Yellow Bell

The Methow Valley in north central Washington is a paradise of plants that explodes with color during the short period between the bitter cold winters and the dry dusty summers. For the last several years on mother’s day weekend, Katrina and I have traveled over the Cascade Crest to explore eastside edibles, hunt for morels, and participate in the Sunflower Run. The snowpack on Highway 20 was so deep this year that it took crews until May 8^th to clear the road. Similarly, the wildflowers were delayed in their phenology. I had the pleasure of catching the Yellow Bells (Fritillaria pudica) in bloom for the first time in the Methow Valley, and got my first taste of this delicate but filling root vegetable.

Immature seed capsule

Yellow Bell bulb with bulblets

It is easy to see that Yellow Bell is closely related to two edible lilies found on the west side. Like Chocolate Lily (Fritillaria affinis) and Northern Riceroot (F. camschatcensis), Yellow Bell has a bulbous root that is surrounded by numerous bulblets that resemble grains of rice. These break off easily while being dug by bears, rodents, humans, and other animals, and are an important mechanism of plant regeneration. The large central bulb begins to push up a sprout when the first fall rains moisten forest openings in the pine forests, but this sprout stays far enough below the soil surface to avoid damage from the ensuing bite of winter cold. With a head start on the spring, the plant grows rapidly as soon as the snow has melted and takes advantage of the ample soil moisture to sprout an upright stem with 2-8 sporadically arranged narrow leaves, and 1-3 hanging bell-shaped flowers that emerge yellow and age to a bright orange. The petals blush and fall away quickly after the flowers have been pollinated (hense the species epithet pudica meaning "shy" in Latin) and the stems straighten to produce upright cylindrical seed pods that split into three chambers and disperse flattened seeds.

Yellow Bell grows in shrub-steppe and mixed coniferous forests at low to mid elevations. They can be found east of the Cascade crest from Kamloops Lake in southern British Columbia southward to the Klamath Mountains and Modoc Plateau in northern California. They are also found sporadically throughout the Rocky Mountains south of Kimberly BC to northwest Colorado. The eastward range extends through Montana and a few places in North Dakota.

Yellow Bells are probably a traditional food among all the Native American tribes that share the plant's range. The Nlaka’pamux (Thompson), Shuswap, Syilx (Okanogan), Spokan, Paiute, Blackfoot, and Ute ate the bulbs fresh, steamed, or boiled (Moerman). The Nlaka’pamux and Sylix welcomed the flowers as an early sign of spring, and immediately collected the bulbs (Teit 1930) along with those of Glacier Lily (Erythronium grandiflorum); these roots were often steamed in an earthen pit for 15 minutes and then sun dried on mats for use throughout the rest of the year (Turner et al. 1980; Turner et al. 1990).

Mt. Potato (left) and Yellow Bell (right)

Challenged by my camping companions to produce a wild food meal, I set out with my diggings stick to locate some Yellow Bells. I found them growing abundantly in an open Ponderosa Pine and Douglas Fir forest with Mountain Potatoes (Claytonia lanceolata). Since they are relatively shallow rooted plants, I was able to dig both species out of the gravelly soil quickly. To ensure future harvests, I replanted the flat rootlet-covered disc at the base of each Yellow Bell bulb as well as all the small bulblets that easily broke from the main bulb. After 45 minutes, I had about 15 Yellow Bell bulbs and 50 Mountain Potato tubers- enough for a meal. Yellow Bell bulbs are the shape of pattypan squash and have a starchy bland flavor when raw. I boiled them with the Mountain Potato tubers, roasted sausage, and some wild rice that I had brought along, and seasoned the broth with freshly harvested Bare-stem Desert Parsley (Lomatium nudicaule) leaves. Cooked, Yellow Bell bulbs are slightly sweeter than raw and have a smoother, corn starch texture. Though I only had time to harvest enough for a single serving, the soup was a hit and everyone got a taste.

