The Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa) is a large evergreen tree that is a mainstay of the American West. It also goes by the name Yellow Pine, Bull Pine, and about a dozen others depending on the region and the tree’s age.

Typically they are found in elevations between 6,000- 10,000 feet, in areas that receive as little as 20 inches of rain a year. Ponderosas overcome dry and rocky soil by having deep tap roots that can penetrate 30 feet down with a root system spreading out 100 feet in all directions. Above ground, their trunks tend to lose their lower branches the taller they grow giving them the appearance of giant pillars topped with a shaggy pine-needled canopy.

The Ponderosa Pine can live up to half a century and tower hundreds of feet above the forest floor. One of the oldest and tallest Ponderosas is located in Oregon and is a shade over 268 feet tall. “Young” trees can take 45- 60 years before they bear pine cones and at this stage in their lives exhibit dark flakey bark and are called “blackjacks”.

A more mature Ponderosa that is a mere 150 years old will exhibit thick yellow to reddish bark separated by darker grooves that look like plated armored scales. Mature trees are nicknamed “yellow bellies” or “pumpkins” due to their coloration. It is common to see blackened scars on these older trees from past forest fires which are called Cat Faces. Another feature of their bark is the scent of vanilla or butterscotch which is noticeable on warm days.

Native Americans had a close relationship with Ponderosa Pines, which provided them with seeds, sugary inner bark to eat, and pitch that could be used to seal out water from canoes, baskets, and tents. The Indians would also intentionally set fires around the Ponderosas in order to eliminate encroaching shrubs and trees and give the great one’s room to grow.

During the Lewis and Clark expedition, Nez Perce Indians showed the explorers how to build canoes by burning and hollowing out Ponderosa logs. These log canoes eventually took the team down the Snake and Columbia rivers to the Pacific Ocean and back again on their return trip home.

Today the Ponderosa Pine is still one of the most popular types of wood- used in carpentry and furniture making it revered for its strength, and beauty and as a symbol of the Old West and its traditions.

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The Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum) is a hardwood tree found in the eastern and midwestern regions of the northern United States and in eastern Canada.

Well known for producing both beautiful fall foliage and delicious maple syrup, a Sugar Maple can live for more than 400 years and reach heights of 115 feet. 

Once temperatures drop in late September, the leaves start to change color, ranging from yellow to orange to bright red. Some of the best places to see the fall color shows are Algonquin Park in Ontario, Canada, and throughout the Catskills in New York. 

Maple wood is prized for its hardness and beauty. The honey-colored wood is used for cutting boards, furniture, basketball courts, and bowling lanes, as well as guitar necks and a variety of musical instruments in the violin family. 

Due to their sturdiness, maples are also outstanding candidates for supporting backyard treehouses. 

Foliage, furniture, and fun aside, the Sugar Maple is perhaps best loved for its sap, the source of pure maple syrup. 

The art of maple sugaring, converting sap to syrup, was developed by the Algonquian tribes along the Atlantic coast. Traditionally, the process started during the first full moon of March, also known as the Sugar Moon or Maple Moon. This is when the sap begins to flow throughout the tree. Cuts would be made through the bark to allow the tree’s sap to run and be collected in birch bark containers. 

Once enough was collected the sap would then be boiled to evaporate the water and renders the sweet, sticky syrup behind. Nearly 40 gallons of sap are needed to produce one gallon of maple syrup!

In addition to making pancakes and waffles glorious, maple syrup is also used to make maple sugar and taffy candy. 

Native American tribes would also dry the Sugar Maple’s inner bark, grinding it into a powder to use as a thickener for bread and soups. 

Later in the spring, the tree’s distinctive winged seed pods appear and are collected as an additional food source. They can be eaten either fresh, dried, or boiled.

These “helicopter seeds,” which twirl and hover before falling to the ground, generate a tornado-like vortex as they move through the air. Just like a helicopter blade, the seed’s top leading edge reduces air pressure which creates lift, temporarily opposing gravity.

This same bit of hover technology is used throughout nature by hummingbirds, bats, and insects. 

Bonus Treats:

Maple taffy on snow is a traditional spring confection from Quebec Ontario Canada and New England. The maple syrup is boiled down to just the right consistency and then poured onto fresh snow to make a yummy treat your dentist will love!

