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[wierd]

But fungi don't produce "tubers".  Tubers are a very specific form of energy storage structure found on perenneal and biennial leafy green plants, characterized as a large growth on the lower part of the stem, but not actually being a root.

Potatoes are a tuber bearing plant. They form as nodular growths on the root structure, but are not themselves roots. (Unlike say, a carrot.) They are also not a rhizome, which is another kind of pre-root structure, but which comprises the primary vascular matrix, while a tuber does not. (See for instance, things like ginger, which is a rhizome.)

Potato would be a good analog, if the dwarves don't know that they can be grown from eye sprout cuttings. (Potatoes also produce seeds, but the rate of germination is abysmally low, and it requires 2 years of cultivation to get potato tubers from a potato plant grown frm seed. If the dwarves simply lack the knowledge of how to divide root vegetables for planting, then potatoes would essentially be nonviable as a sustaned agricultural crop.)

Another alternative would be taro root. Taro root might actually be a better choice, because it is inedible raw, while potatoes are frequently eaten this way with a pinch of salt.

[Imp]

Potato would be a good analog, if the dwarves don't know that they can be grown from eye sprout cuttings. (Potatoes also produce seeds, but the rate of germination is abysmally low, and it requires 2 years of cultivation to get potato tubers from a potato plant grown frm seed. If the dwarves simply lack the knowledge of how to divide root vegetables for planting, then potatoes would essentially be nonviable as a sustaned agricultural crop.)

That's convincing, thanks!

Edited to add:
.... Although   

But fungi don't produce "tubers".  Tubers are a very specific form of energy storage structure found on perenneal and biennial leafy green plants, characterized as a large growth on the lower part of the stem, but not actually being a root.

There IS also a genus of fungus called Tuber (truffles happen to be a part of it).  There's more than one sort of 'tuber' that can be bloated!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truffle

Apparently, "The German word Kartoffel ("potato") is derived from the Italian tartufo (truffle) because of superficial similarities."

[wierd]

I see the reference, but a truffle is not actually an energy storage or asexual reproductive aparatus.  It is instead a sexual reproductive aparatus. Literally, the ovary tissue created by 2 or more genetically distinct mycelial cultures engaging in sexual reproduction. It is the structure which produces, nourishes, and disseminates the sexually derived spores produced from the parent mycelial fibers. It is basically just an oddly shaped mushroom, like a puffball mushroom.

Genuine tubers are completely asexual in nature.

[Oaktree]

Went looking through wikipedia today for a plant that had edible leaves, raw edible seeds, and that was also an oil-seed which could be an option for quarry bush.  Not a lot of plants that fit the bill.  The best fit in my opinion turned out to be sesame.  Leaves can be eaten, the seeds are (raw and roasted), and it's an *old* oil-seed.  It's also quite drought resistant and might be the sort of plant you find growing in out-of-the-way parts of dry caves.

Main downside is small seeds instead of something like a "rock nut".  My adjustment for that would be to have the seed pods be rounder and harder and thus being the "nut" part with the still relatively small seeds encased within.

Per prickle berries I guess you can decide whether the "prickle" part refers to the plant the berries grow on, or the berries themselves.  The latter is why I suggested a currant variant since I saw lots of Sierra Gooseberries on a recent vacation and they look the part of being prickly berries.

For sun berries something akin to cranberries might be a better option than a grape since they only grow next to water if I recall correctly.  (Or did so the only time I settled in a biome that had them growing there naturally.)  Same went for muck root - so a cat tail or something similar to that seems a fair fit.

[smjjames]

Okay, in trying to find a blade weed analog and these are from the googled sources that I have.....

Foxglove? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxglove Toxic and not edible.

Snapdragon? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snapdragon I don't think it's known to be edible and it has long leaves I guess.

While one of the sources says larkspur, a wiki search points me towards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolida and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphinium , both groups are toxic.

Coneflowers are mentioned, but the common name is used by at least 4 plant groups.

Peppermint? Wiki doesn't say anything about dyes (actually, it doesn't say anything about dyes for any of the ones I looked at so far, so I'm going by ancedoctial evidence).

Nettles and stinging nettles have been mentioned for green dye, but nettle is a common name used for plents across several plant families.

Edit: http://blog.freepeople.com/2011/08/diy-natural-dyes/ Spinach? Only problem is that it's edible and the leaves are far from triangular.

Edit2: What about rhododendron? the leaves are blade like, and there is of course, grass, but the dye is far from emerald green.

[wierd]

Rhotodendron WOULD be green if you used a very strong alkaline mordant. Something like soda ash.

For an appropriate dark age dyestuff formula, i'd use washer's soda or soda ash, boiled in a large copper pot as the mordanting pretreatment, followed by the rhotodendron extract in another copper or brass pot.  May require a calcium or lime water rinse.

The color will be prone to fading and discoloration by contact with acids.

