A Checkered Past - Edgewood Checker/Chocolate Lily

Fritillaria affinis

Checker or Chocolate

Lily is my beloved

Fritillaria.

Are you more checkered or chocolate? Once the Lamishin people dug your roots and bulbs for supper. But they ate a lot of things I'm glad I don't have to.

I prefer just enjoying your exotic checkery blooms, that I see only occasionally along Edgewood Nature Preserve's oak woodland trails in the early spring. I'm awfully glad I don't find the need to turn you into fritillary stew.

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If English isn't your first language. "A checkered past" refers  to people who have done improper things in the past - either unacceptable social behavior or illegal things - but now are somewhat reformed.
~ ~ ~

Web Resources

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritillaria_affinis

Edgewood Nature Preserve http://www.friendsofedgewood.org

Yerba Santa: Just What the Doctor Ordered? (Hiking Edgewood)

Yerba Santa, the Holy Herb, is once more in bloom,

 at the Edgewood Preserve. 

On the last two docent hikes I led, a lot of folks have been asking my questions about how Yerba Santa was used historically. The following is extracted from a report that I wrote for a CA native plant class. 

Yerba Santa has long been used in traditional medicines by people in California. This information, however, is for interest only. I have no idea if any medical research supports using Yerba Santa in any of this ways, or if the plant is safe to chew, swallow, or apply to your skin.

What do you call it? Well for starters, It's a Hydropyllaceae, a.k.a. That's the Waterleaf family to those in the know.

The plant itself may be called... Eriodictyon californicum Yerba Santa, Mountain balm, Palo Santo, Holy Plant , or Holy Herb . “Yerba Santa” translates from Spanish into English as “Holy Herb’. 

Yerba Santa has been used locally as a medicine, both by pre-contact (native) peoples, and the Spaniards who came after 1769.

It’s scientific name Eriodic'tyon comes from the Greek erion, "wool," and diktuon, "net", because the undersides of some of the leaves have a fuzzy look. The species name simply means it’s found in California.

Physical Description
This plant is an evergreen shrub that grows to about waist height at Edgewood, though it can grow to be 3 meters tall. When Edgewood Yerba Santa begins blooming, preserve visitors on my docent walks take quite an interest in it. They ask me, "Why is it all black like that?". The black part they're asking about is leaves have a faint odor and  are typically infected with a black fungus, Heterosporium. The virus is not thought to hurt the plant, but it makes the leaves look ugly. 

Preferred Habitat
Yerba Santa is a typical chaparral plant. It grows profusely in this preserve on serpentine soil, in colonies that grow from shoots of shared underground roots.

Animal Uses including Human
Butterflies find the nectar of Yerba Santa very attractive.

“Yerba Santa was highly valued by many California tribes including the Salinan, Ohlone, Miwok, Pomo, and Yokuts who continue to use it for various medicinal purposes. The Spanish who came to early California were so impressed with the plant that they gave it the name Yerba Santa, meaning holy plant. Yerba Santa was introduced to the Spanish Padres 
at Mission San Antonio de Padua by the Salinan tribe and it became one of three major medicinal herbs used at the mission. The plants can be harvested at any stage, but are best in the fall when the leaves are sticky and aromatic. 

The Kashaya Pomo recommend gathering the leaves just before the plant begins to produce flowers. The leaves, stems and flowers are used . They are either eaten or made into a tea, decoction, or poultice. The flowers and the bitter, aromatic leaves may be used fresh or dried. The leaves and flowers were made into a “bitter or sweetish-soapy” tasting tea that was drunk to relieve headaches and other symptoms of tuberculosis. 

Infusions of Yerba Santa  leaves and flowers were used to treat fevers, coughs, colds, stomachaches asthma, rheumatism pleurisy, and to purify the blood. The Kawaiisu drank Yerba Santa tea instead of water for a month to treat gonorrhea. The Salinan used an infusion of the leaves as a balm for the eyes. Later, those at the San Antonio mission made eye balm by placing the leaves in corked glass bottles and allowing them to sweat in the sun.

Leaves were smoked or chewed to relieve asthma, coughs, colds, headaches, and stomachaches. Heated leaves were placed on the forehead to relieve headaches and other aches and sores. The sticky leaves conveniently stay in place upon the skin. Mashed leaves were applied externally to sores, cuts, wounds, and aching muscles. Mashed leaves were also used to reduce the swelling and relieve pain caused by bone  fractures . Yerba Santa, used alone or combined with other herbs, was applied to infected 
sores on humans and animals. The branches and leaves were burned in steam baths to treat rheumatism. 

Other Uses
The Ohlone wove the leaves into skirts and aprons. I wonder if they included those pretty purple flowers into the designs :-)

Wildlife: Bees visit the flowers of Yerba Santa, which make a deliciously spicy amber honey. Seedlings and young plants are relatively nutritious and palatable but the bitter compounds in mature Yerba Santa shrubs discourage most large herbivores. However it is an important forage crop for black- tailed deer in the winter when other food sources are unavailable. Birds and small mammals eat the seed capsules.