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The lichen is a remarkable composite organism that can be frequently seen attached to rocks, trees, and even the soil. Often confused for moss, the lichen is actually not a plant at all since it has no roots, stems, or leaves.  

Lichens are actually a partnership between two organisms: fungus and alga. The fungi are colorless and thrive on decomposing other organisms. Alga, however, makes its own food through photosynthesis. Partnering as lichen, fungi provides protection to the fragile alga which provides food for both organisms. 

A third organism, cyanobacteria, can also be assimilated into the partnership. Since cyanobacteria also contains chloroplasts, it can also harvest light energy from the sun and generate carbohydrates as a food source.

By partnering with alga or cyanobacteria, fungi is able to provide itself with a constant source of nourishment. In return, the alga and cyanobacteria are protected from damaging ultraviolet rays which are absorbed by the fungi.

While there are more than 13,500 species of lichen in the world, with approximately 3,600 species located just in North America, you won’t find lichen anywhere near pollution. The organism only thrives where the air is clean, which is why it is used as a biomonitor to gauge an area’s air quality. 

In a process known as biological weathering, lichens break down rocks and release minerals to the soil. They can achieve this through chemical interactions or by the lichen’s ongoing contraction and expansion. 

Lichens are found from the arctic tundra to the driest of deserts. Lichen are considered the dominant vegetation in approximately eight percent of the Earth’s land surface. 

Unlike most plants, lichen do not have a waxy cuticle on their leaves and they don’t have vascular tissue to transport water and nutrients throughout the organism. Instead, the lichen absorbs what it needs from its surrounding environment through air and rain. 

When wet, the lichen’s alga starts photosynthesizing and growing. When the lichen is dry, it goes dormant and becomes brittle. This on and off dormancy explains why some lichen species only add 1-2 millimeters of growth per year. This makes larger lichens extremely old. Some lichens in Greenland are estimated to be between 3,000 to 5,000 years old.

Lichens present a rainbow of colors depending on what special pigments are present in each particular species. Colors vary within species due to age and light exposure with the pigments typically ranging from yellow to orange to red. When those pigments are absent, the lichen will be a gray or greenish gray color.

However, when the lichen is wet, the fungi’s outer layer (cortex) becomes more transparent allowing the underlying alga layer to become visible. Add a little bit of water to a gray lichen and you’ll see the organism come alive in a vibrant green. 

The lichen’s vegetative portion is known as the thallus and its shape is what gives each species its characteristic outer appearance — from long looping strands to small bushes to the more common flat crust shape.

The three main types can be described as leafy, crusty, and shrubby. 

Leafy, also known as foliose, lichens look like leaves in appearance and structure. They are loosely attached to their substrate by filaments or a single umbilicus.

Crusty, or crustose, lichens are tightly attached to their substrate and make up nearly 75 percent of all lichens on earth.

Shrubby, or fruticose, lichens have no distinct top or bottom. They attach to the substrate in varying ways, from a single umbilicus to hanging over a tree branch. Many of these types of lichens look like hanging moss. 

Due to lichen’s hybrid composition, it cannot reproduce like other seed-bearing plants. The dominant fungi can produce spores which will develop into another fungus but that new fungus still has to find an alga to partner with or it will die. 

In addition to breaking down their substrates into soil and organic matter, lichens have also provided shelter, nesting material, and food for birds, elk and insects. 

Due to their pigments, lichens have been used as a natural pigment for dying fabric, wool and baskets. When mixed with pine sap, or burned to ash, lichens can produce colors like yellow, green, orange, red, purple, and brown. 

Some Native American tribes even turned to lichen as a food source when food was scarce. 

Not all lichen is edible and some, like wolf lichen and ground lichen, are poisonous. Various tribes used wolf lichen for poisoned arrowheads while others made tea from it. Ground lichen in Wyoming was determined to be the cause of death for 300 “visiting” elk from Colorado in 2004. Local elk had immune systems that could safely process the ground lichen toxins but not so for the Colorado elk.

Lichens are also being studied for their antibiotic properties with new research revealing that these organisms may help fight against specific cancers and viral infections, including HIV. 

