The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Sun, rain, trees, fish, insects, mollusks, meteorites, climate, birds and/or flowers... all are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located.
August 2013
Salish Sea islands
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest abounds in edible fruits, throughout the year. Many are tasty to humans as well. On a short walk around my home, I found all these berries and other fruits growing wild, most of them native.
Most fruit bushes grow vigorously in open spaces of disturbed forest, like roadsides and fields, responding to the abundant light. That's common habitat in the islands. In earlier times Native Americans depended on summer berries, collecting them both in naturally occurring open areas like stream banks and where they burned the forest routinely to maintain habitat and food diversity.
Three kinds of blackberries grow prolifically here. The native Trailing Blackberry or Dewberry (Rubus ursinus) sprawls vine-like along the ground and into mounds over debris. I'm frequently snagged while walking, not only tripped but slashed by its thorny vines around my ankles. Its berries are small but intensely flavorful. They are just ripening now. In my neighborhood R. ursinus doesn't get as much ground moisture as it prefers so these berries do not develop properly. It's pretty hard to collect very many at once, even full size, so we eat these incidentally when passing by. However several large-berried modern cultivated breeds are derived from this species: the Marionberry, the Loganberry and the Boysenberry.
Rubus ursinus
The other 2 blackberries, native to Eurasia, grow as giant invasive thorny bushes. Thickets of them displace native vegetation and are extremely difficult to eradicate. I've been battling a bush in one area of my backyard for 25 years. Early on I dug down around its roots, tied a rope around the mass, and pulled on it with my car, tires spinning, engine racing. The roots broke apart and survived, so I've just been cutting back any shoots that have emerged since then. There are some out there right now I need to get to tomorrow. It will outlive me, I have no doubt. There are other bushes along the fence bordering my neighbors' which I don't mind too much, because their berries are delectable. They mature in succession for more than a month, just starting now, so we'll be eating them for a while. This is the Himalayan Blackberry (
Rubus armeniacus, syn.
Rubus discolor) from flower to mature fruit. After I took the last photo I ate the ripe ones. They are seedy and tart but delicious.
Rubus armeniacus (syn. Rubus discolor)
Rubus armeniacus (syn. Rubus discolor), not quite ripe
Rubus armeniacus (syn. Rubus discolor), ready to eat!
The other introduced blackberry is the Evergreen (
Rubus laciniatus), also just starting to ripen. Picking enough berries for a crisp or batch of jam is a test of endurance - how long can you stand the yellowjackets and the vicious thorns that hook into your skin when you withdraw your hand.
Rubus laciniatus flower and pollinator (=?)
Rubus laciniatus berries and pointy foliage
Another native Rubus is Thimbleberry (
Rubus parviflorus), which has been ripening for a few weeks. It changes from hard pink to soft bright red when ripe. Thimbleberries are edible but not very tasty, and in any case, their picked mushy thimble form doesn't keep long. There are plenty of fans among the wildlife though - I don't see rotten berries left on the bushes, or any of these in fact. Lots of colorful bird doodoo everywhere though, a measure of what's ripe at the moment.
Rubus parviflorus, unripe
upside down thimble
Thimbleberry's biggest virtue for hikers, it could be argued, is the foliage. It's known as the Toiletpaper plant for good reason: large soft thorn-free leaves.
Rubus parviflorus, ripe berry and big soft leaves
More native fruits below the bramble ~
Our other abundant Rubus, the Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis), has long since finished fruiting. In fact it's the earliest berry in this area, starting to flower in March, fruiting in May. Here's one rare berry that escaped all the browsers, drying on the branch. Salmonberries are not as flavorful as blackberries, but they are such a treat in late spring, wild fresh juicy food.
Rubus spectabilis dried up fruit
The Elderberry shrubs, where Robin families congregate in June busily and noisily stripping berries, are quiet now, fruit finished. So are saskatoons, wild strawberries, chokcherries and others. Significantly, all of these fruits (except for elderberry) are in the Rosaceae, one of the most important food plant families, that also includes apples, cherries, pears, peaches, plums, apricots, almonds. All the Rosaceae require insect pollinators to produce this fruit. The loss of pollinators we are seeing now will have devastating effects on both economic food production and for native wildlife. Many plants in the Rosaceae are also important
hosts for butterflies and moths.
Some local berries are inedible or uninteresting to humans, but valuable food for wildlife, like the Orange Honeysuckle (Lonicera ciliosa) and Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus) - both in the honeysuckle family, Caprifoliaceae, where elderberry was also included until recently. Snowberry persists on leafless branches right through the winter.
Lonicera ciliosa
Symphoricarpos albus
Remember the native roses I showed you back in June, our lovely heavenly scented brambles? They are both starting to form their hips. The Nootka Rose, which thrives in open areas like roadsides and fields, is not quite as far along.
Rosa nutkana
The smaller Baldhip Rose, that prefers the woods, is ripening up nicely now. Chipmunks and squirrels just love rose hips, an abundant food source all the way through the winter. Incidentally, this photo show why the Baldhip has that name: no petals or sepals remain on the fruit.
Rosa gymnocarpa
And the most abundant fruit in our woods, as well as where it grows out into clearings nearby, are Salal berries (though its "berries" are technically fleshy flower parts). I find berries in the shadier spots mature later. They are furry, sticky berries, mealy in texture and not too flavorful, but they are quite edible. Salal is in the same plant family as the cultivated Blueberry, Ericaceae. Some folk make a tasty jelly from them. Many native animals, from songbirds to deer, feed on them. The local Native Americans preserved salal berries as nutritious winter food.
Gaultheria shallon, unripe
Gaultheria shallon, ripe
We're berry country, the Pacific Northwest, and this is high season. And except for the two blackberries, all these are native to this area. Important habitat and hosts for wildlife. Local healthy free food for any one and any creature to pick and eat.
Any native wild edibles in your area? Do you forage for food? What's happening in your natural world ~ tell us in a comment below.
"Green Diary Rescue" is Back!
After a hiatus of over 1 1/2 years, Meteor Blades has revived his excellent series. As MB explained, this weekly diary is a "round-up with excerpts and links... of the hard work so many Kossacks put into bringing matters of environmental concern to the community... I'll be starting out with some commentary of my own on an issue related to the environment, a word I take in its broadest meaning."
"Green Diary Rescue" will be posted every Saturday at 1:00 pm Pacific Time on the Daily Kos front page. Be sure to recommend and comment in the diary.