Livestock: Goats will sometimes eat the leaves and stems. Cattle will avoid Yerba Santa in favor of more palatable plants, which can be a problem in highly grazed areas where it can become the dominant plant. Because of it's nature preserve status there are no longer livestock here, but the Spanish certainly grazed cattle in local meadows.

Yerba Santa can be used for rehabilitating and stabilizing disturbed areas. The seeds germinate readily in disturbed soils. The shallow, spreading root system can help to stabilize areas subject to erosion caused by runoff. 

Bay Laurel, Umbellularia californica, in Bloom (HIking Edgewood)

California Bay Laurel
Umbellularia californica
 is in bloom now at Edgewood Nature Preserve

I was surprised to find that California Bay Laurel already in bloom at Edgewood on a New Years Day hike at that preserve. I could have sworn it didn't bloom that early last year.

Below are some historical human uses I gleaned about this noble plant, when I prepared a field trip report for the California Native Plants class at Cañada College last year.

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I’ve met several people who substitute California Bay Laurel leaves for the Mediterranean Bay Laurel (Laurus nobilis) . Kozloff (p. 248)  agrees with this practice saying “They (the leaves) can be used for seasoning but have a stronger flavor than L.Nobilis.”

However, in 1976 then UCSC Environmental Studies professor Ray Collett[1]told his students, of which I was then one, that the leaves of the California Bay Laurel were poisonous and should not be used to flavor food. Toni Corelli[2]takes a middle ground saying that “Leaf oils may be toxic to some people.”

Corelli also says that native people used the leaves “medicinally to cure headache and as a tea for stomach ailments. Oils from the leaves were rubbed on the body to ease rheumatism. Leaves were also spread on floors to repel fleas; boughs were buned to fumigate lodgings and to fight colds. The nuts were roasted, cracked and eaten.”

The Ohlone weren’t the last people to use the leaves against bugs. At UCSC in the mid 1970’s my college roommate used the leaves to attempt to rid our room of fleas.  Ray Collett also suggested that students who suffered from bedbugs try the leaves.

Modern use, other than firewood, includes woodworking. Woodworkers, include environmentally contentious landscape refuse salvagers, use the wood for a variety of wood craft, including these lovely little Dryad flutes.[3] The makers of the Dryad Flute says, “It is valued by woodworkers for its beauty and the variety of figure and coloring in its wood.  It is considered a tonewood by luthiers (luthiers make guitars as well as other lute-related instruments) for its ability to reflect the sound wave without deadening the tone. “

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[1] http://members.cruzio.com/~rayc/about.html

[2]Toni Corelli  Flowering Plants of Edgewood Natural Preserve Second Edition 2004 Monocot Press, Half Moon Bay CA

[3] http://www.dryadflutes.com/205BayLaurelinA.html

By the Waterfall: Late Blooming Honeysuckle

There are a few stray blooms of honeysuckle blooming in latish June near the waterfall on the Sylvan Trail in Edgewood Park. This is one of my favorite spots for a bit of time travel. You just couldn't find a better time portal than a shady glen like this.

 It's the spot where I took a short trip back to visit with an Ohlone Rumsen family group last fall.

Remember? Here's the story

        - Indian Summer at Edgewood (No. 1) Creekside 

        - Indian Summer at Edgewood (No 2) : Oak Apples

       - Indian Summer at Edgewood (No. 3): Rose Hips

(Co-Published with ...

The Simple Romantic Travels Through Time )

Mariposa: The Time Travellin' Spud

(Co-Published with The Simple Romantic) 

Click on my Jolly Mariposa Lily Illustration Above to Get Up Close and Personal 

With This Native Darling

Mariposa, as I bet you know, is the Spanish word for "butterfly". That was what this beauty's petals, apparently, made some early botanist thing about when they first saw this late spring/early summer flower.

On my morning study break, I took a time travel jaunt back to the middle of the 18'th century. There I found that the native Lamishan (an Ohlone people) think it's equally fanciable as a taste treat.  The group I met up with were digging up the bulbs of this (as we'll as some of the  other local Calochortus). One of the women told me that her cousins up valley usually boil or roast them. Her folks, however, like them fried. The results looked, and tasted, much like what  I do with a friendly spud.

Ohlone Autumn

Ohlone Autumn

Edgewood Park, San Mateo County, CA

Click on the illustration to enlarge.

Every time I'm sure I know what's ahead of me on the path, I get surprised.  

Indian Summer at Edgewood (No. 3): Rose Hips

Indian Summer Rose Hips

Edgewood County Park, San Mateo County, CA

Previous Segments in this Mini Story Series

Indian Summer at Edgewood

1.  Creekside 

2. Indian Summer: Oak Apples

After the Ohlone folks had finished their dye-making, fishing, and berry gathering projects we all settled down to a spot of relaxation and recreation in the late afternoon sun. A big-eyed girl I took to be about twelve years old marshaled three younger children into a sort of impromptu performance of different kinds of animals. 

