Nature’s Christmas Ornaments

Small trees laden with crabapples, and thickets full of bright red rose hips and white snowberries are very decorative at this time of year. Several native plants have attractive fruits that persist, like little Christmas baubles, through the winter months. Driving north from Courtenay on a sunny December day, I noticed how pretty and abundant these native fruits are along the highway’s edge.

Rose hips, usually from the Nootka rose (Rosa nutkana) are especially plentiful. The round “hips” range in colour from orange-red to bluish-red and have a fleshy outer rind, which houses the white, hairy seeds.

Rose hips are well known as an excellent source of vitamin C. During the Second World War, the British government organized volunteers and school children to harvest rose hips. The hips were made into a syrup, providing a readily available source of vitamin C at a time when citrus fruits were scarce. Rose hips make a nice jelly, and the can be boiled to make a delicious tea. Rose hips are used medicinally to treat a variety of ailments, including colds and indigestion.

Traditional First Nations’ use of rose hips varies from group to group. The Vancouver Island Salish and Comox peoples harvested rose hips in the fall and ate the outer rind when fresh. Many groups did not eat rose hips at all, and some ate them only as a famine food. Generally the hairy seeds were avoided, and were known to give one an “itchy bottom.”

Nootka rose is a thicket-forming shrub that is usually found in open areas, such as roadsides, shorelines and open woods. The base of each leaf has a pair of prickles, and the toothed leaflets are rounded at the tips. In June, one can often smell the fragrant, saucer-like pink flowers.

The Pacific Crabapple (Malus fusca) produces clusters of little egg-shaped “apples” with long stems. Each fruit is about the size of the end of one’s little finger. When ripe they are yellow to purple-red and tart tasting. After a frost, crabapples turn brown and mushy (with recent cold weather, they aren’t as attractive as they were a few weeks ago).

Crabapples were an important food source for all coastal First Nations peoples. They were harvested late in the summer, when still green, and then allowed to ripen. Boxes of crabapples, sometimes stored in water, were an important trade item. The stored fruits were acidic and therefore easy to preserve, becoming softer and sweeter with time.

Pacific Crabapple grows as a large shrub or small tree that can be up to 12 metres high. The fragrant pinkish-white flowers are like a smaller version of orchard apple blossoms, and are quite showy in the spring. The toothed leaves are also similar to the orchard apple, except that they sometimes have three lobes. Crabapple is often found in moist woodlands, swamps, and along waterways.

Domestic crabapples, which can be found at old orchard sites, look similar, but have larger fruits. Both domestic and wild crabapples can be harvested to make jelly or jam. Crabapples are very rich in pectin, and can be mixed with low-pectin fruits to make preserves.

Common snowberry, or waxberry (Symphoricarpos albus) is dotted with conspicuous white fruits throughout the winter. Called “snowballs,” by some, the small round fruits have a spongy texture and are inedible to humans.

All coastal groups traditionally avoided snowberries and believed them to be poisonous. The Nuxalk, of the Bella Coola region, believed that they were “the salmonberries of the people in the land of the dead.” Though not consumed, snowberries were used as a treatment for sore eyes, and for removing warts.

Snowberry is a delicate shrub, with small, rounded blue-green leaves. The twiggy branches, like the leaves, are positioned opposite each other like most members of the Honeysuckle family. In the late spring to summer, snowberry has tiny pinkish flowers that are often overlooked. Snowberry is common in our area, growing in clearings, open woods and along hedgerows.

Fruits of crabapples, rose hips and snowberries, are easy to spot in the winter months. Adorning bare branches, they are nature’s Christmas ornaments.

I’d like to wish all readers a happy Holiday Season. I hope you will join us for more nature discoveries in the New Year! Photographer Dave Ingram’s 2010 West Coast Wildflower calendar is now available. To order, Dave can be reached at contact@daveingram.ca

Filed under Nature Writing | Tags: Common Snowberry, Courtenay, Nootka Rose, Pacific Crabapple | Comment (0)