A lineup of Yellow Bell bulbs, the one on the left still has the basal disc attached

Yellow Bells have a similar nutrient profile to a potato but have 50 percent more protein, six times as much calcium, and nearly 30 times more iron (Norton et al. 1984). At 64 calories per 100g fresh weight, Yellow Bell bulbs have more caloric value than Common Camas (61 cal/100g) but less than Northern Riceroot (98 cal/100g). Yellow Bells are slightly higher in fat and much higher in calcium but lower in carbohydrates than both Common Camas and Northern Riceroot (Kuhnlein and Turner 1991).

Sources:

Biota of North America Program, North American Vascular Flora, North American Plant Atlas, Fritillaria pudica distribution

Calflora, Taxon Report 3641, Fritillaria pudica

Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria, Fritillaria pudica

Kuhnlein, Harriet V. and Nancy J. Turner 1991. “Traditional Plant Foods of Canadian Indigenous Peoples, Nutrition, Botany, and Use.” Food and Nutrition in History and Anthropology, Volume 8, Gordon and Breach Publishers.

Moerman, Dan. “Native American Ethnobotany” University of Michigan Herbarium.

Norton, Helen H., Eugen S. Hunn, C. S. Martinsen, and P. B. Keely 1984. “Vegetable Food Products of the Foraging Economies of the Pacific Northwest.” Ecology of Food and Nutrition, Volume 14, pages 219-228.

Teit, James 1930. “Ethnobotany of the Thompson Indians of British Columbia.” Annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, US Government Printing Office, Washington DC.

Turner, Nancy J. Randy Bouchard, and Dorothy Kennedy 1980. “Ethnobotany of the Okanagan-Colville Indians of British Columbia and Washington.” Occasional Paper Series No. 21, British Columbia Provincial Museum, Victoria BC.

Turner, Nancy J., Laurence C. Thompson, M. Terry Thompson, and Annie Z. York 1990. “Thompson Ethnobotany, Knowledge and Usage of Plants by the Thompson Indians of British Columbia.” Royal British Columbia Museum Memoir No. 3. Victoria, BC.

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Bitterroot Mts live up to their name.

The branching taproot of Bitterroot

A few weeks ago Katrina and I traveled to Missoula for the Northwest Scientific Association Conference. She presented her Master’s research and we both attended several great talks related to fire ecology, wetlands, climate change, and bryology. We made a point of leaving some time to explore the dry slopes around Missoula for early spring edible roots. In particular, I was keen to find Bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva), and a type of biscuit root called Cous Root (Lomatium cous), since both are traditional root vegetables of major importance to Native Americans throughout the dryland forests of Columbia River watershed.

The large Bitterroot flowers range from pink to white.

Wild onions

When we arrived in Missoula, the north slopes of all the surrounding mountains were still covered with snow from a late winter blizzard. I was worried that we were too early and the plants would still be dormant, but just like in the Cascades, the perennial roots had quickly sprung up after the snow melted. It even snowed a few inches one morning, but hastily melted in the afternoon, further coaxing the precocious leaves of Wild Onions, Camas, Bitterroot and Cous Root from their wintery reserves.

A small thick Cous Root

Both Bitterroot and Cous Root seemed to prefer to grow in rocky meadow soil. They take advantage of the moisture from snow melt and flower very early in the season, but I was even earlier. No sign of the huge pink Bitterroot flowers were visible yet and the plant's presence was only discernible by small tentacle like leaves. Cous Root produces leaves and flowers at nearly the same time, but both were still in the early stages of unfurling. Soil that probably becomes dry and impenetrable later in the year yielded to my digging stick and I pried out several starchy roots of both species, quickly realizing why Indigenous harvesters of these roots employed narrow tipped digging sticks that easily pierce tough soils and slide between rocks. These roots were smaller than I had imagined, but they were also more abundant than I thought they would be.