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When it comes to surviving the cold, snow, and ice of winter, plants don’t have as many options as animals. They can’t move into a cave or den and hibernate. And there’s a reason you don’t see mass herds of aspens or flocks of ferns migrating south for the winter.

Plants are rooted in place. They have to adapt to the conditions around them if they are to survive. 

While winter climates still provide plants with some sunlight and soil nutrients, they cannot access water when it is frozen. They’ve had to develop unique energy conservation and storage mechanisms to survive those harsh conditions. 

1. Surviving the cold by getting naked.

Unlike other plants, trees don’t have the option to spend the winter as seeds or rhizomes. They have to tough it out through the cold and arid conditions.

The large canopies of broad leaves on deciduous trees can be a substantial source of water loss, so they are dropped in the northern regions every fall. 

That process starts in the summer. During this period of warmer temperatures and longer daylight hours, leaves produce more glucose than is needed for the plant’s growth. This excess glucose is converted to starch and stored for later use. 

At the base of each leaf is a layer of abscission cells. Tiny tubes pass through these cells to carry water from the tree to the leaf and nutrients from the leaf back to the tree. 

When the days start to get shorter, plants begin shutting down nutrient production in preparation for their winter dormancy. The abscission cells swell and form a hardened, cork-like barrier that cuts off the tubes. The glucose and waste products are trapped in the leaf, and no water or nutrients are passed between the leaf and the tree.  

As chlorophyll begins to disappear, the colors that were already in the leaf become visible. At this point, the abscission layer continues to harden, a tear line is formed, and the leaf separates from the tree. 

Trees also acclimate by slowly increasing their tolerance to cold. Water outside of the cell walls freezes first. When the water transforms from liquid to solid, a small amount of heat is released. This tiny bit of heat is enough to keep the water inside the cell from freezing. 

Broad-leaf trees like maples, elms, and oaks lose their ability to move water as the temperature drops below freezing. The capillary network that moves water and nutrients through the tree can break, stopping the nutrient transport. This network has to be rebuilt in the spring for the tree to survive.

Thin-barked hardwood and fruit trees can also experience frost-cracking. This happens when the air temperature is below freezing, but sunlight on the bark can warm it to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. If water moves to this warmer area under the bark, it will rapidly freeze and cause tissue death. And once the sunlight disappears, the bark surface temperature drops quickly, and ice crystals will form inside the cells. The cell walls burst, and the tissue dies. In the spring, these damaged tissues dry out and crack on the tree’s south or southwest side. 

2. Plant karma

Unlike trees, annual plants, like flowers, corn, and wheat, live only for one year in colder climates. In order to be reincarnated, at least in the plant world, annuals reproduce by creating seeds. When the plant dies in the fall, these seeds are dropped to the ground, buried under an insulating layer of soil, and then snow, to survive the winter. 

Once the warm temperatures, more daytime hours, and moisture returns, the seeds germinate, and the plant gets to come back…as another plant.

3. It’s not easy being green…unless you’re a pine tree.

Evergreens, like the ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), have a narrow, conical shape that is pointed at the top. This configuration keeps snow from building up on the branches and damaging the trees. 

This snow-shedding ability allows the trees to stay green year-round and continue a limited amount of energy production through photosynthesis. Evergreens still need to replace water lost through evaporation in their needles (needles are modified leaves). They do this by pulling water up from the soil through its roots. If the ground is frozen, however, the roots are unable to absorb the water.

Symptoms of this water loss area revealed by a brown or yellow “burned” tinge to the foliage that is facing the sun or exposed to the wind — where the evaporation is the greatest. 

To help mitigate this damage, many conifers have specialized valves in their cells. These valves automatically seal off individual frozen cells to prevent a chain reaction of freezing throughout the tree’s tissues. Evergreen cells are also more robust than those found in deciduous trees, so they can better withstand the forces of ice expansion.

4. Snow is actually a warm blankie to a plant.

Rather than harming most plants, snow can act as an insulating blanket, or igloo, to protect the plant’s tissues from low temperatures and moisture-sucking winds. While snow is near freezing, it creates a pocket of air next to the plant’s exterior. 

This insulating barrier provides a level of protection at a price. While the wind and cold air can’t reach the tissue, neither can sunlight. 

5. Changing structures

Some plants avoid the cold temperatures altogether by ditching their above-ground leaves and stems and becoming dormant in the form of seeds or reducing their cellular activity. 

