Environmental Study of Lechtenberg Park

[Racoon]

Make sure its the 'right' camas bulbs and to boil them..

Looks like Onions of the West Cascades to me.
Injuns new how to flavor their food and salads

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Racoon

Make sure its the 'right' camas bulbs and to boil them..

Looks like Onions of the West Cascades to me.
Injuns new how to flavor their food and salads

I collected the plants while they were blooming, so I know that most if not all in the bunch are Blue Camas, the edible kind. That's not to say there were not some Death Camas in the group that weren't blooming, as I have read the 2 often grow together. I won't be eating any until I am well assured of what I have.

“The roots used are numerous; but the wappatu, or sagittaria, and the kamas are the principal. These are found in great quantities, the former in ponds, the latter in the prairies, particularly such as are wet; and they were formerly a great article of trade with the interior. Besides these, the roots of the sunflower and fern are largely used,, and a small white root of rather insipid, taste. From the fern, ‘they make a species of flour which is baked into bread. The kamas season is in the latter part of May and June, and then as well as in the fall when the sunflower is dug, the prairies are dotted over with squaws, each armed with a sharp stake and a basket, busily engaged in digging them. At these times, camps are generally found near the skirts of timber which border the open lands for the convenience of gathering and preserving. The kamas is baked in the ground, a hole being first dug and heated with stones, and the root covered over with twigs and earth. There are numerous other roots and plants used in their fresh state" (Gibbs 1877:193-4).

Chinook and Clatsop Traditional Culture - Seasonal Round

Circumstances permitting, I'll make a Fall trip to Lechtenberg before the forest is flooded.

[Turtle]

well over a year since i visited the park, i noticed as i updated the log in post #1. well, life is what happens while you're making plans.

so i went to the park sunday the 19th of july & mainly to gather some wildflower seeds. couldn't resist having a look at the old trail & i set out through the brush to find my trailhead about 50 feet in. while overgrown a bit, it was distinct enough to follow & i set off. long story short, i got lost!!! combination of confusion (i lose something nearly everytime i go so i'm constantly checking to be sure i haven't dropped anything. ), overgrowth, and some large branches and maybe whole trees that have blown down since last year.

anyway, while i was stumbling around (and around ) i noticed quite a few patches of trillium in areas devoid of the snowberry thickets under the vine maples. the blooms were long gone, & some of the plants had golfball sized deep-purple fruit setting on top and wrapped with 3 still-green sepals. the plants had a single stalk 8" to 12" tall, the all-green leaves stemless and 6" long & 5" wide. some of the fruit were firm & plump, as you will see below in my photo, and on many of the plants the fruit had rotted down to a pulpy mess & revealing little piles of light colored seeds. i collected a few dozen of these seeds, thus fullfilling the intent of my expedition, if not the specific goals.

so anyway.....seems this trillium can be no other than smallflowered trillium, and i find in looking for the id that its conservation status is listed as sensitive. so, here we go thenss. . . . . . . . .

July 19,2009

fruit of Smallflower Trillium - Trillium parviflorum Soukup
also called smallflower wakerobin

PLANTS Profile for Trillium parviflorum (smallflower wakerobin) | USDA PLANTS

conservation status listed as sensitive at the Burke Museum site: http://biology.burke.washington.edu/...es=parviflorum

[freeztar]

Nice find!

Did you identify it mainly based on range, or what other factors did you use?

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by freeztar

Nice find!

Did you identify it mainly based on range, or what other factors did you use?

i checked the Burke Museum site first to see what trillium were recorded here in washington, then looked at each species for their particular descriptions at Burke, USDA, and other web sources. i thought i recorded a trillium in this thread, but if i did i can't find it. sessile trillium i think it was.
anyway, in all that looking i never saw a single photo of any trillium in fruit or even a mention of the fruits so that didn't help, and since i had no flower either, it was down to some particulars such as the flower having or not having a stem raising it above the leaves, the size of the leaves, height of the stalk, and whether or not the leaves were splurched with purple.

i have some more material to process & post from the same day-trip, though with a bit of crossover to the Wilflowers thread. 2 hours in the field=1 week of work in the labs.

. . . . . . . . . .

[Turtle]

ok after all that recent reading on trilliums in my environs and then i mentioned sessile trillium in the last post and all of a sudden it sounded wrong. i think i got that id idea from a too-general of a field guide, as now that i look tonight i see sessile trillium is an eastern US species. cedars & freezy have trained me well.

i see i do have sessile trillium listed in the index in post #1, though i don't know what post i mentioned it in and i apparently never put a photo up, or at least i can't find it among any images i have posted here. i often don't do the whole week of lab work the 2 field-hours require. undaunted, i searched my disk tonight & indeed i found a trillium-in-flower-photo that i took april of 2008 in lechtenberg. i'd say it's the same species as i found fruiting last weekend and have id'd as smallflower trillium. whatcha think y'all? . . . . . . .

[freeztar]

I knew something didn't smell right. (That's a double entendre, btw)

Fruits dark reddish purple or maroon, fragrance not reported, subglobose, ± 1 cm, ± juicy. 2n = 10.

Trillium parviflorum in Flora of North America @ efloras.org

That looks about right judging from the photo, but scale can distort. You got a measurement on that fruit?

In the case of sessile, it's easy to see why you got confused as both can carry the common name of small flower trillium. It also doesn't help that the bracts of parviflorum are sessile.

Cheers!

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by freeztar

I knew something didn't smell right. (That's a double entendre, btw)

Originally Posted by Freater

Trillium parviflorum in Flora of North America @ efloras.org

That looks about right judging from the photo, but scale can distort. You got a measurement on that fruit?

In the case of sessile, it's easy to see why you got confused as both can carry the common name of small flower trillium. It also doesn't help that the bracts of parviflorum are sessile.

Cheers!

roger all. went looking a bit more & found there is a trillium whose common name is sessile, but not the species name, and one whose species name is sessile but not its common name. neither of my fieldguides have the smallflower trillium, which as i say i found at that Burke Museum website.

the fruit was about 1 1/2" tall and about 1" wide. i left the ruler out of the photo as i figured my fingers gave good enough scale. your link says 1cm fruit, which doesn't fit what i found (1 12/" = ~4cm). reading at your link though, i see the matter of identifying this species is not settled at all, and that there is considerable variation in its size. and what the heck does 2n = 10 mean there? thanks for the new plant site too; will be favoriting that.

Trillium parviflorum in Flora of North America @ efloras.org

Originally Posted by eFloras

...Some western botanists, more experienced with local populations than I, do not consider Trillium parviflorum to be distinct from T. albidum. They point out that since there is an extensive region of apparent intergradation (as indeed there is, well supported by herbarium vouchers), there exists a morphological cline from the long- and wide-petaled T. albidum to the narrower- and generally shorter-petaled T. parviflorum, and that T. parviflorum, therefore, should not be considered a separate species but rather a subspecies or a variety. Since no one to date has treated T. parviflorum at the subspecific or varietal level, and since in my own limited experience it does appear as a distinct species in Washington north of the Columbia River, I include it here as treated by Soukup. ...

[Turtle]

seeds of Smallflower Trillium - Trillium parviflorum Soukup
minor scale divisions 1/32"