Slatsz Wildflower Walks 2012: March 27, 2012 - Window Photos - Whitlow Grass

The weather report has been continued cold and wet for the next week or so. I didn’t expect to get out to check the grass widows – Olsynium douglasii [Yeah. I’m trying to get serious with the technical names. They solve some problems and cause others.]

I noticed the unusual fog bank in the dawn and spent some time recording it … in lieu of walking the wildflowers.

I saved a couple of images of Antoine Peak, a couple of images of the Mount Spokane massif with a reflection from the river, one of the crane working in the university district and one of a train headed west on the overpass.

I did walk the wildflowers later. About an hour … 113 images.

I kept an image of a buttercup patch. The Lomatium gormanii are still thriving but I didn’t get images of them.

I saved an image of Bitterroot foliage – Lewisia rediviva with moss growing through its leaves.

I found no sign of buds on the grass widows.

Lots of Lomatium macrocarpum foliage coming on everywhere. I checked the early L. macrocarpum from last year. Burke says it’s a perennial but I see no new growth at its base. There is, however, a lot of young foliage a short distance away.

I just stumbled into a nice passage on Lomatium as a food plant. Seems like he’s talking about L. macrocarpum. [See long quote below.]

I didn’t mark the foliage from the last walkabout that I thought might be yellow bell … on yellow bell hill. I don’t think I found it. But I photographed another plant I thought might be yellow bell foliage. [Burke doesn’t have yellow bell or yellow bells in its list of ‘common names’. Fortunately I can half remember the technical name – Fritillaria pudica. Burke has yellow bells on this page. I see Fritillaria affinis listed as occurring in Spokane County. I’d like to see one. If you know where they flourish, let me know. See email address above.]

Both ponds have lots of water. Still less than last year but they are well filled. The north pond grasses seem to have attracted ducks. I’m not sure there are more than last year but there are quite a few.

I have been concerned that the ‘sub-irrigated’ areas that supported so much life, especially patches of camas last year, would fail this year but that is no longer a concern.

I saw a boy by the south pond and wondered what he was doing. I walked over. I’m sorry I didn’t photograph him and his ‘works’. I was very tired.

The boy was breaking sticks and building something like a dock on the edge of the water.

He said he had only been riding his bike for a long time and wanted to do something different.

As a result of redirecting my route to pass the boy I found the whitlow grass – Draba verna. Nice accident. It’s in very shallow soil on the basalt exposures very close to the shore of the south pond.

I was not too tired to get down and take too many images of those darlings. There was foliage of narrow leaf miner’s lettuce – Montia linearis among them.

Very few whitlow grass blossoms were wide open so I’m willing to believe they haven’t been open long, that they just started this week.

I need to reshoot the whitlow grass in stronger light.

It was sprinkling rain all the time I was there. Apparently I got a couple of drops of rain on the lens of my camera and some images were spoiled. I doctored the easy ones.

I went a little crazy with lichen photos again. I think I got some clarity I haven’t had in the past photos. I wonder if, somehow, the dim light was helpful.

“Manners and Customs of the Coeur d’Alene Indians”, Jerome Peltier, 1975, Peltier Publications, Library of Congress: 75-28892.

P. 34

Almost as popular as camas and hardly less important was another vegetable called Kouse or couse. It belongs to the carrot family and the most common variety is Lomatium kaus.

Kouse differs from camas in the type of soil in which it flourishes. Kouse grows in dry rocky soil and may usually be found on the brow of steep hills. It grows very shallow and is harvested during April or May, making it one of the first vegetal foods available in spring. Its roots are tuberous in character and may be eaten raw or cooked.

After it has been dried and it’s brown outer skin is scraped off, it can be reduced to a flour with a pestle and mortar. It then may be used in a soup or may be preserved in bricks for use at a later time. Kouse was called ‘biscuit root’ by early explorers because it tasted like stale biscuits when dried. It tasted like parsnips, however, when eaten raw.

Bricks were made by moistening the powdered kouse and forming it with the hands on a flat piece of wood, which was suspended over the campfire, and partly baked. After this the bricks were pierced with a sharp object and a thong was passed through the hole. Several bricks were strung on one string and in this manner they could be transported or hung on teepee poles for preservation and future use. [26] Lewis and Clark described some bricks of kouse that they saw, and gave their dimensions as six inches wide, eighteen inches long and one and one quarter inches thick. [27] Joel Palmer saw some with much large dimensions viz. three feet long, one foot wide and one forth to one half inch thick. [28] One can judge from this that the size of the bricks depended upon the maker and the storage area into which they were to be placed.

It remained edible for a long time whether in powder form, brick form or dried. And it could be eaten without cooking in any of these three forms.

Another root that was popular with the Coeur d’Alene Indians was the Lewisia rediviva. Piper wrote that the roots are ‘thick, fusiform, often forked’. [29] Joel Palmer said that it was so nutritious that an ounce [dried] was sufficient for one meal. [30] Many other roots were also eaten. Sunflower seeds were very nutritious and were eaten either raw or in the form of small fired cakes made of ground seed meal. Their botanical cognomen is Helianthus.”

Two varieties of Camas, white and blue were collected. [White camas is not ‘death camas’.] Camas preparation is treated extensively. So is black pine moss … iron rations, it seems, as were the inner bark of pines and pine nuts … pine nuts said to be delicious but labor intensive.

Wild carrots and wild celery are mentioned. Wild celery as ‘a great delicacy’, usually ready in June. Anyone know where wild celery can be found locally?

Antoine Peak is the lump on the end. A landmark for travelers looking for Plante's Ferry before there were bridges across the river

I used to work these trains. But headed in the other directions. I still feel their thunder in my bones.

The buttercups are still few but they are coming on.

No sign of a bud on the grass widow foliage.

A little pine.

Lots of Lomatium macrocarpum foliage showing up.

I'm pretty sure this is the stump of the earliest L. macrocarpum to bloom last year. Burke says it's perennial but I see no sign of life near the stump.