but the berries

Now at the end of a magnificent August on the west coast of North America, including good times in San Francisco, Portland, and Vancouver, all of which did their best to remind me of why they're the foundation of my urbanist values.  More on those soon, I hope, but meanwhile, just before I run for the plane, some sensations.

In their indispensable if staid Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Pojar & Mackinnon note that fully half of the shrubs native to the region produce some kind of berry, and almost all of them ripen in August and September.

These are the days when the forest feeds you.  If I were a food photographer, I'd know how to photograph these tastes in a way that brings forth your desire.  Such photographers will tell you, for example, that a photo of a cup of coffee is pretty uninspiring, and that if you want a picture of how good coffee tastes, a picture that will make you want a cup of coffee, you should photograph a cup of molasses. 

But I am incapable of such feints.

Berry, of course, is not a botanical term.  It means "little fruit" more or less, but says nothing about the plant responsible, or the taste that can be expected.  Berries blue-, huckle-, and cran- (Vaccinium) belong to the heath family, with its characteristic bell-shaped flowers and smooth globes of fruit.

Rasp- and black- are Rubus (as are salmon- and thimble-) and are related to roses (hence the thorns).

Straw- (Fragaria) is also rose family, but on a different, less thorny branch.  And elder- and goose- are unrelated to any of these.  

This is the sort of knowledge that makes life harder, not easier.  You thought you knew what a "berry" smoothie tastes like, didn't you?  But really, which berry?  What could these different little fruits have in common?

Comments

[dale]

Martha and I were marveling at all the berries at the Coast last week. In particular, there were two definitely different species of plant that were producing berries that were identical, except for their arrangement (one in clusters, the other -- is palmately the word? -- alternating one by one. But the berries themselves were indistinguishable.

[hele]

What do they have in common?

Why, they are all berries.

[Jarrett]

Dale: Tough one. I'd need pictures, I think.

Hele: That sounds like a truth cycle ;)

[Teresa Gilman]

Well, your photographs brought forth MY desire. To be in the woods on the west coast right now. Especially that last one. And even the blurry backgrounds pulled me in.

Jarrett, have you ever had lakka [a.k.a. cloudberries]? They are like giant rasp- or black- but are golden/apricotty colored. And absolutely delicious. I have only encountered them in Finland and Scandinavia, but they must grow in other [perhaps boreal] parts of the world.

I look forward to your further posts about this trip.

bon voyage!

Teresa

[Philip]

Well the pictures may not always work, but the text inspires desire. I've always found the lack of wild fruit in Australia rather disappointing. I remember being interested in bush tucker when I first got into botany, but the fact is most of the so-called bush tucker is edible rather than palatable. Today in New Caledonia I ate one of the reasonable ones that's shared with Australia, Rubus rosifolius, a rather watery member relative of blackberry and raspberry, and up near the summit of Mont Moné I started snacking on an interesting tasting fruit that I think was Myrtaceous, before checking myself, wondering "Should I really be eating plants that I don't know?" and an even stranger concern being in New Caledonia "Will this fruit give me nickel poisoning?"

[Jarrett]

Teresa: No, I haven't tasted a cloudberry. Salmonberries are the closest thing to them in the Pacific Northwest rainforest.

Phil: I agree with you about bush tucker in Australia. Useful for survival purposes only.