by Jack Nisbet
IV
A TASTE FOR ROOTS
Bread for Hungry Mouths
Viewed from the scablands of southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon, the Blue Mountains float like cumulus clouds above the eastern edge of the Columbia Basin. The Blues are old geologically; their terrain stretches more than sixty miles across the adjacent state corners, and their peaks rise over five thousand feet above the Snake and Columbia Rivers that circle below them. Early white travelers described the plains that border these waterways as stark and thirsty places, and looked to the shimmering bluish heights above for comfort.
The fingered ridges that work their way downslope from the high country are treeless along their tops and do not appear to offer much promise of water. Yet as the snow recedes each spring, life-giving moisture oozes from every crack of their broken knuckles. An April traveler hungry for early wildflowers can wander up a digit, such as Biscuit Ridge, and enjoy sagebrush buttercup, blue-eyed Mary, yellowbell, spring beauty, shooting star, ballhead waterleaf, and long-flowered bluebell just by stepping a few yards.
Although such showy flowers are plentiful, the real abundance appears on slumping roadcuts and within bony swales, where yellow flowers with distinctive dark-green leaves blanket the muddy basalt. These are members of a diverse genus that we call by two common names: biscuitroot, after a bread-like staple that many western tribes prepare from the roots, and desert parsley, after their habitat and finely cut leaves. The genus name Lomatium, from the Latin “winged seed,” refers to the severely flattened edges of their ovoid seeds. Several species carry seductive strong aromas that have been compared to cultivated parsley-family relatives such as anise, fennel, or caraway.
From my vantage point on Biscuit Ridge, these modest plants seem as common as the gravels that trickle downhill. Above each clump of lacy leaves, a single reddish stem rises no higher than my boot top. A compound flower head composed of a dozen dense florets rides atop the stem like a small yellow umbrella. This shape supplied the original family name Umbelliferae (now changed to Apiaceae) and remains the common calling card of the tribe.
My field guide confirms my guess that this cheery yellow biscuitroot is the one known as cous, pronounced both as “coos” and “cows.” Many people—especially members of several Plateau tribes who gather these biscuitroots for food—will quickly praise their flavor, whether boiled, roasted, or pounded and formed into cakes.
The crew of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery had their first taste of cous in late fall of 1805 at the Cascades of the Columbia, near modern Bonneville Dam. Here William Clark watched a broad array of native bands trading robes, skins, beargrass, camas roots, and some flat cakes that he and Lewis called “cha-pel-el” or “shapalell.” It’s not too hard to find corollaries for their spellings in the Chinookan word a-sáblal and the Chinook jargon, saplíl, both of which translate as “bread.”
Although the captains described trading for “a kind of biscuit” during their winter at the mouth of the Columbia, the shapalell did not assume its full importance in their diet until their return journey upstream in 1806. After arriving back at the Cascades of the Columbia in early April, Lewis again noted a lively traffic in goods, with the root bread as one stock item among many. On April 12, he purchased “2 pieces of Chapellel and Some roots”; two days later, approaching the Dalles, his grocery list included five dogs, along with hazelnuts, dried berries, and more root bread.
As the Corps continued upriver, Meriwether Lewis made a connection between shapalell and the abundant yellow flowers that he was seeing along the way. His naturalist’s eye recognized them as members of the same family as carrots and dill, familiar from eastern gardens. Near the mouth of the Walla Walla River, he pressed a sample and attached a brief label: “An umbelliferous plant of the root of which the Wallowallas make a kind of bread. The natives call it shappalell.” He tried to approximate the Sahaptin word for the root, xáws, which he rendered as “cous” and sometimes “cows.” Lewis’s designation was later married to the Latin genus to arrive at the scientific name of Lomatium cous.
