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| Catclaw Acacia (foreground) and Blue Paloverde (background). Katrina Poppe Photo |
An icy gale scoured the stony
landscape at Joshua Tree National Park and our dreams of bounding across
boulder tops through a sun saturated Seussian landscape were chilled. Fearing
the same frozen fate as Service’s “Sam McGee” (albeit in a desert of a much different sort), we sought refuge further south
and several thousand feet lower at the Salton Sea.
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| Climbing stairs in Painted Canyon |
We worked our way around the perimeter
of the lake seeking out birding hotspots, exploring dry-land edibles and
interesting landscapes. We camped in the Painted Canyon, near Mecca on the
north end of the Salton Sea and enjoyed a spectacular evening of star gazing
around a warm campfire. In the morning we hiked into the Painted Canyon
wilderness area and were taken by the colorful geology plowed by the San Andreas Fault and eroded by countless flash floods into a labyrinth of
slot canyons amidst a matrix of badlands.
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| The Painted Canyon in the glow of our campfire |
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| Catclaw Acacia growing along a narrow wash |
Blue Paloverde (Parkinsonia florida) and Catclaw Acacia (Acacia greggii) grow abundantly on the sandy washes and canyon
floors. Infrequent flash floods likely obliterate these shrubs, but the grinding
of floodwaters, laden with sand and a healthy seed bank, scarifies the Paloverde
and Acacia seeds and enables a flush of new seedlings to germinate in the moist
soils following the flood. The seeds of both Blue Paloverde and Catclaw Acacia are edible
and traditional foods of the Inviatim (Cahuilla), Akimel O’otham (Pima), and other
desert dwelling peoples (Moerman).
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| Mature seedpods on the blue-green twigs of Blue Paloverde |
Blue Paloverde is a tall deciduous shrub
to small tree that reaches 35 feet tall. The stems are blue-green and have thorns
that arise alternately along the new growth in the leaf axils. Leaves are bipinnately compound with 1-3 pairs of blue green leaflets per pinna and 2 pinnae per leaf. Seed pods are 1-2.25 inches long
and hang singly from a 0.25 inch stalk. Each seed pod typically contains 2 grey
brown beans that are 3/8 of an inch long and slightly narrower with rounded rectangular
outline.
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| Seed pods and beans of Blue Paloverde (scale in cm) |
When parched on a pan with a little oil,
I found Blue Paloverde beans to be very crunchy but with a flavor similar to
black beans. The Inviatim traditionally ground or pounded the beans into a flour
and mixed them with water to make a porridge, or further dried the mixture into
cakes. The Pima traditionally eat the green pods raw during the summer.
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| Leaf, seedpod, and bean of Catclaw Acacia |
Catclaw Acacia is also a large thorny deciduous
shrub or small tree that reaches 35 feet tall. Twigs are light brown with dark
streaks and recurved thorns. Leaves are bipinnately compound. Leaflets are ¼ inch
long or smaller, grey green, and arranged in pairs of 5-9 along the pinnae. One
to three pairs of pinnae comprise a leaf. Seedpods arise singly or in clusters
on long stalks. Pods are 2-6 inches long with constrictions between each of the
beans. Beans are 3/8 to 1/2 inch long with an oval outline.
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| Raw Catclaw Acacia beans (scale in cm) |
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| Parched Catclaw Acacia beans |
The Catclaw Acacia beans pop when
roasted as the seed coat splits away from the cotyledon. My only experiment
eating a single mature roasted bean was not pleasant. While the roasted cotyledon initially had the flavor and texture of a roasted pine nut, the
aftertaste was acrid and continued to burn the tip of my tongue and the back of
my throat for several minutes. What little literature I can find on traditional
preparations indicates that young beans are preferentially harvested. Once dry,
the beans are ground, mixed with water, and made into cakes that can be stored
for later use. I can only speculate that early season harvesting may be a way
of avoiding acrid chemicals, and that dry storage and soaking in water might serve
as a means of volatilizing or leaching what acrid constituents remain. It will
probably be a long time before I can get back to the Desert SW to pick the
immature beans, but in the meantime, I welcome comments from anyone who has eaten
them more successfully. According to “Tamalpakh, Cahuilla Indian Knowledge and
Usage of Plants” by Bean and Saubel (1972), the young pods can also be eaten fresh.
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| A young Date Palm plantation |
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| A nice cluster of dates |
Along the shores of the Salton Sea near Mecca, large plantations of Date Palms (Phoenix dactylifera) can be found.