Other plants move their energy storage organs underground like Rhizomes (underground root-like stems) and bulbs (short and thick stems). These structures function like solar batteries by providing enough stored energy reserves for the plant to survive during unfavorable winter conditions. 

If you want to see hardcore plant adaptation to winter, you need to go where plants have to deal with bitter cold, high winds, and little sunlight on a year-round basis: the alpine and tundra biomes. 

Trees are not common in either zone, but shrubs are. These survive due to their small size and low-spreading structures, like the cranberry bush (Vaccinium Vitis-idea). This protects them from heavy winds and cell-busting frosts. Since they are at ground level, they are also more likely to be covered by an insulating snow blanket.

Some plants are cushion-shaped, like the Arctic sandwort (Minuartia arctica). This structure lets moisture and temperature stay elevated within the plant throughout the winter. 

And just because it’s cool…

Some perennial plants living in cold zones have evolved a type of natural antifreeze to survive winter temperatures. These antifreeze proteins reduce the formation and growth of ice between the plant’s cells. 

Researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder recently developed a synthetic molecule based on these plant proteins. By mimicking their antifreeze compounds, they could use the molecule to prevent ice crystal growth and the subsequent freeze-thaw damage to concrete infrastructures. 

Just like animals, plants have evolved innovative ways to adapt to winter’s harsh conditions. These unseen processes of modifying their energy consumption and energy storage ensure these plants, or their offspring, will “spring back” to life once temperatures rise again.

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The twisted trunk of the manzanita tree, with its smooth, cinnamon-red bark, has become a scenic fixture in the landscapes of the American West. Found on dry, sunny slopes at low elevations, the manzanita is an evergreen that is treasured for the beauty and sustenance it provides.

While there were only three original native manzanita species, today, approximately 106 known species (genus Arctostaphylos) inhabit arid climates throughout Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon, and Washington. 

Because manzanita species are so well adapted to their local environment, they cluster into what botanists refer to as “manzanita barrens.” Despite these homogenous barrens, manzanitas readily interbreed where their ranges overlap. This creates a wide variety of physical characteristics. Some manzanitas take the shape of small, low-growing ground covers, while others are trees towering more than 20 feet high.

Manzanitas are most easily recognized by their broad, open structures and red bark branches. In late spring, the tree grows a new ring of wood and a  new layer of bark underneath. As the tree expands, the thin layer of outer bark cracks and peels away — or sheds — in small flakes.

Each red branch terminates in one of several tones of gray or green leaves. On hot, sunny days, manzanita leaves will tilt on their edge to reduce overheating and minimize water loss. Native Americans often used these thick and leathery leaves as toothbrushes.

Most manzanitas bloom in the spring, while others flower in the winter. Each tree produces white and pink intensely fragrant blossoms that smell of honey and become focal points for bees and hummingbirds. If you can avoid the bees, squeeze the stem end of a flower to push out a small drop of sweet, honey-tasting nectar. 

The name manzanita comes from the Spanish word “little apple,” which describes the tree’s small, apple-shaped fruit produced after the flowers drop. The fruit starts as small, green berries about ¼-inch in diameter. As the fruit ripens over the summer, it turns red and becomes an important food source for quail, mule deer, rabbits,  and even bears.

Indigenous people often used manzanita berries to make cider to treat stomach ailments and increase appetite. Even though the berries can be eaten raw (when the fruit turns red), large harvests were dried and ground into a coarse meal used for baking.

Manzanitas rely on wildfires to reproduce. The tree’s seeds have a hard, fire-resistant coating that protects the embryonic seed from heat. The fire also creates small lacerations in that coating and initiates germination. The seeds can lay dormant for up to a century between fires. 

The adult manzanita, however, is highly flammable. Oils and waxes on the branches and leaves produce a high-energy combustible fuel that often leads to trees bursting into flames as fire approaches. 

This dualistic nature is why some scientists believe the manzanita is one of the world’s rare wildfire misfits. The same wildfire can kill an adult population of manzanita while simultaneously starting the next generation.