During the month of May, while making final preparations for crossing the Continental Divide, the Corps camped on the Clearwater River above its confluence with the Snake, near the village of a hospitable Nez Perce leader called Broken Arm. There they found spring food processing in full swing. “The noise of their women pounding roots reminds me of a nail factory,” Lewis remarked. “The Indians seem well pleased, and I am confident that they are not more so than our men who have their stomachs once more well filled with horsebeef and mush of the bread of cows.” In other words, the men were getting plenty of horse meat and cous bread to eat. Lewis’s use of the letter “w” instead of “u” in his spelling of cous can sometimes be confusing, but his description of the tuber that was providing so much of the Corps’ sustenance is filled with important details.
He compared cous to the ginseng he had grown up with back in Virginia and the baked camas bulbs that hospitable tribes had fed to the white visitors from the moment they arrived in the Columbia drainage. Lewis not only paid close attention to cooking and preservation methods that might benefit the Corps, but he also caught a hint of the seasonal rounds involved in collecting and processing the resource.
The cows is a knobbed root of an irregularly rounded form not unlike the Gensang in form and consistence. This root they collect, rub off a thin black rhind which covers it and pounding it expose it in cakes to the sun. these cakes are about an inch and ¼ thick and 6 by 18 in width, when dryed they either eat this brad [bread] alone without any further preperation, or boil it and make a thick muselage; the latter is most comin and much the most agreeable. The flavor of this root is not very unlike the gensang. this root they collect as early as the snows disappear in the spring and continue to collect it until the quawmash [camas] supplys it’s place which happens about the latter end of June.
As the Corps stockpiled food for its upcoming journey, the great quantities of roots processed with mortar and pestle by Nez Perce women became all the more evident. On May 19, a group of his men returned from a trading session with “about 6 bushels of the cows roots and a considerable quantity of bread of the same materials.”
Recalling their difficult mountain journey of the previous fall, the Americans wanted still more. The captains debated sending the crew out to dig on their own but thought better of it. “We would make the men collect these roots themselves but there are several species of hemlock which are so much like the cows that it is difficult to discriminate them from the cows and we are afraid that they might poison themselves,” wrote Lewis. He was wise to be cautious: the extremely toxic water hemlock, Cicuta douglasii, is also a member of the parsley family, and it does grow in that vicinity. Plateau plant identification is not an easy learning curve for newcomers.
Choosing to rely on local knowledge, Lewis and Clark issued an allowance of trade goods to the men so they could each purchase “a parsel of roots and bread from the natives as his stores for the rocky mountains.” The visitors continued to barter for more cous until early June, when they decided they had enough to see them through the mountain pass. By then, the Nez Perce women had switched their focus to digging camas bulbs. These the Americans found much less palatable, leading to disappointment with the tribe’s departing gift. “The Broken Arm gave Capt. C. a few dryed Quawmas [camas] roots as a great present,” wrote Lewis on their last day. “In our estimation those of cows are much better, I am confident they are much more healthy.”
Salt and Pepper
On a recent cold morning in early March, botanist Pam Camp and I strolled along the western curl of the Columbia River’s Big Bend. Behind us, the North Cascades remained fully wrapped in winter’s grip, but in the lower country, the snow had melted away from the southern exposures. Ropes of freshly exposed gopher work glistened with frost, and although the first buttercups had yet to appear, we were hopeful that the seasonal biscuitroot clock had begun to tick. Cam
p’s experienced eye landed on a short strand of green thread easing up from a crack in the rocky ground. A few steps farther along, more visible leaves branched upward, like tiny fingers reaching for the sun. We circled a pocket of shattered basalt where she spotted an umbrella, no larger than a thumbnail, made up of tiny white florets. I dropped to my knees to eye the dark purple anthers that bristled among the white petals—the inspiration for the flower’s common name of salt and pepper.
Although most wildflower manuals equate salt and pepper with Lomatium gormanii, that would be far too simple. There are actually three different small, early flowering biscuitroot species in the Columbia country that feature white petals and purple anthers. All three also share many characteristics of leaf and stem. All three have edible roots, though not as large or as popular among tribal families as cous. All three spread across the Columbia’s shrub-steppe habitats with subtle variations. All three may be found in association with others of their kin, and their identification can confound the most dedicated of plant lovers. Although a professional botanist, Pam Camp readily admits to struggling with these biscuitroots and is sympathetic to a layperson trying to navigate the taxonomic maze.
