Jerusalem Artichokes, They Aren’t Sun Flowers ©

Jerusalem artichokes, photograph by the Author.

Jerusalem Artichokes (helianthus tuberosus) may look your garden variety of wild sunflowers, but they aren’t!  If you plant them in your flower garden, in about a year or two, all you will have, are lovely and edible, ten foot tall (about 3 meters) jerusalem artichokes.  And that is because they will have choked out all your other plants, as they spread from both seeds and their roots, or as they are more correctly known, tubers. 

 

Jerusalem artichokes are native to North America, and they are not invasive, they are just a monoculture plant species.  They are also known as sunchoke, wild sunflower, earth apple, topinambur, and more recently sunroot.¹  The name jerusalem artichoke is believed to come from a mispronunciation of their Italian name, girasole articiocco, which means sunflower artichoke, because it looks like a sunflower and tastes like an artichoke.

 

The range of the jerusalem artichoke, from “Helianthus tuberosus L. Jerusalem artichoke”, by the USDA.

When I planted the seeds I’d collected in my garden, I thought I was planting seeds from a woodland sunflower (helianthus divaricatus), which occupies the same range and territory as does the jerusalem artichoke, both favoring open fields, thickets, and the edges of woods.  In my defense, they both look very similar, but there are some important differences.

 

How high does it grow...

 

One of the first things that you will notice about Jerusalem artichokes is their height, they range from six to ten feet (1.8 to 3.0 meters) in height, while a woodland sunflower can be anywhere from two to six-and-a-half feet (.6 to 2.0 meters) tall. 

 

It has hairy stems...

 

On the left is a jerusalem artichoke, notice the hairy stems.  On the right, is a woodland sunflower, which has smooth stems.  Photographs by the Author.

Another sign that the flower is a jerusalem artichoke, is that it has fine hairs on its stem, something that its cousin the woodland sunflower does not have, its stems are smooth.  Another difference is that the woodland sunflower blooms from July to October, a month earlier than the jerusalem artichoke, which blooms from August to October. 

 

Also, there is a difference in the color and number of petals, and the shape of the flower’s disk.  Jerusalem artichokes have more petals, that are a brighter yellow and have a flatter disk in the center of the flower, compared to the woodland sunflower, which has fewer yellow petals with a more rounded disk in the center of the flower.

 

On the left is a jerusalem artichoke, notice the hairy stems.  On the right, is a woodland sunflower, which has smooth stems.  Photographs by the Author.

And finally, the tubers...

 

Jerusalem artichoke tubers, my knife is 5 inches long (12.7 centimeters), photograph by the Author.

Jerusalem artichokes tubers are long and irregularly shaped and vary in color from pale brown, to white, red, or purple.  The tubers are rich in the carbohydrate inulin, a polymer of the monosaccharide fructose, and have a sweet taste, sweeter than sweet potatoes.  They can be eaten raw or cooked like potatoes, roasted, sautéed, baked, boiled, or steamed, and were eaten by Native Americans and later by European Colonists, who planted and cultivated them as food and as feed for livestock.  Because they are edible, they were transported to Europe and cultivated there and are now widespread.  It is only since the early 1900s that Jerusalem artichokes have fallen out of favor in the United States, perhaps because inulin cannot be digested by the human digestive system and therefore is metabolized by the bacteria in the large intestine, which can cause flatulence.

 

Jerusalem artichoke nutritional value, from Wikipedia, “Jerusalem artichoke”, HERE.

I hope if you are ever out gathering seeds, taking pictures, or looking for survival food, during the early fall that you will now be able to tell the difference between a jerusalem artichoke and its cousin, the wild sunflower.

 

Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Making a Survival Hacksaw Knife/Saw©”, where we will talk about how to make a survival knife/saw.

 

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at BandanaMan Productions for other related videos, HERE.  Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.  If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site.  I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

 

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

 

 

Notes

 

¹ The name “topinambur” dates from 1615 when an individual from a Brazilian coastal Native American tribe, called the Tupinambá, visited the Vatican at the same time as the tubers of the jerusalem artichoke were being exhibited, and the name “sunroot” was coined during the 1960’s by Frieda Caplan who was a produce wholesaler looking to increase the marketability or the plant’s potato like tubers.

 

From Wikipedia, “Jerusalem Artichokes”

 

Sources

 

Illinois Wild Flowers; “Jerusalem Artichoke”, https://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/prairie/plantx/ja_sunflowerx.htm, accessed September 20, 2022

 

Missouri Botanical Garden, “Helianthus tuberosus”, St. Louis, MO, https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?taxonid=277201&isprofile=0&, accessed September 20, 2022

 

Missouri Conservationist, “Jerusalem Artichoke”, September 1979, Volume 40, Number 9, [Harmony Printing Co.: Sugar Creek, MO, 1979] pages 14 to 15, https://books.google.com/books?id=G5jnAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA8-PA15&dq=jerusalem+artichoke&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiV187z4qT6AhU-F1kFHQxIDM84ChDoAXoECAQQAg#v=onepage&q=jerusalem%20artichoke&f=false, accessed September 20, 2022

 

Nomad Seed; “Sunroot, Sunchoke, or Jerusalem Artichoke — Helianthus Tuberosus”, November 21, 2017, http://www.nomadseed.com/2017/11/sunroot-sunchoke-or-jerusalem-artichoke-helianthus-tuberosus/, accessed September 20, 2022

 

Peterson, Roger Tory, and McKenny, Margaret; Peterson Field Guide to Wildflowers, [Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 1968 and 1996], pages 180-183

 

USDA, “Helianthus tuberosus L. Jerusalem artichoke”, [Natural Resources Department of Agriculture], https://plants.usda.gov/home/plantProfile?symbol=HETU, accessed September 20, 2022

 

Weaver, William Woys; “How to Differentiate Between Jerusalem Artichokes and Wild Sunflowers”, [Mother Earth Gardener], https://www.motherearthgardener.com/plant-profiles/edible/jerusalem-artichokes-zm0z17szfis, accessed September 20, 2022

 

Wikipedia, “Jerusalem artichoke”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_artichoke, accessed September 20, 2022