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The Sassafras tree (Sassafras albidum) is a member of the laurel family. Nicknamed the mitten tree it is often found along hedgerows and open fields, the towering sassafras has been a food source for wildlife and humans alike. The tree’s crushed leaf or broken twig releases the Sassafras’ trademark aroma of cinnamon, citrus, or even a fruity breakfast cereal.

Sassafras trees are found along forest edges, in hedgerows, and in open fields throughout most of the eastern United States and west to Missouri. The tree prefers sandy, well-drained soil in full sun and often starts in abandoned fields as a pioneer species. 

Sassafras grows about 60 feet tall and has a bushy appearance due to the many suckers that shoot up around the tree’s base. The sassafras also sends out root sprouts that eventually form a dense colony, leading to the rapid expansion of the trees in a particular area. It is estimated that some trees have lived over 300 years.

The easiest way to identify sassafras is the tree’s smooth mitten-shaped leaves. The leaves are 4-6 inches long and are slightly fuzzy at first. While most leaves are mitten-shaped, some are ovals or have several “fingers.” By mid-fall, the leaves shift from bright green to yellow, orange-pink, and red-purple. 

Sassafras leaves release a sweet, strong fragrance of cinnamon and citrus when crushed. Some say it smells like root beer. This would make sense since Pharmacist Charles Hires used sassafras in his formula for “root tea” in 1875. A friend of Hires suggested that using the word beer instead of tea would have a wider appeal, especially to the working class of the industrialized USA and it did. In 2021 the global root beer market size was estimated to be worth over $728 million dollars!

As if the sassafras didn’t have enough uses already, the fragrant wood of the tree is quite heavy and was used in boat building and making beds. The small twigs were used to make toothbrushes.

Sassafras bark is thick with deep furrows with a grayish-brown exterior. The inner bark is a dark reddish brown, similar in color to cinnamon. An even more pronounced scent comes from the snapped branches, bark, and roots. The bark can also be used to make an orange-colored pigment.

In spring, the sassafras produces delicate pink blooms at the terminal end of its branches. Fertilized by bees and small flies, those flowers will eventually develop into clusters of small dark blue berries with red stalks by late summer and early fall. 

Black bears and wild turkeys dine on the ripe sassafras berries, while white-tail deer and porcupines feed on the smaller branches and leaves. During the winter, beavers and cottontail rabbits will add the tree’s tasty bark to their diet. 

Sassafras is also the host plant for the spicebush swallowtail butterfly and Promethea moth, as well as more than 30 other butterfly and moth species.

Native Americans have used various parts of the sassafras for medicinal purposes. Roots and berries were made into teas to treat fatigue, diarrhea, insect bites, lice, and even syphilis. It is also a diuretic.

The roots were also used to make antiseptic and pain-reducing poultices for skin infections, sores, and deep wounds. 

European settlers quickly discovered safrole, an aromatic oil pulled out of processed sassafras bark. This oil became so popular that sassafras trees along the eastern seaboard were cut down and shipped to England. The fragrant oil was used in soap, fragrance, and toothpaste.

Until the early 20th century, the English made a popular drink called “saloop,” a mixture of sassafras tea, milk, and sugar.

Scientists later discovered that in concentrated quantities safrole has carcinogenic properties, so it is no longer used to make root beer or other foods. However, the leaves and roots, taken in small quantities, are considered harmless. The concentrated safrole is also a hallucinogen that’s used in making ecstasy also known as methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA).

File, a powder made from ground sassafras leaves, is still a primary ingredient in cajun cuisine, particularly Louisiana Gumbo. – Even the government knows not to mess with Lousiana and their Gumbo!

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One of the many joys of spending time outdoors in the summer is foraging for berries. While the berry picking primetime is early summer, depending on where you live, late summer and early fall can still offer plenty of opportunities for feasting on these tiny wild fruit delicacies. 

Here are some of our favorite late summer specials on Mother Nature’s produce aisle:

Lingonberry

Found in northern climes and native to the boreal forest, the lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) is an acidic, bittersweet relative of the cranberry. Regionally, the lingonberry is also known as the cowberry, partridgeberry, redberry, mountain cranberry, and foxberry.

The lingonberry is a low, creeping shrub with oval evergreen leaves from ¼ to 1-⅛ inches long, alternately arranged on stems up to 16 inches long. 