She directed my attention to the ground. I already knew that an inch or so below the earth’s surface, the root of each salt and pepper forms a garbanzo bean–sized globe of almost perfect roundness. But I didn’t know that the root of a closely related cousin does the same. In order to tell them apart, Camp explained, we were supposed to look for subtle differences in the tendrils that sprout from the bottom of the root, in the simplicity of the plant’s growth form, and in other features that would not appear until later in the season, such as the pattern of the oil ducts of its mature fruits. And if we became frustrated, she added, we should keep in mind that some botanists insist these two species cannot be separated in the field—not so long ago, in fact, they were lumped together in the species confusum.
To further the confusion, there is a third species that bears an almost identical bite-sized tuber. But on its very bottom point, where its two close cousins sprout a few hair-like rootlets, this one extends a stringy root that swells into another tuber. If a plant is particularly robust, this root may continue to grow, sprouting several more distinct swellings, like beads on a delicate necklace buried ever deeper in the rocky soil. The Okanagan Salish word for this deceptive plant translates as “something tied up on the end”—a good name, if you can ever find the necklace’s elusive final clasp.
Camp and I considered the challenge of teasing those extra beads out of the ground without breaking the connecting strands, for if they were lost on the first stab, we would misdiagnose the species. As we discerned more and more of the tiny white parasols peeking above the ground, we wondered if maybe this would be the year that each of us, in our own way, would circle around to some kind of understanding of the biscuitroots. Or at least of this early group of three, with anthers as purple as sea urchins.
Camp unfolded a pocketknife and set to work. I slid a sharpened hardwood stick between two rocks and wriggled it around, attempting to pry out a tuber that had sprouted between two stones. I thought I was making some progress when the stem snapped off just below ground level. After the same thing happened twice more, I began grubbing with my hands, easing stones out of the way until I finally levered a little round root up from below. Upon closer examination, I discovered what might be the nub of a single broken string on its bottom.
Perhaps a little impatient, I broke off several more roots and stems before realizing that I was fighting frozen clumps of soil. Fingers numbed, I looked up to find Camp in the same claw-handed situation. On this particular morning, we were not going to define any species of salt and pepper for certain. Defeated but exhilarated—a whole season of biscuitroot searches lay ahead—we trudged back up the frost-rimmed slope. “How can it be spring for them,” Camp asked, “when it’s still winter for us?”
Unsettled
The biscuitroots of the Columbia Plateau have been dealing with the challenging environment of their homeland for a very long time. They have adapted to the short and early growing season, the stiff winds, the cold winters, and the long summer droughts that have long limited vegetation across the region. The compact size of many species, such as the salt and peppers, enhances their ability to flower very soon after leafing out in the spring. Low growth habits and the lack of a central protruding stem protect the delicate leaves from buffeting winds, and keep them close to a relatively warm layer of air near the ground. Narrow leaf segments, often sliced to minute fineness, provide more surface area for photosynthesis in dry conditions. Multiple dense flower heads, with male and female flowers present on the same plant, allow for both outcrossing and self-pollination by insects or wind. The smaller species quickly complete their reproductive cycles before the rocky soils lose their moisture during the inevitable summer drought. Fruits mature rapidly into winged seeds that dry up and sail away on afternoon winds. Finely cut leaves and stout stems desiccate in a matter of days until they too disappear. Underground, many of these Lomatiums harbor tuberous roots in a wonderful variety of shapes and sizes. These tubers store nutritious carbohydrates during tough winter conditions, then send that essential energy aboveground in the spring to support flowering and seed production.
