Orcasional Musings | It’s The Berries! Can They Think?

||| ORCASIONAL MUSINGS BY STEVE HENIGSON |||

Sometimes I think that berry bushes are smarter than we are. The various wild Orcasian berries have discovered ways to coexist with very little conflict, while we humans are still fighting it out among ourselves.

The main purpose of life, as best as I can understand it, is to propagate and perpetuate, and this is something that berry bushes do extremely well. While we humans continue to see propagation and perpetuation as something of a competitive contact sport, most of the berry bushes are coöperating in the endeavor. Well, that is, all except for the Himalayan Blackberry, which seems to be trying to take over the world.

Berry bushes need berry eaters: birds, bears, deer, squirrels, raccoons, and us. Most of the berry seeds pass right on through unharmed, and get deposited in a new location, complete with fertilizer. But if all of the berries bore fruit at once, we eaters might choose only one favorite to pick from among them, thereby putting the existence of all of the others into jeopardy—if you can phrase that as a question, please.

So the point in the berries’ favor is that they’re not in a competition with each other. The berry bushes seem to have held a conference, a long, long time ago, and decided among themselves which of them, in which month and in what sequence, will set their fruit. So, month by month—and sometimes week by week—we are faced with their choice of our berry-of-the-month, so to speak.

It goes something like this. The few manzanita bushes we have here bring forth their fruit in May. In June, we get wild currents, and a few salmonberries. July is the berries’ busiest month, with many different bushes setting fruit, but not all of them are in one place, and not all of them are producing deliciousness. Salmonberries, red huckleberries, and Salal begin the month, and they’re a mixed lot from the eater’s point of view. Then come soapberries, which you probably will prefer to avoid; and thimbleberries, which are extremely flavorful but few and far between. As July ends, we see serviceberries, traditionally a Canadian delicacy; wild strawberries, which are scrumptious but which some people think are so small that they aren’t worth the trouble; and last—and probably almost least—sour black gooseberries.

August begins with the scarce-but-yummy huckleberry, and kinnikinnick with which to make your pemmican. The even scarcer black raspberry is delicious, but by the time it appears, late in the month and into September, the blackberries are demanding your attention and snagging your clothing. Remember: they’re taking over the world, and you’re helping them. After the blackberry orgy is well and truly finished, Oregon grape shows up, but it’s sour and it’s not for you. By October, the madrona berry is all that there is, and you’ll just have to wait for next year.

It’s interesting that manzanita begins the sequence, and, almost six months later, its close cousin the madrona ends it. It’s also interesting that both manzanita and madrona are a sort of reverse tree. They’re evergreens in terms of leaf, but deciduous in terms of bark. But most interesting of all, the two of them perfectly typify the results of the “conference of the bushes”: No competition.

Errata: Upon reading last week’s musing, Irene O’Neil phoned to say that I had conflated two of her stories, which were separated in time by about 30 years. The story of the smugglers’ use of Obstruction Pass outhouses dated from the 18th Amendment Prohibition of the 1920s and 1930s, and came to her from her mother and an uncle. The story about fishing through the seat of an outhouse was from her own reminiscences, was from the 1950s, and should have been located in Olga, well to the west of Deception Pass. The author regrets his error, even though it made a good story.