The Saratoga Lake Association is hosting its annual water chestnut pull next Saturday, June 28. Volunteers will be treated to a free pancake breakfast.

So what exactly are these water chestnuts, and why can’t we just harvest them and eat them, like they do in China?

The simple answer: It’s not the same plant.

The water chestnut that offers crunch in your Chinese vegetables is the Chinese water chestnut, a sedge-type, grassy plant that grows in shallow water. The corms or bulbs of the plant are harvested for food. The plant is grown mainly in China and Taiwan, often in paddies, like rice. There have been attempts to grow it commercially in the United States, mainly in Florida and Georgia, because it needs a temperate climate.

That other water chestnut, the kind that needs volunteers and pancake bribes to get rid of, is the European water chestnut. It was introduced in the mid-1800s by gardeners in New England who thought it was an attractive water plant, and has spread rapidly throughout the Eastern United States, in ponds, shallow lakes and rivers.

Unlike its Chinese namesake, the European water chestnut (trapa natans) is an invasive weed with leaves that float on the surface of the water, choking out native plants. The plant roots in the pond bed, and can have underwater stems 12 to 15 feet long. Rather than a corm, it grows a hard, winged seed (which can be harvested, roasted and eaten, kind of like a tree chestnut, although it’s mainly considered a subsistence food.)

The best way to keep the weed from clogging ponds and streams is to harvest it by hand before it goes to seed. And to do it every year.

The Saratoga Lake Association says the water chestnuts clog the lake’s waters, especially where the Kayaderosseras Creek enters the lake. So they’re offering pancakes: The free breakfast for chestnut-pulling volunteers will be at 10 a.m. June 28 at the Tropic Hut on outer Union Avenue in Malta.

Anyone planning to participate in the chestnut pull should contact Lisa Morahan by Monday, June 23 at 265-5834.