The evergreen huckleberry (Image: WSU)

Every year, it’s harder and harder for me to feel excited about the Fourth of July. The waste, noise, and pollution is the most ridiculous way to celebrate a very dubious heritage (though I’ll admit having fun with friends and family outside is an exceptionally good way to spend a day). However, not only does the Fourth mark the end of Juneuary in my personal calendar, it also marks the beginning of berry season. The Pacific Northwest cup overfloweth with native berries to enjoy and that’s something to celebrate.

First, I will include the “Um, actually” part of this love letter to wild fruit. Not everything we call a berry is actually a berry in the botanical sense, even if from a culinary perspective we do. Botanists call any fruit grown from the ovary of a single flower a berry. They are mostly fleshy except for their seeds, which are inside the fruit. Blueberries are well named, while strawberries are not technically berries (though watermelons and tomatoes are). From the perspective of someone eating fruit, it really doesn’t matter that much, but several of the berries on my list below are not considered berries by botanists. But they also spend their days peering at the sexual parts of plants, so we can nod our heads and carry on enjoying these juicy capsules of sunshine. (Um, actually, if you like flowers, you too are a plant pervert.)

You might appreciate Himalayan Blackberries overtaking an unkempt corner or grow blueberries in a planter on your deck but we have many lovely native plants that bear lovely treats and have deeper roles to play in local ecosystems. These fruits have always been staples of the diet of the first people of the Hill and all across the Pacific Northwest. With plants as common as Salal and Trailing Blackberry, we can appreciate native plants and their connections to people and the more than human world. That’s what I think about when I consider the very muddled legacy of being an American – that we need to embrace the true heritage of the places many of us are at best guests.

But instead of being exacting and serious about the environment, genocide, and more, I am instead going to rank some native berries according to nothing but my personal opinions. I might as well be ranking 1996 hip hop albums releases, because I expect strong opinions and an overwhelmingly difficult time choosing the number one spot (just in case you were wondering, right now it’s Redman – Muddy Waters). And just like music, I am going to leave some options off the list because, well, they’re hardly palatable. The only requirement is that these “berries” need to have, at one point, grown on the Hill, and now find their way into our native gardens and restoration plans instead of maybe growing wild.

Osoberry (Image: Burke Herbarium Image Collection)

10. Osoberry (Oemleria cerasiformis) – Leave ’em for the birds; too bitter for me to love them. Not only are they not actually berries, but drupes with a little pit containing the seed (true plums are also drupes). I’d rather eat their leaves, which taste a bit like cucumbers. And besides, as one of the first fruits to ripen, they get gobbled by the birds almost immediately and are already gone.

9. Trailing Blackberry (Rubus ursinus) – Ok, I actually love these little berries but I got strong-armed by my partner into putting them low on my list. They are great at snagging her ankles and because she’s from California she can’t seem to wear anything but no-show socks in the garden, she dislikes them immensely. Trailing Blackberries are lovely for pollinators and are tasty morsels, but they don’t produce the way non-native blackberries do and almost always get outcompeted by them. Oh and yes, Rubus all produce compound fruits and are not berries, so they couldn’t get that high on the list could they?

8. Oregon Grape (Berberis aquifolium) – I was recently on a hike with a wild food expert and he said of Oregon Grapes “I like to eat a few at the beginning of each season to remind myself what they taste like.” Which is to say to remember they look tastier than they actually are. They remind me of sour broccoli – doesn’t sound good does it? I will admit that when mixed with other berries or sweetened they are definitely enjoyable, but a ranking is a ranking and here’s where they lie.

7. Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis) – Seven isn’t very high for an iconic northwest fruit but I’m ashamed to say that I prefer the non-native Himalayan Blackberry (Rubus armeniacus) or even the peeled fresh shoots of a Salmonberry instead of the actual fruit. That being said, from a habitat perspective Salmonberries are tremendous, and I am definitely not above a handful here and there. It’s just about the peak season for them and our wet spring brought a lot of fruit this year, I have been lightly snacking on them for the past week.

6. Western Serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia) – I would probably rank serviceberries higher if I had more experience with them growing up. As a wild plant today it’s more common in the open prairies and forests of our South Sound or up in the San Juans, though I assume that is equally related to land use as it is actual distribution (the open, more exposed land in settler Seattle was almost certainly gobbled up first). The fruit is quite lovely, not as sweet or tender as a blueberry but enjoyable enough to feature highly in indigenous food cultures across its range (and elsewhere other species are similarly valued). They feature heavily in my personal gardening and I look forward to sharing them with my wild neighbors for years to come.

5. Red huckleberry (Vaccinium parvifolium) – You were told as a child to not eat red berries right? Well this one is ok, in fact they are more than that, these blueberry relatives are delicious. A denizen of moist, shaded glades, I don’t find myself enjoying them quite as much as their higher elevation cousins nor Evergreen Huckleberries, but they have a nice tang to them and are easy to see amongst their light green foliage. I have definitely stopped and feasted on them on a mid-July bike ride in Interlaken Park.
   

   Thimbleberry (Image: Walter Siegmund/Wikipedia)

6. Thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus) – Though not a berry, I love these delicate fruits for their unique, deep flavor. In a funny way their tendency to melt into a red mess is exactly why I love them so much. You have to sit and eat them right away; carrying them home is folly. No one cultivates them for their fruit but they are easy to grow, are loved by bees, and offer the side benefit of growing delicious berries.

3. Salal (Gaultheria shallon) – If you know the plants on this list, you might be surprised by Salal being third, but I simply love them. They are the most unique form, the sepals of the flower swells as the fruit develops, swallowing up the rest of the flower and seeds as it develops. Not everyone enjoys them raw, but they travel well, make great preserves, and because they are a favorite of bumble bees, you can often find many fruits in one place. Make a compote this summer and enjoy it over just about everything.

2. Wild strawberry (Fragaria spp) – there are three native species of strawberry in Washington and all are delicious. My favorite are those I have plucked while reclining on an alpine peak in the Cascades, often just called Wild Strawberries (Fragaria virginiana), but I also enjoy Beach Strawberries (Fragaria chiloensis) too because we can find them growing around the shorelines of Puget Sound. In fact, the accidental hybrid of these two species are what brought about the cultivation of your average store bought fruit (although this happened with very different populations from Eastern North America and Chile). But anyway, the tiny burst of flavor from a wild strawberry is spectacular and not to be missed.

1. Evergreen Huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum) – My favorite. A true berry and a true king among them. Not only has this plant become a choice in basic ass landscaping as well as native gardening, but when you don’t shear them constantly they produce lovely dark fruits that are flavorful and abundant. Because they ripen later in the year, Evergreen Huckleberries feel like a taste of the summer past, sweetness built from long days of sunshine. Call me crazy but they top my list and it’s just, like, my opinion man.

Now, if you got this far, you can pause a moment before you scramble out the door to go berry picking. Despite me yammering about how tasty these “berries” all are, keep in mind there are ethical considerations to harvesting wild food. In some circles it’s popular to talk about how we need to grow less foreign species and invest energy in native foods, but that doesn’t necessarily mean subsistence. A tasty berry here and there isn’t a big deal, but if you plan to go gallivanting off and fill a bucket with wild fruit do some research. First and foremost, learn what you are picking before you eat a bunch of anything. Also learn if it is legal to pick where you are going? Can you reasonably harvest without significantly diminishing food available to other wild species (keep in mind that in urban spaces there is generally less quality food for native animals)? Will harvesting be destructive to the landscape in other ways?

And please, don’t go HAM in the Arboretum and tell them I told you it was ok. But, hey, I’m no snitch — you go enjoy a couple.

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