit, but tomatoes are fruit, too.