Beware!
This is a more dangerous and action-packed post than you might think. It involves the potential for intrigue and poison, deception and misunderstanding, betrayal and tummy-aches. It is the “When Plants Attack” special for slow people who like to munch. Perhaps it would better be called, “Wild Bear(ie)s of the O.P.: When Nature Bites Back.”
But we won’t actually call it that, because our goal here is to not have tummy-aches or to invoke the wrath of a stately shrub. Our goal is to get to know some interesting plants. With that in mind, please don’t eat any of them without reading other sources, talking to your doctor, consulting with your attorney, hiring an expert, and so on. Stay safe.
Okay, with that said: let’s go for a stroll.
Evergreen Huckleberries
Distinguishing Characteristics:
- Deep green leaves with serrated edges.
- Typically 6 feet tall and a few feet wide (but they can grow up to 12 feet tall – don’t doubt them)
- Some say that huckleberry bushes grow slowly, but that is not the case around here. Shoots spring continually out of older growth, reaching fast towards the sunlight and quickly creating new height and volume.
- Old huckleberry shrubs can form dense and tangled trunk systems penetrable only by small animals seeking shelter.
Red Huckleberries
I’ll be honest, these guys caught me by surprise. To the unwitting wanderer, they seem like wood roses (read: not worth eating most of the time). But stop and look: once you’ve truly met these plants, you will not forget them.
Distinguishing Characteristics:
- vibrant green, floating leaves
- red flecks along the stems
- similar in size to Evergreen Huckleberries
- Wood rose/ Baldhip rose (One way to tell the difference is by noting that wood roses have thorns while red huckleberries do not.)
- Evergreen Huckleberries – though honestly, you wouldn’t. Evergreen huckle’s are a robust green with hearty, waxy leaves, whereas the red huckleberry bush sports delicate green and airy leaves that seem to float in the breeze.
Salal Berries
Thick, rounded, luscious leaves sprout rows of white and pink valentine hearts in springtime.
Distinguishing Characteristics:
- Thick, waxy, deep green leaves that alternate across the stem. Each leaf rounds plumply to a gentle point.
- Has a vine-like quality, such that it stretches in all directions, generally not reaching more than a couple of feet.
- Very strong stems and branches are vine-like, tough, and thus difficult to break off or tear.
- Flowers consist of miniature cascades of dangling hearts, turning from white to pink and finally into berries.
- Berries are a deep, hearty blue-purple.
Tastes Like: Mild in flavor, and chewy (almost a bit grainy). Check for bugs inside the crevices of the berries (or just enjoy some extra protein).
Salmonberry
Salmonberries could easily be mistaken for giant swamp weeds, but for their golden berries in summertime.
Distinguishing Characteristics:
- Jagged, triangular leaves of a dull green…. until they sprout homey, hot pink, star-shaped flowers which turn into berries in summertime.
- Branches grow gangly and tall. Fine, prickly little thorns cover the wood but are fairly easily avoided.
- The berries themselves are, indeed, of a golden salmon hue.
Tastes Like: Fairly bland.
Thimbleberry
- Another great weed of the West, saved by its flowers and berries.
Distinguishing Characteristics:
- Fuzzy, five-pointed leaves stretch tall and wide, voraciously spreading across open, sun-touched territories.
- White flowers pop open, old-fashioned and nodding in the breeze, in Spring. Berries follow.
- Truly, they grow like weeds, quickly reaching up to six feet high and easily covering a large, sunny clearing within months.
Tastes Like: Fairly bland.
Not to be Confused with:
- Vine maples. Look for the serrated leaf edges to know that you’re actually talking to (or eating from) a thimbleberry.
