Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Berry Identification

We really could use some sort of general forum section for a topic like this but since there isn't one I will post it here.

I am very new to foraging for and eating wild edibles but I am very enthusiastic about the idea and of course I follow the rule of if your not 100% sure of what it is then don't eat it so thus comes the problem.

I have taken pictures a few times for attempting to identify an item later and I took a couple photos of some berries on the high sierra trail about 1.5 miles west of Bear Paw Meadows that despite my attempts at identifying I am unable to so I was wondering if anyone here is more experienced with the subject and may know, here are two images of them though they are not the best:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/roguephotonic/3120027756/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/roguephotonic/3119199357/

If it's useful at all this was August and the altitute was around 7300F

I don't know, but two sources you might check:

http://www.backcountryrangers.com/plants_index.html

also emailing visitor information for SEKI, who will probably ask their botanist, who will instantly know.

Thanks for the sites though the pictures are too small to be useful and clicking on them sends me to a broken link.

This site is handy though for species to cross reference in books that I own.

If anyone knows any books on edible plants they find especially good that would be great also.

I currently have:

Edible wild plants : A north american field guild
Edible and medicinal plants of the west (Gregory L. Tilford)
The forager's harvest (Samuel Thayer)

Rogue:

Hard to tell from your pics, but you might reference them to Sierra Nevada Natural History by Storer, Usinger, and Lukas. Looks maybe like Bitter Cherry.

I also just picked up Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs by Foster and Hobbs, which has a good pic of the flowers of the bitter cherry (not useful with your pics, but the leaves fit).

I've used the first book quite a bit to help with ID, and I started gathering/cooking with a few native plants this past summer (wild onions and gooseberries for pancakes). Good times!

Have fun!
-L

not at the same time in pancakes, I hope!

Laura, ever seen those guys with tennis rackets beating the bushes to whack Sierra gooseberries into trash cans? We saw this off 395 below Mammoth in July. They must really like them. Harvey

Nah, Harvey. The onions were for the red wine reduction sauce on the steak...

Between those and elderberries, they're wonderful! I can see why people would go out to harvest them. Of course, there's a big thing out here for fresh roasted pine nuts, too. SOOO much better than the ones from the store!

Now I just have to be able to ID miner's lettuce and a few other edible plants so I can make salad next year!

-L

Yeah I want to try Miner's Lettuce also, it's easy to identify but finding it is no doubt harder.

I got into learning about all this stuff at the very end of the season so now that I know what I am looking for it's no longer around can't wait till next year though!

The high sierra trail is covered in Timble berries yet I passed them up also until I could identify them.

Always frustrating when you learn that what you passed up was not only edible but is supposed to be great.

Same deal on the trail you take to the cottonwood lakes that branches left from the first creek (not on any map) that trail was covered in Sub alpine Prickly Currants.

That Cal Flora site though is great for identification purposes.

Alright so concerning the original berries in question, I have another photo that I did not post due to it being largely out of focus yet this image shows a small cluster of berries that I would be relatively confident enough in declaring they are infact Bitter Cherry yet this photo was taken in another location many miles from the ones posted and the images posted show berries of an irregular shape in contrast to Bitter Cherry and although such irregularities could be explained with reasonable enough speculation it in the end would remain just that so I have to say my research on the subject remains inconclusive.

In the event of me returning to the high sierra trail this year I know exactly where these are located and I will make a point of doing a more detailed examination.

Might be a Madrone. It looks like the brown peeling bark from the branches, leaf shape and color, is possible in that location but most that I see have the fruit in clusters. Genus is Arbutus if you want to compare further.

Miner's Lettuce is quite common. Supposedly it grows below 7,500 feet, but I've only encountered it high above treeline. You'll find it tucked into nooks and crannies on most summits. It's delicious, by the way.

All the miners lettuce I have ever seen is in the low elevations -- you know, below 1000ft, right here in the San Joaquin Valley. I have never seen it in the Sierra, so I am really surprised to see you say you have seen it "high above tree line".

Here's a good picture:


I would be surprised to see it above the snow line.

Episode 1 of season 3 of survivorman he found Miner's lettuce in the willow creek area which is south of yosemite which is generally 5400+ feet.

I'm amazed at the idea of finding it above the tree line.

Has anyone encountered Common Chickweed (Stellaria Media)?

As one of my books says on it "Chickweed is without a doubt one of the most enjoyable wild salad greens in existence. the entire plant is juicy, tender and mildly sweet throughout it's growth. with a flavor similar to iceburg lettuce"



It should be easy to identify because it blooms continuously throughout it's growth with tiny white flowers about 1/4 inch with 10 petals and it's unique feature is a single line of stem hairs that switches sides at each set of leaves.

In light of all this discussion on wild edibles what does anyone think about the idea of a permanent thread where we could post locations where we have positively identified good things to eat on trails?

Chickweed is another Central Valley winter/spring plant. Grows in damp shady places. I have to pull it in my back yard every spring.

I can't imagine it growing at higher elevations.

Regarding "good things to eat on the trails", the High Sierra does not have much in that department. I have seen a few wild goose berries and elderberries, but usually leave them for the wildlife.

Moosie can tell you where to find some great elderberries in Yosemite:

Seems to be a significantly off-topic subject. Fine for discussion, especially in this off-season, but not reasonable for permanent posting, in which very few people, I'd guess, would be actively involved in the field.

However, it might be very good to create a yahoo groups or a facebook group, for that purpose, which will have a much wider audience, and you can edit it however you might like?

Hi Sounds like a great ideal since plants /shrubs differ so much on this side we could start a log as we see them , like miners lettuce at 10'000' below Lower Boys Scout Lake, Many areas in the Portal for Elderberries, Some years ago we had a flower guy that had many photos in the big books, he said we had nothing worth shooting for publication. I walked around with him for awhile and pointed out we have many if not more than the west side, ours are smaller and may only bloom in late August and last several days , and since we are a very dry climate and soil condition differ, the colors are different for some of the flowers, he found many worth shooting and returned for several years. One example is the Stream Orchid, flower the size of a pin. Thanks Doug

Well keep in mind that there is many different species of Chickweed, Calflora lists 25 different types that grow in this state but the best as I understand is the type that I mentioned Stellaria Media and that is listed as growing up to 8000 feet.

The sierras have more than you think but how good it all tastes is the real question, Gooseberries or prickly currants (Ribes montigenum) I have seen in mass quanities at about 10400 feet, so many infact that as the plants died at the end of the season they were still covered in the things so I wouldn't feel bad about eatting all you wanted of them.

The same goes with Timble Berries (Rubus parviflorus).

It all comes down to how much time you want to put into eatting wild edibles because so much of them need to be cooked first.


Use this site that was posted above for plant types and use the calflora site for better identification of the plants:

http://www.backcountryrangers.com/plants_index.html

http://www.calflora.org/

Doggone that Darwin guy has been at it again! ...or was it Mendel?

Toyon, I think:

Yeah it does look like Toyon.

A quote about it:

I thought Toyon, too, at one point except that the original photos don't show any clusters of berries unless the picture just obscured them. The berries/fruit look singular. Maybe a species of Heteromeles I'm unfamiliar with.