Berry Blast

We are fortunate to live in an area of the Northwest where the edible berries seem to fly off the farm all summer long. The strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries are among our favorites. I can still taste those wonderful raspberry smoothies and the blueberries on my morning cereal!

As we near the end of summer we turn our attention to nuts (the edible kind) such as hazelnuts and walnuts. But what about all those other, not so glamorous berries you can see around our parks and trails?

It's a good time of year to see these colorful and mostly non-edible berries. Most of them are shrubs, native to the Northwest - and are popular with birds and critters as fall arrives and the normal pickings fade away. Of special note, the Blue Elderberry fruit and most parts of the plant were extensively used by Native Americans in our area. Today, it is commonly planted in habitat restoration projects.

There is a good chance you'll see some of these on your next outing, or others as well.

Black Twinberry (Lonicera involucrata) at Cooper
Mountain Nature Park

Blue Elderberry (Sambucus nigra ssp. cerulea) at
Jackson Bottom Wetlands

     

Left: Common Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus);

Right: Nootka Rose hips (Rosa nutkana).

Tall Oregon Grape (Mahonia aquifolium).

Not really a berry, but these "Oak Apples" are photogenic.
They are caused by female gall wasps laying eggs on new
leaf buds.

     

Left: Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana);

Right: Cotoneaster atropurpureus. Non-native, but widely

planted in our area - very hardy.

English Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna). Also non-native,
but widely naturalized in our area. Older shrubs are tree-like
and produce dazzling displays of small red berries.

Red Flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum) at Jackson
Bottom Wetlands.

And last but not least, we spotted these fine-looking red Bunchberries on the Opal Creek trail in August (elevation 2,400 ft.).

Dwarf Dogwood (Cornus canadensis), a.k.a., Bunchberry.