Cous Root Distribution (CPNWH)

Emerging flowers and leaves

Cous Root is a sparsely leaved yellow flowered tap rooted herbaceous perennial. Blue-green Tri-pinnately compound leaves arise basally, or from the bottom of the flowering stalk; leaflets are elliptic and up to 15 mm long; the base of the leaf petioles are broad and flattened, red or streaked with red, and wrap around the flowering stalk. Yellow flowers emerge in a compound umbel with or shortly after the leaves on a 10-35 cm long stalk; each umbel is comprised of 5-20 rays (stalks) that are 1.5-10 cm long at maturity. Well-developed involucel bractlets that are 2-5 mm long subtend each cluster of flowers, but an involucre (bracts below the larger compound umbel) is absent. The short taproots often have tuberous enlargements. Cous Root grows in open dry meadows in rocky soil in southeastern Washington, eastern Oregon, Idaho, western Montana, and northern Nevada.

Cous Root line-up

Rehydrated Cous Root

Native Americans throughout the plants range peeled and ate Cous Roots fresh or dried. Dried roots were often pulverized into flour or meal and later boiled to thicken and flavor soups (Moerman 1998). The common name and species epithet “Cous” comes to us from the Sahaptin word x̣̣awš, which is also written coush (Hilty et al. 1980; Hunn 1990; Ettinger and Harless 1995). Eugene Hunn writes that Native Americans living along the Mid-Columbia traditionally harvested as much as 60 bushels or Cous, Bitterroot, and other spring root vegetables every year. Some, such as my friend Heather, still harvest Cous and Bitterroot every spring. Cous is dug after the seeds have formed in late March or April at lower elevations and as late as June at higher elevations. At this time the bark is easy to peel from starchy roots (Hilty et al. 1980).

 

Bitterroot Distribution (CPNWH)

Bitterroot prior to flowering

Bitterroot is a very small herbaceous perennial with a proportionately large flower. Small linear leaves arise in the early spring in a basal rosette; each leaf is 1-5 cm long and 2-3 mm with a thick fleshy consistency and blue-green color that makes them resemble sea anemone. In May or June large white, pink, or purple flowers emerge singly or in clusters of 2-5 on short stems. Branching taproots 5-10 cm long reach into the gravely or rocky soil that they inhabit. Bitterroots grow in sagebrush plains and open forests in the mountains east of the Cascade Crest in southern British Columbia southward to California and eastward to Montana and Wyoming.

A small but stout Bitterroot

Peeled and dried Bitterroot

Like Cous, the roots of Bitterroot were universally eaten by Native Americans wherever they were found. The skin of the roots is exceedingly bitter thus leading to the common name, but traditional harvesters deliberately harvested the roots in the spring before they flowered when the skins easily slip off yielding a starching root that only has the slightest hint of bitterness.

I've transplanted both species into pots in my back yard so that I can continue my experiments with these tasty roots without having to drive over the mountains.

References

Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria (CPNWH). http://www.pnwherbaria.org/

Ettinger, Marjorie L. and Susan E. Harless 1995. “Warm Spring Reservation of Oregon: Botanical Descriptions and Floral Checklist.” Kalmiopsis. http://www.npsoregon.org/kalmiopsis/kalmiopsis05/ettinger_harless.pdf

Hilty, Ivy E. Jean H. Peters, Eva M. Benson, Margaret A. Edwards, and Lorrain T. Miller 1980. “Nutritive Values of Native Foods of Warm Spring Indians.” Extension Circular 809, Oregon State University Extension Service, Corvallis Oregon. http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/24929/ECNO809.pdf?sequence=1

Hunn, Eugene S. 1990. “Nch’i-Wána: ‘The Big River’, Mid-Columbia Indians and Their Land.” University of Washington Press, Seattle WA. http://books.google.com/books?id=2Nx1guRPcu8C&q=Lomatium+cous#v=onepage&q&f=false

Moerman, Dan. “Native American Ethnobotany” database. University of Michigan, Dearborn MI.

http://herb.umd.umich.edu/

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