Festival

Although I had never been to an official "Wildflower Festival" in the past, the idea intrigued me. The poster advertising the recent Mount Pisgah Arboretum Wildflower and Music Festival had the right words to lure me in: Music, Food, and Fun. Not to mention a beautiful warm sunny day, wildflower displays, artwork, and nature walks; what's not to like? Expert botanists were on hand to answer your plant questions along with microscopes and books. For the more casual festival goers, there were artworks created out of natural things only, many eco-vendor booths as well as food carts galore. And of course you could purchase native plants to take home. 

Pavilion Flower Displays

It's an intriguing way to celebrate native wildflower appreciation, education, and preservation - and hold a fundraiser in the process. The good folks at Mount Pisgah should know - they have been doing it for 38 years! We spent most of the day at the festival enjoying the vibe and taking a few walks around the arboretum and up to the top of Mt. Pisgah, where the views are expansive in all directions. 

Art in Nature Entry

In the larger sense, the festival affirms what many nature lovers already know: spending time enjoying nature is good for you and your health; it's good for society and it needs to be preserved. In this day and age of capitalism-crazed national leaders, this obvious human necessity seems at risk of fading away. The anti-science and anti-environment rhetoric emerging from the new D.C. arrivals is astonishing. One wonders if these odd people have any experience with nature or wilderness. Not to belabor the point, but I'll just leave it at this for now: be vigilant, stay informed, and speak out for nature. There are still many in D.C. who will support us, but they need to hear from us and be encouraged to take action to protect what we have and educate the uninformed. 

The festival appeared to be a huge success, at least by the numbers attending and the "miles of smiles" seen. Hundreds attended, seemingly from all walks of life ages. We were impressed by the well organized feel of the event and the army of eager volunteers working the beat. All in all, a day well spent for us!

On the trail to to the summit we saw hundreds of Toughleaf Iris, a few dozen Blue Dicks, and a smattering of Meadow Checker mallow and Oregon Checker mallow. Among the oaks we also saw poison oak growing profusely! 

Oregon Checker mallow (Sidalcea campestris) and Meadow Checker mallow (Sidalcea oregana):

 

Toughleaf Iris (Iris tenax) and Nine-leaf Lomatium (Lomatium triternatum):

 

Tolmie's Pussy Ears (Calochortus tolmiei) and Blue Dicks (Dichelostemma capitatum)

 

Orange Honeysuckle (Lonicera ciliosa) and Slender Tarweed (Madia gracilis), with 

Purple Sanicle (Sanicula bipinnatifida)

   

Links:

Mt. Pisgah Arboretum

Native Plant Society of Oregon

Oregon Nature Conservancy

Life and Death

Imagine living in the unspoiled Pacific Northwest before the European Americans arrived; before there were roads and cities along the rivers. The views, sounds, and natural state of the area was vastly different. And imagine you are a Nez Perce native American in the year 1800. You would be living in one of about 100 villages throughout the Northwest, many along the Snake, Salmon, and Clearwater rivers. Your life would be structured around seasonal encampments to take advantage of important food sources: salmon, berries, nuts, and camas bulbs.

No need to expound on the delights of eating salmon - most of us continue to enjoy this wonderful staple of river living to this day. The Nez Perce knew the best spots for spearing the salmon and learned to smoke and preserve it as well. Thankfully, today, we don't have to reel in our own fish when we feel like having a salmon dinner, but many still choose to do so.

But what about those camas bulbs? You probably don't have a bag of them in your pantry. The Nez Perce and others relied on baked camas bulbs as a regular staple, similar to our potato of today. In the 1800's there were thousands of acres of the camas plants growing throughout the region. According to historians, the bulbs were gathered in late summer and then baked in home built ovens that resembled a giant clay pot. Their natural flavor is rather bland, so usually the bulbs were mixed with salmon oil or berries for flavoring.

Camas and salmon were so important to these native people that many landmarks and places have been named after them. There is a city in Washington named Camas, and of course there are several rivers in the Northwest with the Salmon name.

The Common Camas (Camassia quamash) blooms in mid-spring in damp meadows at low elevation areas, west of the Cascades. It is quite a sight to see a whole field of blooming camas, with their intense blue blossoms. The Great Camas (Camassia leichtlinii) is very similar, but larger and sports more flowers than the common one.

In 1805, the Lewis and Clark explorers met the Nez Perce, who basically helped the explorers avoid starvation at that point in their journey. One of their journals talks about how the native tribe gave them camas to eat. Unfortunately, the bulbs are hard to digest, making life a bit worse for the undernourished explorers. Eventually though the explorers were able to tolerate the bulbs and moved on.

More locally, our Tualatin tribe was known to gather camas bulbs at Graham Oaks Nature Park near Wilsonville. These camas plants are still abundant in areas of the park.

One thing Nez Perce children must have learned at an early age, was to avoid what we now call the Meadow Death Camas (Zigadenus venenosus). This plant also produces a bulb, but is highly toxic and as the name suggests can be fatal. In fact, all parts of the plant are toxic. The flowers look nothing like Common Camas, but the plants grow in the same general conditions. At bulb harvesting time, the adult Nez Perce knew what to look out for and did not gather the toxic bulbs. Botanically speaking, the common and death camas plants are not related at all, but the common name creates this illusion.

Meadow Death Camas flowering in the Columbia River Gorge:

     

There is a wealth of historical articles about the Nez Perce and other Northwest native peoples on the internet. These native Americans knew the land and flora quite well and many of their learnings are still relevant in today's botanical science.