[WanderingKid]

Updated first post with recommendations that were made and trying to keep this to common consensus (and what also makes sense to me, or at least what I can find data on).  If I missed anything (or you feel strongly against my semi-random picks) please be vocal.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Like when people try to describe what the creatures in DF look like, remember that the plants and products all have defined colors, preferences (dorf likes x for its y), shapes, etc. in the raws. The plant might not look like the closest real-world analogue.

i.e. Quarry bush leaves are grey.

[wierd]

While not actually a "bulb", I would reccomend asafoetida as the kobold bulb analog, over garlic, or onion.

That stuff reeketh.

[smjjames]

The involved proccess for rhododentron seems like something the dwarves would do and the leaves are certainly bladelike, so perhaps that would be a tentative analog? Green, as in not yellow-green, dyes frpm plants aren't all that common.

[wierd]

I understand that lupines (plant!) Make a nice lime green dye over wool.

Personally, if I wanted a good solid and lightfast green, I would use prussian blue over the top of a strong yellow.

Prussian blue is an artificial blue pigment, created by processing iron with cyanic acid. (Hydrocyanate. Eg, "cyanide".) It can be produced reasonably safely in a dark-age friendly process by burning blood meal and iron filings together in a sealed saggar, installed in a kiln.

It is applied using an ammonia based carrier, as it is completely insoluble in wash water otherwise.

Sadly, the dwarves have yet to create a valid use for all those barrels of blood and ichor.

[Bumber]

If I missed anything (or you feel strongly against my semi-random picks) please be vocal.

[PLANT:MUSHROOM_CUP_DIMPLE]

Gotta find some kind of blue cup mushroom.

Edit: Green-stain cup mushroom is the closest I can find. It's a sort of aqua color, not midnight blue. There are bluer mushrooms, but they're not cups.

[wierd]

Simply being blue isn't sufficient. It must contain a suitable blue pigment that works for textiles.

A true, solid blue was extremely hard to get in dark age formulations. Most were either bluish purples, or were not wash or lightfast.

The gold standard for blue for a VERY long time was soda ash woad bended with raw lime. This plant contained the same pigment as the now much more comon indigo plant, indigotin. Indigotin itself is NOT blue, but is instead off yellow. It forms a very strong compound ring matrix with another indigotin molecule, forming the indigo blue dimeric molecule. The central ring structure makes it very resistant to chemical attack, which is why it is such a stable substance, and useful as a textile pigment.  This structure is temporarily broken by the action of ammonia mixed with lime water, allowing the pigment to be carried into the textile fibers. As the ammonia dries, the ring structure reappears, and the molecule becomes hydrophobic. It gets trapped inside the fiber, and can't be washed out.

Indigo contains much more indigotin than does woad, which is why it eventually displaced it. Most indigo dye used to day (it is used to make blue jeans) is produced synthetically from petrochemical feedstocks, but is still the same resulting molecule.

In terms of textiles, you either use indigo blue, prussian blue, or pthalo blue (a modern synthetic molecule produced using copper.)

This means either dimple cups contain cyanates (may explain their inedibility), maing them natural sources of prussian blue, or they are not themselves "blue", but instead produce blue dye, like indigo/woad, or they have very unique chemistry indeed, and produce blue copper pthalo.

I'd say dimple cups are simply fantastical, and don't really have a suitable realworld analog.


*edit

Some research in the less than ordinary channels turns up 3 species of mushroom theoretically capable of producing indigotin, but none of them are blue.

Agaricus campestris mutant
Morchella rotunda mutant
Schizophyllum commune mutant

The first is an ordinary yard toadstool.
The second is a morel subspecies
And the last is a very common species of tree shelf fungus.

To my knowledge, none of them can produce useful quantities of indigo blue, but it does suggest that such a creature is theoretically possible.

[Bumber]

-snip-

Might want to do a check on whether or not redroot/bloodroot can produce red dye, as well.

[WanderingKid]

Before this becomes a botanical war, just something I'd like to throw in the ring.

The idea I'd like to pursue is to try to analog real world counterparts to the fantastical species in DF.  If something makes a direct correlation and is game playable within reason (Wheat), SCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooore! 

What I'm hoping to do is up the simulation values for crop growth for particular plants to try to match real world possibilities to remove the utter FLOOD of plantlife my dorfs accumulate with real world associations.  If something doesn't quite match, well, fuggit, we're in the magical land where hippies actually created a government anyway.

So, with that in mind, please continue to enlighten me on everything I apparently have no friggin' clue about regarding the plant life that surrounds my stupid ass, but don't lose track of the objective.    It's a game.  Have some fun with it.

Personally, I'm leaning towards this as blade weed: Yucca plant or the Cortaderia selloana (see second image).

Problem is nailing down normal growth rate for them.  Yucca seems the more likely candidate to me.