Small bell-shaped white and pale pink flowers blossom in early summer before turning into cranberry-sized red berries in late summer. The fruit sweetens the longer it is left on the branch and often becomes more edible when the snow melts. 

Due to its tartness, the lingonberry is typically cooked and sweetened before being eaten in the form of syrups, jams, and compotes. Raw lingonberries are mashed with sugar to make them more palatable. 

Elderberry

The elderberry (Sambucus nigra) is a dark purple berry found throughout the Pacific Northwest, Midwest, Southeast, and Northeast regions of the United States.

The black elder tree is actually a deciduous shrub that grows up to 20 feet tall and wide. Its leaves are 4 to 12 inches long with a serrated margin. 

The black elder produces small white five-petaled flowers about ¼ inch in diameter from late spring through July.

The elderberry forms in drooping clusters and can be harvested when all the ¼-inch berries on the cluster turn a dark, glossy purple. This usually occurs between mid-August to mid-September. 

The elderberry is slightly poisonous when eaten raw. It can cause nausea, vomiting, and a severe case of the backdoor bubblies. The fruit becomes edible after cooking and is used in jams, sauces, soups, wines, and brandy.

Huckleberry

The flavor child of a cranberry and blueberry, the huckleberry (the common name for various Gaylussacia species and some Vaccinium species), comes from a shrub-like plant found in the underbrush of sub-alpine forests in the Western U.S. 

The huckleberry grows on an evergreen shrub between 2 to 4 feet tall. The shrub has small oval leaves with smooth edges arranged alternately on the stems. The leaves have a slight yellow tint and will turn red in the fall. 

The huckleberry produces small pink-red flowers early in the summer, long before the fruit appears in late summer. 

The huckleberry fruit is similar in appearance to the blueberry. One way to tell the two apart is by opening the fruit. Blueberries are pale green or white inside, and huckleberries are purple or blue.

The huckleberry bush produces its sweet juicy berries in late summer and early fall and can be consumed just like blueberries. Once harvested, huckleberries need to be used immediately or frozen for later use in jams, ice creams, muffins, teas, soups, and syrups.

Black Chokeberry

The black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) is a tart, high-antioxidant fruit similar in appearance to the blueberry and huckleberry. The berry’s astringent properties led to the name “chokeberry” due to its tart taste that tends to dry out your mouth.

Found in the eastern U.S., the chokeberry is a rounded deciduous shrub that grows between 3 to 8 feet tall in damp woods and swamps. The dark green leaves are 1-3 inches long and elliptical in shape. The leaves change from green to vibrant red, orange, and purple tones in the fall.

In spring, the chokeberry produces clusters of flowers, with each flower having five white petals. 

Clusters of huckleberry fruit (each berry between ¼ to ½ inch in diameter), with up to 30 berries per cluster, turn purplish-black to black in late summer and early autumn. 

Due to the chokeberry’s extreme tartness, the fruit is best used in baking to make jams, jellies, and syrups. 

Wild Blackberry

The wild blackberry (Rubus allegheniensis) is one of the summer’s sweetest berries that can be harvested throughout the summer and into late September. 

Wild blackberries can be found throughout most of the U.S. These small berries grow on thorny shrubs called brambles, which are members of the rose family. Each blackberry bramble contains several canes between 4 and 6 feet long with sharp-toothed leaves with a clearly visible central vein.

These brambles are easily identified in early summer when the plant produces small bright white flowers.

The blackberry fruit starts as a tiny green berry that turns red and eventually black when it matures in July in August. 

Since wild blackberries are the perfect trail snack, most never make it back from the trailhead. Those that do are used in jams, juices, syrups, brandy, or frozen for later use in pies and smoothies.

***Berry Picking Cautions***

Before you start slamming down any berries you find along the trail, check the rules and regulations of the area you’re traveling through. It is illegal or restricted to forage in some locations so that wildlife can have access to food. 

Regarding wildlife, remember you may not be the only one dining on late summer berries. Bears and other animals love berries. Make a lot of noise as you approach your berry patch, so both you and the animals stay safe.

Also, not every berry is your body’s friend. Make sure you are 100 percent certain of the berry’s identification before putting it in your mouth.  

