PNW Native
Ranges from Central Alaska to Northern California and inland to Idaho
Salmonberry is a dense thicket-forming erect shrub that grows in height up to 4 m / 12 ft. Bark ranges from red-brown to yellowish with younger shoots remaining green without tough bark. Younger stems have thorns that often slough off with maturity. Leaves are ternately compound, alternate, sharply toothed, and deciduous. Flowers are magenta with 5 petals, and berries are raspberry-like ranging in color from pale yellow to vivid scarlet, often a salmon-y orange. Berries are highly palatable and prized in the region. (All 3)
"Salmonberry fruits, ripe from June to August, rank at the very top of foods for wildlife. The early blooming flowers, blossoming from March to June, are an important nectar source for bees, butterflies, various other insects, and hummingbirds. The berries are relished by songbirds, bears, and small mammals a much as they are enjoyed by humans. Leaves, twigs, and stems are grazed by browsers, such as deer, elk, and rabbits. The dense thickets provide excellent escape habitats for birds and small mammals, and nesting sites for songbirds." [1]
Salmonberries spread viciously through its robust rhizomes and aggressively sending up new shoots each year. Salmonberry thickets can be so dense that they crowd out other trees for centuries. The tangle of rhizomes under the soil can be so dense that seedlings are indefinitely crowded out. Salmonberry understorey that grows under a red alder forest early in ecological succession can outlast the red alders and take over the ecosystem when they fall. Therefore, despite being a native species, salmonberry can act similarly to invasive plants. (DM)
Salmonberry thrives in moist and soggy soils and will rapidly colonize streamsides.
"Salmonberry fruits are edible, but are considered too soft to dry. Both the large, raspberry-like fruit and the young shoots were widely eaten by coastal peoples of British Columbia and western Washington. Fruits were an important food source for Native Americans and are still collected today. The berries are among the first to ripen, and are a beautiful salmon color that stand out in the generally rainy weather of spring. Large quantities of fresh berries were picked and were often served at feasts, usually with oil or ooligan grease, said to prevent constipation. Today salmonberries are frozen, canned, or made into jams and jellies.
The young growing sprouts are harvested from April to early June. They are snapped off with the fingers before they become woody, then peeled, and eaten raw or, more commonly cooked by steaming or boiling. Sprouts are also tied in bundles and pitcooked. They were usually eaten with seal oil or ooligan grease, and, more recently, with sugar, often as an accompaniment to dried salmon or meat. Some Nuu-chah-nulth people boiled the leaves with fish as a flavoring. The Kaigani Haida used the leaves to line baskets, wipe fish, and cover food in steaming pits.
The Makah dry and peel a branch of salmonberry, remove the pith, and use it for a pipe stem. The Quileute plug the hair seal float used in whaling with the hollow stem of elderberry wood, then insert a piece of salmonberry wood as a stopper. This salmonberry plug can be removed for further inflation of the float. Salmonberry has an astringent quality in the bark and leaves. The Quileute chew the leaves and spit them on burns, and in winter when the leaves are not obtainable they use the bark instead. The Makah pound the bark and lay it on an aching tooth or a festering wound to kill the pain. The Quinault boil the bark in seawater, and the brew is drank to lessen labor pains and to clean infected wounds, especially burns." [1]
Like other plant foods, a salmonberry thicket could be owned by a family or individual and returned to year-after-year. The Nuu-chah-nulth system had owners of their salmonberry patch collect enough to throw a grand feast before allowing all in the tribe to harvest from the patch. (DM) Salmonberries were tied to salmon in Northwest Coast cultures. The two were often eaten together as the astringent shoots or tart yet mild berries would cut the rich grease of the salmon. The words for spring and the month we know as May in many Coast Salish languages are named after the salmonberry. Swainson's thrush was known to many tribes as the salmonberry bird, and its song was associated with the ripening of salmonberries in spring. Salmonberry harvests were also used as a predictor of salmon runs later in the year. (LC)
"Salmonberry is a useful shrub in created wetlands because it transplants easily, with good soilbinding qualities once it is established, and is well adapted to eroded or disturbed sites." [1]
Salmonberry was thought to be a better restoration planting than it has ended up being due to its vicious rhizomatic spread. Local laws require logging operations to preserve ecosystems along streams to create streamside buffers promoting native biodiversity, but when salmonberry thickets take over, biodiversity is reduced and other native species are crowded out. Salmonberry will rapidly colonize recently disturbed sites, clear cuts, and burns. (DM)
[1] Stevens, M. and Darris, D. (2000). SALMONBERRY Rubus spectabilis. USDA NRCS Plant Fact Sheet. https://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/cs_rusp.pdf
