EDIBLE WILD NATIVE FRUITS
The wild fruit of the Pacific Northwest offers a variety of fresh and delicious flavors. They can be used alone or combined with other fruit for a unique twist in your favorite jam, sauce or baking recipes.
Include these plants in your ‘edible forest’ or general landscape, and have a bounty that you can both enjoy and share with the birds that visit your garden! Here’s a sampling:
Vaccinium spp. (Huckleberry) Perhaps the best of the native berries is the Evergreen Huckleberry (V. ovatum); not found as commonly in nurseries, the Black Huckleberry (V. membranaceum) is also really tasty; the Red Huckleberry (V. parvifolium) is sometimes found to be a little sour, but easily cultivated and still delicious with some sweetening.
Amelanchier alnifolia (Serviceberry)
A favorite that was frequently utilized by Northwest Indians, this sweet berry can be eaten fresh, cooked or dried.
Fragaria spp. (Strawberry) – All three of our native strawberries (F. vesca, F. chiloensis, F. virginiana) are pleasantly edible, the latter two being two of the parents of today’s garden strawberries. Being wild strawberries the fruit is quite small, but for fresh eating while out in your garden, they’re hard to beat.
Rubus spp.– Salmonberry (R. spectabilis) and Thimbleberry (R. parviflora) vary in flavor depending on the growing site. They have been described both as ‘insipid’ and also as ‘delicious.’ Thimbleberry has the sometimes advantage of growing in drier conditions.
Sambucus ssp. (Elderberry) – Both the Blue Elderberry (S. cearulea) and Red Elderberry (S. racemosa) are edible and widely used, but as there is controversy and disagreement about fresh eating, be sure to cook the fruit before eating (also note that all parts of the plant other than the fruit are highly toxic).
Gaultheria shallon (Salal) – When fully ripe the berries are sweet and are often mixed with other native berries for jellies and jams.
The following natives have edible fruit, but definitely need to be sweetened or mixed with sweeter fruit - they’re much too tart to eat alone:
Viburnum trilobum (American Cranberry Bush) – Fruit is quite tart and needs to be cooked but makes excellent and colorful jam/jelly/sauce! High in vitamin C.
Mahonia aquifolium (Oregon Grape) – Berries tend to be tart, so are made into jellies and jams with sweeter berries (and/or lots of sugar).
Prunus virginiana (Chokecherry) – Also in the category of edible but tart, these fruits are also quite small (but again, think jam or jelly).
Crataegus douglassii (Black Hawthorne) – Edible but with a slightly mealy texture, the berries are high in pectin - which makes them a superb thickening agent for those jams and jellies!
There are many books and other references and classes to help you learn more about our native edible fruit – check your local book store or library and check out www.boskydellnatives.com and http://www.nwplants.com/information/emag/vol3-5.pdf for recipes and more information.
Many thanks to Gradey Proctor, who helped with facts and details, and who often includes a class in edible fruits in his native Herbal/Botany class series: www.arctosschool.org
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Amelanchier alnifolia
Serviceberry
NOT ALL BERRIES ARE EDIBLE!
Please note that some berries will vary in flavor due to individual tastes and the site conditions – and some are downright poisonous – so only eat what you know to be edible!
We can’t stress this enough…native plants, like their non-native cousins, have look-alikes that are inedible-to-toxic. And in some cases other parts of edible fruit plants are not to be eaten.
So, even if you’re growing your own, be sure of your plants before using them as food.