Safely foraging for berries means traveling with someone experienced in the local edible flora. Or at least bring a book like “A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants: Eastern and Central North America” by Lee Allen Peterson and Roger Tory Peterson. Keeping a copy of “Handbook of Poisonous and Injurious Plants” by Michael J. Balick, Lewis S. Nelson, and Richard D. Shih in your backpack may also be a good idea.

The post 5 Late Season Wildberries appeared first on Danger Ranger Bear.

The Cholla cactus is a dastardly plant that thrives in deserts across North America. This cactus has adapted to several different arid elevations and locales throughout North America and ranges from one to 15 feet tall, depending on the species. Some live in mountain forests and others in dry, rocky flats or slopes. 

While there are more than 20 species of cholla in the Opuntia genus, the more infamous species is the Teddy Bear Cholla, or Jumping Cholla (Cylindropuntia bigelovii), which can be found in Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California. 

The cactus’ short, fuzzy branches were thought to resemble cute little Teddy Bear arms from a distance. Upon closer inspection, the plant is more like the Teddy Bear of Death. Those fuzzy arms are actually covered with a thick coat of spines that seem to have a magical ability for sticking to everything. 

This shrub-like cactus has segmented cylindrical stems, rather than pads like most cacti, that easily disconnect at each segment. Since the segment is covered in spines, it can quickly latch on to any passing animal or can even be blown off the plant in a strong wind.

Dead stems can be found littering the area several feet away from the parent cactus. These zombie stems are the ones that usually attach themselves to your shoes, socks, pant legs, and even between your dog’s foot pads. 

In addition to torturing hikers, the cholla cactus spines serve several functions. They protect the plant from being eaten and also aid in water collection. The spine’s primary purpose, however, is reproduction. The cholla cactus excels in getting its stem segments latched onto any passing critter.

What makes the cholla cactus spine a literal pain is its overlapping barbs which are similar to a porcupine’s quill. The barbed spine functions like a razor-sharp blade that easily punctures skin going in but is hard to pull out because the spine catches on the victim’s muscle fibers. Once stuck, the cholla cactus segment breaks off and is given a free ride to a new location where it will begin growing as a new plant. 

Desert pack rats use this feature for home defense. The small rodents roll the dead stems in front of their burrow entrances to protect them from foxes and coyotes. 

If you find a cholla stem sticking to you, whip out a multitool and gently pull it off with the pliers. You can also place a plastic comb between the segment and your skin to flick the cactus away. Any remaining tiny spines can be removed with tweezers or duct tape. 

The cholla cactus has orange or yellow flowers that bloom from April through June. The fruit, which is usually sterile, is about one inch in diameter and will often have spines.

Indigenous tribes like the Tohono O’odham in the Sonoran Desert would harvest the cholla flower buds as a food source. Once de-spined, the buds would be dried, roasted, or eaten raw. Cholla cactus buds are high in calcium and soluble fibers and would often be a staple food source for nursing mothers and the elderly. 

Considering their nickname jumping cactus we think they should be given a wide berth and best admired at a distance, preferably through a telescope!

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While many American trees have had notable roles in the country’s history, perhaps none played a more significant part than the continent’s largest hardwood, the cottonwood.

This tree, also known as the poplar, was directly involved in the success of the 1804-1806 Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Nearly 80 percent of the expedition’s 8,000-mile voyage was completed over water and the team needed locally made watercraft to transport tons of supplies, people, horses, and mules.  

Native Americans taught the explorers how to carve dugout canoes from the trunks of cottonwoods. These 30-foot-long boats that weighed almost 2,000 pounds each, were were paddled, poled, and towed along the Missouri River from Fort Mandan (near modern-day Bismarck, North Dakota) to Great Falls, Montana.

Aside from being used for canoes, cottonwoods were a staple of everyday life for indigenous people across the Great Plains and Southwest. Wood from the tree was used for building materials, fuel for fires, food for horses, medicine, and shade from the elements.

The Plains tribes and members of the Lewis and Clark expedition used the wood from the plains cottonwood (Populus deltoides monilifera), one of the tree’s three subspecies. 

The eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides) is found in the eastern U.S., and was most likely the subspecies used by General George Armstrong Custer when he fed the bark to his horses and mules during his 1868-1869 campaign against the tribes in southern Arkansas.

