In our wetlands, the camas lilies are in bloom. These are a particularly special flower: they have been an important food source for Takelma, Shasta and Athabaskan peoples in this region since time immemorial. After flowering, indigenous people dug up the most mature plants, setting aside some of the bulbs for baking or drying, trading, and replanting many of the bulbs to provide the next year’s harvest. Families returned year after year to their same harvesting spots, cultivating this critical food and trading resource over generations. We feel lucky to steward this beautiful and culturally important flower at Willow-Witt Ranch.

For more information about the ethnobotany of camas, check out this USDA fact sheet: https://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/cs_caqub2.pdf.

Photo by Walter Siegmund is licensed under CC BY 2.5