This past weekend we hiked up to Marmot Pass. Called by one guide book writer the Champagne Walk of the Olympic Mountains, it is famed for its wildflowers. We were too late for the wildflowers but timed it perfectly for berries. We saw black, red, blue, pruinose, yellow, and orange ones; yummy, mealy, and disappointing varieties; and ground hugging, shrubby, and sky-reaching plants. It was truly a stunning display of fecundity and hope for future success for what is a berry but an investment in the next generation.
More prosaically, what is a berry? My botany pals would define a berry as a fruitproduced from the ovary of a single flower that has fleshy pulp and multiple seeds. In contrast, a drupe (e.g. avocado and peach) has a stone and pome (e.g. apple and pear) has a core. Then there’s aggregate fruits (not a berry, such as raspberries and blackberries) produced by a single flowerthat has more than one ovary, and accessory fruits (e.g. the non-berry strawberries), which originate from a developing plant part other than the ovary.
Since most of my friends, and I suspect, most of yours are not botanists, or pedants, the more practical definition, and the one that describes what I encountered, is a small, generally edible, pulpy fruit.
By the way, can you name the world’s most popular berry? Until recently I did not know the correct answer and was rather surprised by it. Before providing the answer, let me share some of the “berries” we saw on our hike up to Marmot Pass.
Devil’s Club - One of the more lovely fruiting plants, but also one of the more scary looking, armed with enough spines galore to keep most beasts away. Bears, though, laugh—why shouldn’t they—at such feeble defenses. They consume gazillions of the red fruit, soon depositing them across the landscape, like an ursine Johnny Appleseed, though in a less hands-on, more behind-the-scenes method. Botanists refer to this fecal-based system of seed dispersal as endozoochory and have found that it is a fundamental way that seeds of a many plants are dispersed. Ecologists also refer to diploendozoochory, in which seeds pass through two or more guts, such as when a cougar eats a mourning dove, and poops the remains of the bird, and the berries the bird consumed. Ain’t life and death and poop fascinating? Technically, devil’s club produces drupes not berries.
Serviceberry - Members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition regularly encountered and ate serviceberry, mentioning them 63 times; they could not though agree on spelling the name, which they did 13 different ways, including service, servis, and survice. Most sources claim that the name comes from the shrub’s resemblance to the European service tree (Sorbus sp.). In contrast, William Bryant Logan in his book Oak: The Frame of Civilization, claims the name comes “because its tasty fruits set in spring just about the time that the ground thaws enough to bury the dead.” Serviceberries are actually pomes, like apples.
Juniper - At the high point of our hike, we found one of my favorite subalpine plants, the common juniper. Ground hugging and often overlooked, the needley shrub produces small, pruinose bluish berries. Well, actually they are not berries but are fleshy cones, most famous as the flavoring for gin; the word gin comes from genever, the Dutch name for juniper. Perhaps surprisingly, the species we saw, Juniperus communis, is the species first used in flavoring this gift from the gods; the species is circumboreal, including the Netherlands, the original home of gin.
Salal - Arguably the quintessential understory plant of the PNW, salal produces a dark blue to black fruit, long relished by Native people. David Douglas noted the name as salal, not shallon (the name used by Meriwether Lewis and which is now the specific epithet), and that it was abundant (“as is very correctly observed by Mr. Menzies.”) Douglas first encountered it on April 8, 1825 and wrote: “On stepping on the shore Gaultheria Shallon was the first plant I took in my hands. So pleased was I that I could scarcely see anything but it.” After tasting the fruit, he added: “by far the best in the country; should the seeds now sent home rise, as I hope they may, I have little doubt but it will ere long find a place in the fruit garden as well as in the ornamental.” Nor are these berries; instead they are the swollen sepals encasing the seeds.
Huckleberry - At last, a true berry! In 1859, Henry Custer, a topographer on the Northwest Boundary Survey, summed up many people’s modern experience with this amazing berry. “To withstand the temptation of a large tract literally covered with these delicious berries goes beyond the moral strength…To halt & eat & to eat & halt is all you can do under these circumstances; and if, during an hour or two, you can manage to bring yourself…through one of these belts where these berries grow exclusively, you may say you have done well.” Huckleberry comes from the English whortleberry, also known as bilberry (Nordic origin), blueberry, hurtleberry, and blaeberry (Scottish). Not surprisingly, Lewis and Clark had their usual spelling challenges with the word, going with hucklebury, huckkleberry, and huckleburry.
With autumn in the air—at least I have been grasping at any sign of the impending loveliness of fall that I can—hikers in the mountains will see fewer and fewer wildflowers. We may be saddened by the loss of color and aroma and beauty of the mountain ranges’ floral delights but I know that I found equal pleasure in enjoying and celebrating the bounty of berries, be they berry or drupe, pome or swollen sepal, accessory fruit or otherwise. And, I know that next year, these future nuggets of life will continue the great circle of existence, feeding the senses of human and beast alike.
Perhaps you thought I’d forgotten my question. I have not. Bananas are the most popular berry in the world. In fact, bananas are by far the most popular fruit in the world.
September 6 - Waterfront Park - Opening Day Celebration - I’ll be down at the Waterfront, at the south end (east side of Alaskan Way S, between Yesler Way & S. Washington St.) at 3:00 and 5:00 P.M. giving short talks about the history of this area.
September 14 - Green Lake Walk - 11:00AM - Green Lake Library - I will be leading a free, one-hour, walking tour of the Green Lake neighborhood. Here’s the info to register. You need to call the library.
October 14 - Secrets of Seattle Botany - 6pm - BirdsConnectSeattle - I will talking about what Seattle looked like botanically when the first white settlers arrive. This is a virtual class. Here’s a link to register.