The third subspecies, the Rio Grande cottonwood (Populus deltoides wislizeni) can be found between southern Colorado and Texas, and then west to California. These cottonwoods were used as landmarks by wagon train scouts to identify layover spots. Sometimes called the “tree of life,” the cottonwood provided much-needed shade, wood for fires, and was often located near streams and rivers. 

The Hopi, Pueblo, and other southwestern tribes used the Rio Grande cottonwood’s roots to carved kachina dolls and other ceremonial objects. 

The cottonwood thrives along river banks since floods create perfect conditions for seedling germination. As one of the fastest-growing trees, it can grow up to 15 feet yearly. 

The cottonwood lives between 70 to 100 years and can reach heights as tall as 195 feet, with a trunk close to 10 feet in diameter.

Cottonwood bark is a silvery gray and smooth when the tree is young and develops deep, rugged fissures as it ages. 

The cottonwood’s coarsely toothed leaves are large and triangular, about 2-4 inches long and 2-4 inches wide. The broad leaves easily catch the wind and move like wind chimes, one of the cottonwood’s hallmarks. The leaves are dark green throughout the summer and will turn a light yellow in the fall. However, cottonwoods in arid locations drop their leaves in early fall before the complete color change can occur.

The cottonwood reproduces through seeds that develop on single-sex trees. The purple-reddish male flowers (catkins)  and green female catkins bloom in the early spring. By early summer, each catkin has matured with several seed capsules that will split open to release seeds attached to cottony strands. One cottonwood tree can release 40 million seeds each season.

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The Saguaro Cactus (Carnegiea gigantea) is an instantly recognizable symbol of the Desert South West though it is only found in a small area of the Sonoran Desert in California, Arizona, and Northern Mexico. For the Saguaro the key to success in the harsh desert climate is to take things slow.

Saguaro can grow to be as tall as 78 feet high and weigh in at several tons but this doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, it can take up to 200 hundred years! In its early days, Saguaro are tiny and got their start in the shadow of other plants such as ironwood palo verde or mesquite.

The tiny bit of shade from a Palo Verde Tree gives the extra edge a growing cactus needs to survive the harsh desert

Growing from seed to 1-2 inches tall can take nearly a decade. Depending on rainfall the Saguaro will flower in about 35 years and in half a century the Saguaro will begin to grow its first branch otherwise known as an arm. After 125 years they will finally be considered an adult and have as many as 50 arms.

Besides growing very slowly the Saguaro adapts to the arid desert by collecting as much water as it can when it does rain and then conserving the precious moisture during dry spells.

The root system of the Saguaro is three-pronged: It has a single two-foot taproot that helps anchor the one-day giant to the rocky soil. The next layer of roots radiates just below the surface of the desert floor and then finally the third layer of roots extends out as far as the cactus is tall.

The waxy and leafless exterior of the Saguaro prevents water loss by evaporation and the two-inch spines point down to help channel water to the roots during rainfall. Internally the Saguaro is corrugated to allow the cactus to expand and hold the maximum amount of rainwater after a storm.

The Saguaro also provides food and shelter to many animals and humans too. Birds, bats, and insects dine on the Saguaro’s strongly scented white flowers that only open at night. In exchange for the meal, the flying nectar feeders help pollinate neighboring Saguaros as they cannot do this themselves.

The Saguaro itself also serves as a home for many birds that will bore into the cactus high and enable them to live safely elevated away from predators with a built-in spikey security system. Bobcats are known to risk a few spines in the paw and seek refuge from Mountain Lions upon a tall Saguaro.

Humans also use the Saguaro for food and shelter. Native Americans have long collected the tasty red fruit of the giant cactuses and the former homes of the birds create what is known as a “Saguaro Boot”. A Saguaro boot is the plant’s protective reaction to a bird burrowing into its body by forming a leathery scar around the hole.

When a Saguaro dies the hard boot which looks like a wooden clog is left behind and was used by Indians as a water-tight container. Furthermore, the woody internal ribs of the Saguaro were used to fashion tools and as a building material in dwellings since wood is so scarce in the desert.

If you want to find these long-lived giants of the desert the easiest way is to visit Saguaro National Park or Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona during the cooler winter months. IF you don’t mind the heat, Spring and early Summer are also interesting times to see the Saguaro as they bloom in April and the fruit is usually fully ripened by June.

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