This Lost Native Vegetable Outperformed Potatoes — and It’s Still Growing Wild!
Long before the potato ruled dinner tables, ancient Native farmers were growing a powerful root crop that fed entire communities — and it’s still growing wild today! Once a staple of early America, this forgotten superfood nearly vanished after colonization — yet it quietly survived in hidden fields and river valleys. Now, scientists and farmers are rediscovering its incredible potential to fight hunger and climate change.
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A forgotten native crop once fed entire nations, outgrew potatoes, and rebuilt soil naturally. Yet, colonists erased it from history. Scientists later found it produced triple the protein with zero fertilizer. For centuries, it grew wild under our feet, waiting to be rediscovered. How could the food that saved lives vanish so quietly? And why is it returning now? We got a a string of ground nuts and each one of those is edible. There’s a plant that once fed half a continent, stronger than potatoes, richer than beans, and so easy to grow, it practically farmed itself. It carried native nations through droughts, wars, and freezing winters. Yet today, almost no one remembers it exists. The American ground nut, known to tribes as hoppess, thrived in the quiet corners of North America long before the first Europeans landed. It didn’t need a plow, a fence, or even a farmer. One seed could feed generations. The Wampaoag lap and Cherokee woven into their lives, digging its sweet, nutty roots in autumn and saving its vines for the next season. Each plant was a small miracle. Beans above ground, tubers below. Together they formed a complete meal. Protein, iron, and natural sugars. Everything a human body needed to survive. The tubers tasted like a cross between sweet potato and chestnut. While the vines built new nitrogen into the soil, even after harvest, the plant left the earth better than before. What’s wild is that it never disappeared. It’s still out there along rivers, in old woods, beside forgotten trails, growing quietly, feeding animals, fixing the soil, and waiting to be found again. Most people have probably walked past it a hundred times without knowing what it was. So, how did a food this powerful just vanish from our history books? That mystery begins when another route from across the ocean took the spotlight and changed everything. And before potatoes conquered dinner tables, native farmers had already mastered a living system that fed itself forever. Long before Europeans thought of farming this land, native growers had already figured out something genius. A plant that gave two foods at once. The American groundnut or hoppess grew wild across the rivers and wetlands from Canada to Texas. It climbed trees like a lazy vine, wrapping around branches and pulling sunlight toward the soil below, where rows of tubers waited underground. Each vine produced clusters of sweet, nutty roots and proteinrich beans on top. That meant double harvests from the same patch. The plant needed no fertilizer, no weeding, and no irrigation. It pulled nitrogen straight from the air, feeding both itself and the soil. Native farmers knew its cycle by heart. They never took all of it. They left roots behind so the vine could return stronger every spring. French explorers in the 1600s wrote about native women roasting these roots, saying they taste like chestnuts and almonds. Later studies proved them right. The groundnut has three times the protein of potatoes and twice the iron. It also stores energy longer, which mattered when winters stretched for months. To native farmers, hoppness wasn’t just food. It was insurance. It kept villages alive through storms, floods, and hunger. It grew where corn couldn’t, filled gaps between hunts, and reappeared year after year without asking for anything back. But when strangers arrived with ships full of seeds, that balance began to crumble, and hunger would soon test both worlds. The winter of609 hit Jamestown like a curse. Food ran out, disease spread, and out of 500 settlers, only 60 survived. People ate horses, leather, even tree bark. Some accounts say they dug up graves. That’s how close the English came to vanishing. Then something changed. The Pauhhatan tribes nearby showed them a wild root growing near the swamps. Hopnness, the groundnut. The settlers boiled it, roasted it, mashed it into paste. Within weeks, they had food again. It carried them through the last months of the famine. There’s a line from George Percy’s journal. He wrote of roots and berries given by the salvages that sustained many from death. He never named the plant, but modern historians agree it was hopes. The same food native women had been tending for centuries now saved a starving colony. But pride ran deep. Once the English ships returned, the settlers stopped mentioning it. They shifted to European crops, wheat, barley, and imported potatoes. The wild vine that fed them became a weed. They took the help, then buried the story. That choice changed history. They traded a food that healed the land for one that stripped it bare. And from that point on, farming in America began to move away from balance and closer to control. However, that control would soon meet something it couldn’t tame. After Jamestown, farming became a symbol of control. Colonists wanted order, straight rows, predictable harvests, everything Hoppess ignored. The ground nut spread in its own way, climbing fences, twisting through river banks, growing where it pleased. To them, that looked like chaos. European farmers brought seeds from home, wheat, barley, oats, and potatoes. These plants behaved, growing on schedule and fitting into trade systems. Hopp didn’t. It needed patience. Its tubers matured slowly, sometimes 2 or 3 years underground. But once ready, they kept producing for decades. Colonists didn’t have that kind of patience. They wanted quick profits, not slow abundance. Early botonists even warned against it. One 18th century journal called the plant unfit for civilized gardens. That phrase says everything. It wasn’t about the plant. It was about power. The colonies were trying to shape nature into something