Wapato

Sagittaria latifolia

Also known as Duck Potato, Broadleaf Arrowhead, Katniss, Indian Potato, Swan Potato

At a glance

Family

Alismataceae (water-plantain family)

Type

Perennial aquatic marginal herb

Parts used

Tubers (corms); occasionally young leaves and shoots

Size

1 to 4 feet tall, with arrow-shaped leaves up to 12 inches long

Bloom

Mid to late summer, white three-petaled flowers in whorled clusters

Habitat

Shallow water at pond and lake margins, marshes, ditches, and slow-moving streams across North America

Acquisition

Forage or Grow

This plant in HerbSense

Key benefits

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Traditional starchy staple food

Historically poulticed for wounds

Rich source of carbohydrates

Draws ducks and wildlife

Traditional uses

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Long before it had an English name, wapato was one of the great food plants of North America, its starchy tubers gathered by Native peoples from the Pacific Northwest to the Great Lakes and dried or stored for the lean months of winter. Coast Salish, Chinook, and other river and lakeside nations waded into cold mud in autumn, working the tubers loose with bare feet so they would bob to the surface, a harvest so central to daily life that entire villages timed their seasons around it. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark recorded whole storehouses of dried wapato traded along the Columbia River, calling it wappato in their journals and noting how thoroughly it sustained the people they met. Beyond the table, some communities also turned to the raw, split root as a poultice for wounds, sores, and stings, a small but well-remembered piece of its traditional history.

How to grow & use it

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Traditional remedies and step-by-step preparations, a complete growing guide, and how to harvest, dry, and store it, all unlocked with HerbLens Unlimited.

✦Remedies & preparations
✦ Growing guide
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Pairs well with

✦Cattail root
✦Wild rice
✦Watercress

Substitutes

✦Potato
✦Jerusalem artichoke

Choose it when

“For the forager wading pond's edge in autumn, gathering the buried harvest the ducks have always known about.”

Did you know?

Wapato tubers were harvested almost entirely by wading into cold shallows and loosening them with bare feet, letting them bob free to be scooped from the water's surface, a technique early settlers described with real astonishment.

Safety

Wapato tubers must be cooked before eating, since raw ones are acrid and hard to digest. It grows in the same wetlands as water hemlock, one of North America's most poisonous plants, so positive identification by an experienced forager is essential.