The littlest girl, probably three or four, was adept at bouncing of her haunches and wiggling her nose like a rabbit. Of course she got got the loudest murmurs of appreciation. The two other kids, both boys, switched back and forth between pouncing like a cougar, or maybe a bobcat- onto the rabbit, swiping down fall berries - that was obviously a bear, and yipping and howling like a coyote. The also put on quite a very credible show involving a Western fence lizard (I recognized those push-up motions), and what was obviously a rattlesnake surprised in the act of devouring what I thought might be a gopher. The gopher, in this case, won. It had to win since it was the tiny girl doing her best. Nobody in her clan was going to sit idly by and watch her be turned into rattlesnake fodder. Even the rattlesnake seemed relieved when she got away.

Then the older girl began to emit a kind of buzzing noise and began to flap her arms about a cleared section of the creek. She did a lot of dipping and diving in on the older of the two boys who sat in mock stoic silence, giving every impression of an animal at his wit's end, unwilling to give in to persecution. At this point, I was starting to have a little trouble following the story line, as dictated in a sing-song voice by grandmother. 

I suppose my confusion was obvious because the small band took pity on me and the director stopped her humming to give a direction to the older boy. I'm pretty sure she told him something along the lines of, "Let's move it along, Bud." 

The boy came to life and began to snap, yip and growl at the irritating creature who was clearly making his life a misery. Before she'd had a chance to respond another buzz, pitched much higher than the big-eyed thespian, began to sound just above our heads. 

When the jewel-toned throat of the Anna's hummingbird came into view everybody began laughing, pointing back and forth between the tiny bird and the oldest girl, who had resumed her darting, buzzing dance.

By the time coyote had consumed the pesky hummingbird, who of course didn't let that stop her fun, dusk was beginning to settle creekside.

It was time for me to hop into the closest time portal and head home.

* * *

Here's a link to an English version of some Ohlone stories, like the ones I heard down by the creek. There's one about Coyote and Hummingbird, which might be something similar to the one I heard that day. I still think the Rumsien version, and the acting talent I witnessed in past times Edgewood Park was the best version!

Indian Summer at Edgewood (No. 2): Oak Apple

 

Edgewood Oak Apple
Please click on the illustration above to get the full picture 

Yesterday I wrote a journal entry about the beginning of a trip back 300 years in time,  to visit with a small group of Ohlone people in, what is today called, Edgewood Park. (Indian Summer at Edgewood (No. 1): Creekside.


Having slid through the time portal on the seat of my pants, I dusted the leaves off and greeted the small group working along the edge of the creek. Though busy fishing, foraging for late berries, and cutting sedge, they still seemed glad to have a visitor drop by.


Unfortunately, I'd forgotten my iPad with it's Rumsien dictionary pdf download at home. Luckily, I remembered how to say i (yes). We smiled a lot too.  


Though the creek is low it had produced a few steelhead trout. Have you  noticed that fish tastes better when somebody else cooks it? Somehow the berries tasted sweeter than the modern ones too. I'm pretty sure that if you add a beer that would be a nutritionally complete meal. 


Some of the women were gathering up oak apples( which you maybe call oak galls) and smashing them with pestles, using a big flat rock to pound them against. About the only thing I've ever seen anybody use oak apples for, was the time my friend Suzanne painted a bunch of them as ornaments for her holiday craft booth. She never made those again, after she hung the leftovers on her warmly lit Christmas tree and the gall wasps started hatching out of the little manager scenes. I don't think she ever went back to that particular craft fair to hear what happened to the ones she sold either.


Turns out the people by the creek weren't making manager scenes. They cooked the busted up oak galls in a very tightly woven basket of water and rocks made intensely hot from their fire. When I saw the clan grandmother begin to stuff dried sheaves of sedge into the deep black liquid that emerged from the galls, I finally understood how they were using the galls.


Grandmother saw me looking, smiled back, and pointed at the dark design on the container holding the last of the blackberries. She said something in Rumsien that was as clear to me now as English, even if I didn't understand the actual words she spoke. 


Did I think the gall dyed sedge make pretty baskets?


I grinned back.


I, absolutely i.

Indian Summer at Edgewood

Part 1: Creekside

Part 3: Rose Hips

* * *

How to make black dye from oak apples 

Ethnographic Records of Ohlone, Chumash and other California Native Languages

A bit about the Rumsen/Rumsien Language

There were other Ohlone langues in addition to Rumsien. They include Mutsun, and Chochenyo. There are people speaking these languages today.

A bit about the Ohlone People

Indian Summer at Edgewood (No. 1): Creekside

I've read that the term Indian Summer had to do with the land of India, but Wikipedia says it's a Native American reference. 


Wikipedia's not always right. So everybody can decide on their own, or read something academic and let me know, eh?


I do know that Indian Summer is on full display right now in Edgewood Park, a county park nature reserve five minutes (driving) from Cañada College
where I take classes.


The Ohlone tribe were the first people who lived and gathered food in this area. If I slide down the bank of this creek into it's time passage, I might meet up with a few Ohlone. Could have still been a few fish down in this creek 300 years ago, 

Indian Summer at Edgewood

Part 2:  Oak Apples

Part 3: Rose Hips