Camassia quamash
| Camassia quamash | |
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| Light: |   |
| Moisture: |  |
| Hardiness: | 3 |
| Soil pH: | 5.6-8.4 |
| Height: | 1' |
| Width: | 0.5' |
| Blooms: | Late Spring-Early Summer |
| Native to: | |
| Shelter Nectary | |
| Edible Rating: |  |
| Medicinal Rating: |  |
| Tea: | Yes |
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Camassia quamash (common names: quamash and common camas) is a forb with blue flowers and an edible bulb that is native to Western regions of North America. The bulb was one of the most important foods to the indigenous people along the Salish Sea, second only to dried salmon in food trade. People traveled great distances to harvest the bulbs with specially crafted sticks and employed controlled burnings to maintain open prairie-like habitats for optimum production. Fields of light to deep blue flowers were weeded in bloom with the primary objective to remove the death camas—a toxic white flowering plant with an indistinguishably bulb from camas when gathered long after the flowers have wilted. The flowers can be propagated by seeds or bulbs and the plants flower in two to four yeas. Camas is traditionally pit cooked for 24-36 hours, sometimes using its stalks and leaves as fuel, to convert the inulin to fructose to be made into sweet breads.
Famished from crossing the Bitterroot Mountains in September 1805, the Lewis & Clark expedition came upon a group from the Nez Perce tribe who fed them camas bread and roots, along with dried salmon, buffalo, and berries. Camas remained a food staple of of expedition while in the Pacific Northwest and Meriwether Lewis remarked in June 1806 when returning East and seeing the fields in bloom for the first time that flowers grew so abundant that it “resembles lakes of fine clear water.” Seventy years later, the Nez Perce War flared when settlers began plowing the camas fields to convert them for European-style agriculture. While no longer as prolific, the flowers stand out in the grassy balds of the San Juan Islands and further south, the city of Camas near Portland is named after the plant. The genus comes from the Nec Perce word for sweet, while the species name is derived from qém’es which means bulb.
Propagation: Seed - best sown as soon as it is ripe in a cold frame[1]. The seed can also be sown in a cold frame in spring[1]. It usually germinates in 1 - 6 months at 15°c, but it can be erratic[2]. Sow the seed thinly so that it does not need to be thinned and allow the seedlings to grow on undisturbed for their first year. Give an occasional liquid feed to ensure that the plants do not become nutrient deficient. When the plants are dormant in late summer, pot up the small bulbs putting 2 - 3 bulbs in each pot. Grow them on for another one or two years in a cold frame before planting them out when dormant in late summer.
Offsets in late summer. The bulb has to be scored in order to produce offsets.
Cultivation: Succeeds in almost any soil[3]. Grows well in heavy clay soils. Prefers a rather heavy loam[4] that has plenty of moisture in spring but does not remain wet over the winter[2][5]. Dislikes dry soils[5]. Prefers full sun but tolerates partial shade[2][5].
The dormant bulbs are very hardy and will withstand soil temperatures down to at least -10°c[6].
Quamash is a very pretty flowering bulb that has quite a large potential as an edible ornamental plant[K]. It grows very well in the flower border but can also be naturalised in damp grass[1]. We are intending to grow it in a grassed-down orchard in our Cornish trial ground. The bulbs flower in late spring and early summer and have completely died down by early July so they do not interfere with harvesting the apple crop. The grass in the orchard will be cut in early spring before the quamash comes into growth, but will not be cut again until July. The bulbs will be harvested at any time from July to December and, since it is impossible to find all the bulbs, it is hoped that those remaining will be able to increase and supply bulbs for future years[K].
A polymorphic and very ornamental plant[4], there are some named varieties[5].
A good bee plant[7].
This species can be confused with certain poisonous bulbs in the genus Zigadenus[8].
Plant the bulbs 7 - 10cm deep in early autumn and then leave undisturbed[4].
Range: Western N. America - Washington to California, east to Montana and Utah.
Habitat: Coastal mountain forests and wet meadows inland[9][10]. Marshy meadows in coniferous forest, to 2300 metres[11].
Edibility: Bulb - raw or cooked[10][12]. The raw bulb has a mild, starchy flavour, but a gummy texture that reduces the enjoyment of it somewhat[K]. When cooked, however, it develops a delicious sweet flavour somewhat like sweet chestnuts[13], and is a highly nutritious food[14]. Excellent when slow baked, it can also be dried and made into a powder which can be used as a thickener in stews or mixed with cereal flours when making bread, cakes etc[K]. The bulbs can be boiled down to make a molasses, this was used on festival occasions by various Indian tribes[14][15]. The bulbs can be harvested at any time of the year[8], but are probably best in early summer when the seeds are ripe[16]. One report says that the bulbs contain inulin (a starch that cannot be digested by humans) but that this breaks down when the bulb is cooked slowly to form the sugar fructose which is sweet and easily digested[17].
Quamash bulbs were a staple food of the N. American Indians[3][13]. The tribes would move to the Quamash fields in the early autumn and, whilst some people harvested the bulbs, others would dig a pit, line it with boulders then fill it with wood and set fire to it. The fire would heat the boulders and the harvested bulbs would then be placed in the pit and the whole thing covered with earth and the bulbs left to cook slowly for 2 days. The pit would then be opened and the Indians would feast on the bulbs until they could no longer fit any more in their stomachs. Whatever was left would be dried and stored for winter use.
Medicinal: A decoction of the roots has been used to induce labour[18].
An infusion of the leaves has been used to treat vaginal bleeding after birth and to help expel the placenta[18].
Pollinators: Bees
Notes: This can be grown in the bed by the road or under a specimen tree in the lawn.
We can supply in late summer.
Soil: Can grow in light, medium, and heavy soils.
Seed Ripens: Mid Summer-Late Summer
Flower Type: Hermaphrodite
Heavy Clay: Grows in heavy-clay soils.
Also Known As: C. esculenta. Lindl.
Links
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Rice, Graham. Growing from Seed Volume 2. Thompson and Morgan, 1988.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Bird, R. Growing from Seed Volume 3. Thompson and Morgan, 1989.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Grey, Charles. Hardy Bulbs. Williams & Norgate, 1938.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Chittendon, Fred. RHS Dictionary of Plants. Oxford University Press, 1951.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Huxley, Anthony. The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening. MacMillan Press, 1992.
- ↑ Matthews, Victoria. The New Plantsman Volume 1. Royal Horticultural Society, 1994.
- ↑ International Bee Research Association. Garden Plants Valuable to Bees. International Bee Research Association, 1981.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Harrington, Harold. Edible Native Plants of the Rocky Mountains. University of New Mexico Press, 1967.
- ↑ Hitchcock, Leo. Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest. University of Washington Press, 1955.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Elias, Thomas. A Field Guide to North American Edible Wild Plants. Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1982.
- ↑ Phillips, Roger and Martyn Rix. Bulbs. Pan Books, 1989.
- ↑ Saunders, Charles. Edible and Useful Wild Plants of the United States and Canada. Dover Publications, 1976.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Balls, Edward. Early Uses of Californian Plants. University of California Press, 1975.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Hedrick, Ulysses. Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World. Dover Publications, 1972.
- ↑ Facciola, Stephen. Cornucopia - A Source Book of Edible Plants. Kampong Publications, 1990.
- ↑ Sweet, Muriel. Common Edible and Useful Plants of the West. Naturegraph Co, 1962.
- ↑ Turner, Nancy. Food Plants of Coastal First Peoples. UBC Press Vancouver, 1995.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Moerman, Daniel. Native American Ethnobotany. Timber Press, 1998.