Because most Lomatiums come and go so quickly, any attempt to understand them must persist through many successive springs. A year after our first salt and pepper excursion, Pam Camp suggested that I travel to the heart of the Columbia Basin, along the base of Saddle Mountain’s long spine. There, amidst an extensive talus slope that tumbled off the central ridge, I would find a most unusual species of biscuitroot. But if I wanted to see it in bloom, she suggested that I get going soon.
A pair of basalt knobs standing as sentinels directed me to the place easily enough. The massive rockfall they guarded looked dauntingly steep, with only an occasional clump of serviceberry or syringa to indicate that there might be any soil to anchor a small plant.
“They’re living right in the rocks,” Camp had told me. “And keep climbing—they’ll be further upslope than you think.”
The boulders at the bottom of the slope were refrigerator-sized, forcing me to keep my eyes squarely on my feet as I spider-walked uphill. The cracks between the big boulders penetrated many layers down. After hopping a hundred yards or more, I crossed a stream of smaller fist-sized rocks that rolled beneath every foothold. I moved on through a wilderness of scree that continued to slip in a slow-motion avalanche. I saw no greenery at all within this constant motion until, only a few inches beyond one of my outstretched hands, a cluster of leaves materialized, tatted into lacework so fine that they looked like fuzzy gray-green kitten paws against the dark basalt.
More of the paws appeared above and below me. Rocks obscured most of their flowers and stems, but I eventually found some purple blooms with yellow anthers—colors that mirrored the crusty lichens washing across the basalt walls on either side of the talus slope. Many of the blossoms were already aging into an even deeper purple, camouflaged as if they meant to sink into the dark shadows of the scree. This was obviously the strange new biscuitroot, Hoover’s desert parsley (Lomatium tuberosum), that Pam Camp had sent me in search of.
The fact that any of these plants could keep their heads above the shifting rockslide long enough to send up flowering stems seemed like a miracle, and a look into some of the cracks revealed several kitten paws partially crushed beneath tumbled stones. Gently rolling away rocks, I teased out one swollen potato-shaped tuber, the obvious source for its Latin species name of “knobby.” Its broken tip hinted at a much longer serpentine body that slithered deep into the hidden talus world. This severed portion would remain buried, safe within the turmoil, ready to send up leaves the next spring. Hoover’s desert parsley has found a way to embrace the chaos around it by developing a specialized ability to retreat and survive. Whenever a shifting stone snaps off part of a root, both remnants have the ab
ility to sprout new growth, doubling the chance of successful blooms in succeeding years.
It is tempting to wonder if Ice Age floodwaters somehow contributed to such deft adaptations. The succession of floods that crashed across the Columbia Basin would have carried innumerable seeds along with the soil that was swept away. Whenever the water slowed, an unpredictable mix of sand, silt, gravel, rocks, and ice-rafted boulders was deposited in its wake. Some of the seeds caught in this detritus would have sprouted, forming new colonies with curious blends of plant species, biscuitroots included.
Only a few miles upstream from my perch on the scree slope, one of those great floods had carved a gigantic amphitheater on a terrace several hundred feet above the Columbia. Its Sahaptin place name could be rendered in English as “Where the Waters Turned”—an apt description of a powerful agitating cycle that tore into cliff faces as it circled and slowed. The amphitheater’s lower level is covered with gravels dropped by the floods and edged by blowing sand dunes. Not surprisingly, hosts of Lomatiums thrive across the rough bench.
Although those amphitheater biscuitroots, and the more specialized desert parsley that has burrowed into the scree slopes of Saddle Mountain, are living in habitats created by sudden floods, their lifespan has to be measured on an entirely different scale of time. Plant systematists who study Lomatium pollination leap back at least as far as the late Pliocene and visualize changes in millions, not thousands, of years. Geneticists trace plant ranges that flow like amoebas across a landscape, developing new species at their extremities. Geologic events might separate closely related clusters. Some of these colonies might survive in isolation, morph into a slightly different form, then be reunited with their ancestors by gradual changes in geology or climate. The movements of the Cordilleran glaciers and the spurt of apocalyptic floods that ended the Pleistocene represent only two of the challenges that these plants have weathered.