that could be owned and taxed. Hopnness refused both. By the 1700s, the wild vine had almost disappeared from colonial diets. The same food that once saved lives turned invisible. And as plantations took over, wild foods lost their place in American farming altogether. But nature has a way of remembering. Even when people forgot, the roots kept spreading quietly along old trails and forgotten fields. And one day, centuries later, a few scientists would stumble upon those vines, and the story would begin again. In the early 1980s, something strange caught a researcher’s eye near a swampy patch in Arkansas. A tangle of vines was thriving in soil too poor for corn or beans. The leaves looked familiar, but the clusters underground told a bigger story. It was Apios Americana, the lost groundnut. Dr. William Blackman from the USDA began testing it. He found that the roots contained triple the protein of potatoes, plus natural oils and amino acids close to soybeans. Even more surprising, the plant didn’t need fertilizer. It pulled nitrogen straight from the air, restoring the soil instead of depleting it. The vines could survive drought, floods, and frost. Some even grew wild through asphalt cracks along old roadsides. When scientists planted them in test plots, they saw something unheard of. The yields improved year after year without any added chemicals. That’s the kind of thing modern agriculture spends billions trying to recreate. Blackman’s work spread fast. Japan funded research on hybrid strains. Geneticists studied how the plant could replace certain imported crops. Yet, despite all this proof, Hoppess never made it to the supermarket shelf. Maybe because it didn’t fit the system. It grew too freely, too independently, like it was built for cooperation, not control. And the next chapter would reveal why its design might hold the key to our future food security. When researchers finally studied hopness under controlled conditions, they were shocked by what they found. The plant didn’t just grow food, it healed the land around it. Every season, its roots rebuilt the soil, leaving it richer in nitrogen and carbon. Most crops drain the earth, but hopes reversed the damage. Tests at universities in the US and Japan showed it could handle extreme heat, heavy rain, and long dry spells. The vine stored carbon in the ground, acting like a smallcale climate solution. One study compared it to soybeans and found it needed half the water but produced more protein per acre. Farmers noticed something else. It didn’t attract many pests. The same compounds that gave the tubers their nutty flavor kept insects away. That meant fewer pesticides, fewer chemicals, and healthier soil microbes. The plant worked like a quiet partner to nature. What really blew scientists away was how it grew stronger when planted near other crops. The vines formed mutual networks, sharing nutrients with neighbors through the soil. That discovery reopened an old idea, farming as cooperation, not domination. The more they studied, the clearer it became. The crop that had once fed native nations might hold answers to the modern food crisis. But while science caught up, something deeper began to stir across native lands once again. Across the Midwest and Northeast, small native farms started bringing hoppess back. It began with seed exchanges and community gardens, then spread through tribal colleges and food sovereignty programs. Elders taught how their grandparents cooked the roots in ash, boiled them with venison, or ground them into flour for winter bread. Each recipe carried a memory. For many, this wasn’t just farming. It was reconnection. They saw hoppess as a symbol of endurance. A plant that survived centuries of eraser and still kept growing. Tribes like the Abnaki, Wampaoag, and Ojiway now grow it again, both for food and for teaching younger generations that their land still knows how to feed them. At a gathering in Minnesota, one farmer said, “When I dig these roots, I feel the ground breathing again.” That line spread fast across native social media. It reminded people that food can heal more than hunger. It can heal history. The crop even caught the eye of permaculture groups and chefs exploring indigenous cuisine. Some restaurants now serve roasted groundnut chips or stew made from the same vines that once fed whole nations. But while new fields are rising, something wilder still moves beneath the surface, untouched by farming, still growing free, still waiting to be found again. Walk near a slow river in New England or a muddy creek in Arkansas. And you might see it. Thin green vines curling through reads, climbing small trees, forming knots near the water’s edge. Most people pass by without noticing, but those vines belong to the same plant that once fed nations. Wild Apio Americana still grows across half the continent. From Maine to Louisiana, it creeps through wetlands and forest borders untouched for centuries. The roots keep multiplying season after season. Whether anyone digs them or not, some patches have been alive since before the United States existed. When researchers traced its wild spread, they realized something stunning. The plant never truly disappeared. It just outlasted memory. While industrial farms covered millions of acres with uniform crops, Hoppess stayed hidden under leaves and shadows, holding on like a whisper from the past. And here’s the twist. It may be more resilient today than ever. Climate shifts that harm corn and wheat seem to make hopness grow stronger. That’s not nostalgia. It’s biology. The same wildness that made farmers reject it now makes it a survivor. So the story ends quietly but powerfully. The plant that outperformed potatoes never died. It waited, rooted deep, biting time, still carrying the taste of history beneath the soil. Thanks for diving into the roots of forgotten history. Subscribe if you love stories that still grow in the ground because the next one uncovers another secret crop that never died. [Music]
37 Comments
“This lost Native vegetable once outperformed potatoes and still grows wild today 🌿🥔 Would you try growing or eating it yourself? Share your thoughts with us 👇”
Ill never eat a potato again.
