By Jess Carey
Salal berries are one of the most common and underappreciated woodland snacks in the North Coast. Blueberry-like in texture and flavor, with a much more sweet and floral taste; you can forget your bland mushy berries in little plastic tubs from the grocery store — these are the real deal. The joy of snacking on berries while on a walk in the woods is monumentally different compared to the soulless beeps of the self-checkout at Safeway. Ingesting a little bit of dirt or the occasional bug won’t hurt you — but a sterile relationship with food and nature might. Armed with a little bit of plant identification practice, you have nothing to fear. Foraging, to me, is a beautiful and accessible way to connect with nature while honoring indigenous knowledge.
Salal, or Gaultheria shallon, is a common shrub that can be found throughout the Arcata Community Forest and scattered around campus landscaping. The plant’s Wiyot name is viqhul. While its berries won’t be ready for picking until July or Aug., the plant is in full bloom now. Salal is in the Ericaceae family — a group characterized by adorable pink bell-shaped flowers in long clusters. They look like tiny lanterns that a fairy might carry, or perhaps wear as a hat.
Its dull green oval leaves are slightly pointed, simple and usually two to four inches long. The plant grows in mats around the base of trees and in thickets throughout the woods. It is a humble shrubby plant, usually not more than two or three feet tall and is fairly inconspicuous until its flowers emerge in spring.
Summer is approaching, and with it, the promise of berry season. The huckleberries, or Vaccinium, also have edible berries and look similar to salal, although with smaller leaves and denser bushier growth. Other common edible berries that will be ripe soon include blackberry, salmonberry and thimbleberry, all of the genus Rubus. If you are inspired to try them out for yourself, always keep in mind the principles of the honorable harvest — to only take what you need, respect the plants and embrace reciprocity with the land.
Jess Carey is a senior at Cal Poly Humboldt, majoring in ecology and minoring in journalism, and the science editor for The Lumberjack. They are passionate about telling stories that are relevant to the community, branching their interests in science, music, and the arts.
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