The Woodsman
By Steve Wilent, For The Mountain Times
The first flowers of late winter and spring are a welcome sign of dryer, warmer weather to come. Cherry and plum trees typically blossom first in Portland, then Sandy, and soon after in our area. The Indian plum shrubs or small trees on my property near Lolo Pass Road began blooming soon after the spring equinox, which fell on March 20. Depending on your location, you may have seen trillium, mountain lady’s slipper (a member of the orchid family), red flowering currant, and perhaps skunk cabbage before the equinox, followed by bleeding heart, salmonberry, skunk cabbage and others, including one or more of the thirty species of the delicate violets native to Oregon. This month, depending on the weather, we’ll see our glorious native and non-native rhododendrons in bloom, as well as salal, Oregon-grape, our state flower, and many others — too many to list here.
Oregon-grape has lovely yellow flowers that herald edible but very tart berries, but rhododendron would have been much more appropriate as a state flower. Oregon-grape became the state flower in 1899, long before Washington State named Pacific rhododendron as its state flower in 1959. The great laurel rhododendron is the state flower of West Virginia.
Indian plum, also known as osoberry, is common in western Oregon and Washington. Indian plum is an important early-season nectar source for hummingbirds, moths, butterflies, native bees, and other pollinator species. The U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service’s (NRCS) plant fact sheet about Indian plum notes that it “is popular for Pacific Northwest restoration projects due to its ease of propagation, rapid growth, and wide tolerances for various shade and moisture regimes. The fibrous roots resist erosion. Clones that root more readily can be employed in restoration projects as live stakes or as rooted cuttings.”
Many bird species and some mammals, including deer and bears, consume the small “plums,” which are bluish-black when ripe. The fruits are edible but usually very bitter to humans. The indigenous people of our region ate the fruit fresh, dried, or cooked, and used the bark as purgative, a mild laxative, and a tuberculosis remedy. Osoberry wood is strong and dense, and straight stems reportedly make excellent arrow shafts. Include this information in your zombie apocalypse survival plan.
The blossoms of some trees and shrubs are edible. In forestry school many years ago, we students were required to go on a “survival trip”— three days and two nights in May in a remote area of the Sierra Nevada, in teams of three or four. Each team was dropped off at a separate location and given a set of bearings and distances to a pick-up location. We used hand compasses to follow the bearings and measured distances by pacing (counting our paces and multiplying by the average length of each pace, or two steps). Each team’s grade for the trip was based on (A) surviving and (B) how close we came to our pick-up location, miles from the starting point across rugged terrain.
We were allowed warm clothing — no sleeping bags or tents — matches, water, and two bullion cubes. Over campfires in the evenings, we made bullion in our aluminum hardhats, and once supplemented the meager broth with a small trout. Otherwise we used our knowledge of flora and fauna to find food. Except for that tiny trout, we didn’t find much, except for manzanita flowers, which were plentiful. They aren’t satisfying as a meal, but the nectar in them tastes a bit like honey and at least they gave us the illusion of having something substantial to eat.
Of the four species of manzanita shrubs in Oregon, kinnikinnick, or bearberry, is the most common. You’ll find low-growing mats of the plant on Old Maid Flat. This month, you might find some in bloom. Before you eat a manzanita flower, look inside to make sure there isn’t an insect collecting nectar. That is unless you want the added protein.
A follow-up to last month’s column on snow: Timberline Lodge reported 162 inches of the white stuff on April 1, just shy of the average of 165 inches on that date. The snowpack at the lodge averages 157 inches on May 1 and 119 inches on June 1. Still plenty for playing in the snow.
As of April 6, according to the NRCS, the snow-water equivalent (the amount of water that would result if all the snow in a snowpack melted) is well above 100 percent of the average in all basins (regions) in Oregon, except ours, the Hood-Sandy-Lower Deschutes basin, which is at 94% of the 1991–2020 average.
Wildfire risk update: Insurance Business magazine reports that insured losses from the Los Angeles County wildfires in January, which destroyed more than 16,000 structures, will exceed $30 billion (tinyurl.com/mr23e8f8). The California Department of Insurance reported that nearly 38,000 claims were filed and more than $12 billion paid to date. Last year, State Farm stopped issuing new homeowner policies in California and announced that it would drop coverage for 72,000 homes and apartments. In April, the California Insurance Commission gave the company preliminary approval to raise home insurance premiums by an average of 22 percent (tinyurl.com/bdb6sud5). I think it’s a safe bet that Oregon insurers will also continue to raise rates.
According to Oregon Public Broadcasting, two Oregon lawmakers have called upon major insurance companies to stop using their own internal wildfire risk maps to drop homeowners’ policies, at least until next year (tinyurl.com/36vwysrc). Such maps have the same problem as Oregon’s controversial Wildfire Risk Explorer map: risk ratings are based on satellite and/or aerial imagery, not on conditions measured on the ground on each parcel. Insurance companies are barred by law from using the Wildfire Risk Explorer map to set insurance rates.
Have a question about flowering plants in our forests? Want to know how manzanita (“little apple”) berries taste? Let me know. Email: SWilent@gmail.com.