Definitely locating some of this! Perfect food plant.
Fascinating. Thank you. I did not know about the American groundnut before. My ony comment would be that it is very unlikely that those first English settlers would have brought potatoes with them from England, as this was another American plant from South America and it was not widely adopted by the colonists until well over a century later. They would have relied more on other usual European vegetables and grains, but quickly adopted some local foods like corn and pumpkin. It's amazing that the groundnut was forgotten, especially given how incredibly dependent inland settlers became on the indigenous chestnut before it was exterminated by the stupidity of white culture.
PS – yes, I definitely WOULD try eating these plants.
It was only harvested in small quantities because it is VERY time consuming to gather. Dig an hour and still not get enough to eat a full meal. It was never a domestic crop because potatoes were brought to North America and beat it in every way. I have grown ground nut for 28 years and have yet to get enough to be worth one meal. Its bland and very unproductive. It requires a climbing trellis. It's expensive to get because its so unproductive. I still have it but it can't handle being harvested more than every few years. Worse yet, it does not taste as good as potatoes and is very tedious to clean up.
And before potatoes, it was the turnip.
they should have let the europeans starve to death lol
To grow these you have to plant the improved varieties. The wild types are not great at producing food in a small area. One improved plant can be 100× the yield of a wild one.
Does it grow in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California?
If you grow them in deep mulch, you can give the root a tug and a whole string will come out. They have this white sticky latex so a bit messy, don't cook them in aluminum pans. The pods only produce peas on diploid plants, and I've yet to get enough to try them. Honestly I almost never eat them but I let them go wherever they want as an emergency food. If they climb on something I don't want them to I just cut it and it's fine. But everywhere there are little tubers if I need them, they last for years in the soil.
No it didn't – don't lie , your nose will grow like a potatoe. Wach out….😮😂
It's a relief big agriculture have left this plant alone.
Just a correction for you. The potato is a South AMERICAN plant (generally growing in cooler mountainous regions)… transported and grown in Europe and those versions which grew well in northern climes were introduced into the North American colonies.
Looks VERY labor intensive to process and prepare, per unit of nutritional yield. I don't think you can even compare them rationally, with potatoes or yams and for nitrogen fixing, peanuts are an excellent rotation crop. Peas and beans, too. The ground nut is not grown or harvested or processed or distributed or used commercially, and only on a very limited scale otherwise, for very good reason. The end product is a trivial amount of food for all the work involved, even though there does not need to be any cultivation labor. That's not to say that it isn't a great idea to have a go at it, out of interest or for variety, but there are a LOT of far better things to raise or gather if you really want to feed yourself, family, or others, or make a profit.
they brought over potatoes? doesn't potatoes come from south america? not europe?
ya know what would help rediscover the plant? if you said the name a few times.
I have never seen this plant. Where can I get some of these?
How far North would this grow? We're in Edmonton, Alberta.
Where can we get seed or roots ?
I found some of these along the road I used to live on. Recognized it right away. The flowers have a strong powdery fragrance.
I think the rendering of the native American look some more like he's tweaking for his next fix?
What is the scientific name?
Potatoes are NOT an old world plant.. They were native to South America taken back to Europe by the Spaniards, and then they came back to North America …
You're not thriving off one plant, we add it to the basket of others.
There was a type of tuber that grew in swamps, but heavy metals tended to accumulate in it.
I hope you like that I just gave you 13220 in points hype points😊
Why does the thumbnail look like he's smoking the meth peace pipe too much?
Cool Channel. First time it's come up in my suggestions.
Potatoes are an indigenous crop from south america . How can they not know this?. Many, many of the vegetables you yt's eat are our foods.
This is sounding like foraging by children to supplement a tribes food supply. The eastern tribes had farming well in hand with corn, squash and chestnuts. Calories saved lives.
POTATOES come from South America NOT Europe.
GMO plants are unfit for the human body.
In reading the comments from those growing this plants I can see it may not be the most efficient in terms of raising quantities of tuber nuts, but I’m wondering if these plants may be best used to reclaim over used and depleted soils – ground covers that could be used to be turned under in the fall to breakdown and nourish barren areas. Question I have is are they invasive in gardens, can they be used as fodder for wild and domestic animals. Though these may not be our go to for munching often, they were here long before the European garden culture so I can’t help but think they could help heal our very disrupted eco- systems. Thoughts anyone?
Would they grow in Oregon? Where can I buy seeds or bulbs? Amazon and Ebay didn't show any.
potato's are native crops too.
not from across the sea.
I wish you didn't have to pose all of your articles as some kind of conspiracy theory.
More than a little preachy!
I've seen groundnut twice im also a forager