[Your Daily Camera Online 10/17/2011 By Cindy Sutter] -- If you can't beat 'em, eat 'em. When it comes to plants that most people find unwelcome in their yards, local herbalist Brigitte Mars likes to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson: "What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered." Mars says she learned the lesson in a personal way while living in a tipi in the Ozarks in the 1970s. One day, a woman whom Mars describes as a "hillbilly" shared her knowledge of local flora with Mars. "She showed me most of the (plants) we were weeding up in the garden were edible," Mars says. "I started learning about other plants." Among those is the common dandelion, which Mars says was brought to Colorado by settlers, who considered it a valuable plant for its hardiness and nutritional value. "They would build fences around the dandelions to keep the wild animals form eating it," she says.

Last week, Mars taught a class on eating invasive weeds under the auspices of the Colorado Native Plants Society. Pam Sherman, outgoing president of the Boulder chapter, says when she took a county course in naturalist training, she learned that many plants that are now considered weeds were brought here by pioneers for medicinal use.

Sherman says she has made cream of thistle soup and thistle pancakes. "When you run (thistle) under water to deactivate the prickers, you can use all of the thistle," she says, adding that she picks them before they reach 10 inches in height. Mars also eats thistle, which she says is the family of plants from which artichokes originated. She peels the stalks and uses them in a salad dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and oregano. Also on the menu for both Mars and Sherman: lambs-quarter, similar to a wild spinach; purslane, malva, also known as mallow, among others. Mars favors purslane in gazpacho and salsa for its tart, lemony flavor.

What's the point of eating weeds? If you're harvesting for food, "weeding" is a less onerous chore. And Mars adds: "When thinking about the American use of herbicide, it's dangerous for air, water, dangerous for children and pets. We really need to evaluate the concept. Maybe we need to learn the names of these plants and what is their history." She points to other plants that are valuable as medicine. Japanese knotweed for example, also known as polygonum, is high in resveratrol and is in fact a main ingredient in many resveratrol supplements. If you're planning on consuming an invasive plant, make sure you know that the area it came from has not been sprayed with herbicide, which is why your own yard is ideal. Also remember that no plants should be taken from county land.

An appreciation of invasive plants can broaden your diet and keep your yard and garden more tidy. But some plants are not appropriate to gladden the heart or fill the stomach.

Exhibit A: bindweed. "Bindweed is not one of my favorites. It does tend to wrap around things," Mars says. Although in Asia, the young shoots of some species of bindweed are edible, species of bindweed that grow in Colorado should not be eaten, she says. Still, thinking of thistle as a dinner ingredient rather than a scourge has a certain appeal. As Sherman puts it: "What I love is creative ways of dealing with problems. It's so much fun."