Quamash
Encyclopedia
Quamash also known as Small Camas, is a perennial
herb
. It is one species of the genus Camassia
and is native
to western North America
in large areas of southern Canada
and the northwestern United States
, from British Columbia
and Alberta
to California
and east from Washington state to Montana
and Wyoming
.
The pale blue to deep blue flower
s grow in a raceme
at the end of the stem. Each of the radially symmetrical, star-shaped flowers have 6 petals. The stems have a length between 30 cm and 90 cm. The leaves are basal and have a grass-like appearance.
The name Quamash is from Nez Perce
qém’es, a term for the plant's bulb, which was gathered and used as a food source by tribes in the Pacific Northwest
. The bulbs were harvested and pit-roasted or boiled by women of the Nez Perce, Cree
, and Blackfoot
tribes. It also provided a valuable food source for the members of the Lewis and Clark expedition (1804–1806).
Quamash is not just an edible plant, it is also grown as an ornamental plant
. Even in the wild, large numbers of quamash can color an entire meadow blue-violet.
While quamash is edible and nutritious, it may occasionally grow with Zygadenus species which are extremely poisonous and which have very similar bulbs.
There are eight subspecies
:
This bulb
flower naturalizes well in gardens. The bulb grows best in well-drained soil high in humus. It will grow in lightly shaded forest
areas and on rocky outcrop
s as well as in open meadow
s or prairie
s. Additionally it is found growing alongside stream
s and river
s. The plants may be divided
in autumn after the leaves have withered. Additionally the plant spreads by seed
rather than by runners
.
source for many native peoples
in the western United States and Canada. After being harvested in the autumn, once the flowers have withered, the bulbs are pit-roasted or boil
ed. A pit-cooked
camas bulb looks and tastes something like baked sweet potato
, but sweeter, and with more crystalline fibers
due to the presence of inulin
in the bulbs. People have also dried the bulbs to then be pounded into flour
. Native American tribes who ate camas include the Nez Perce, Cree
, Coast Salish
, Lummi
, and Blackfoot
tribes, among many others. Camas bulbs contributed to the survival of members of the expedition
of Lewis and Clark (1804–1806).
Though the once-immense spreads of camas lands have diminished because of modern developments and agriculture, numerous Camas prairie
s and marsh
es may still be seen today. In the Great Basin
, expanded settlement by whites accompanied by turning cattle and hogs onto camas prairies greatly diminished food available to native tribes and increased tension between Native Americans and settlers and travelers. Both the Bannock
and Nez Perce War
s began after Nez Perce became incensed at the failure of the US government to uphold treaties
, and at settlers
who plowed up their camas prairies, which they depended on for subsistence.
While Camassia species are edible and nutritious, the white-flowered Meadow death-camas species (which are not the genus Camassia, but part of the genus Zigadenus) that grow in the same areas are toxic, and the bulbs are quite similar.
Perennial plant
A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...
herb
Herb
Except in botanical usage, an herb is "any plant with leaves, seeds, or flowers used for flavoring, food, medicine, or perfume" or "a part of such a plant as used in cooking"...
. It is one species of the genus Camassia
Camassia
Camassia is a genus of six species native to western North America, from southern British Columbia to northern California, and east to Utah, Wyoming and Montana...
and is native
Native plant
Native plant is a term to describe plants endemic or naturalized to a given area in geologic time.This includes plants that have developed, occur naturally, or existed for many years in an area...
to western North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
in large areas of southern Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and the northwestern United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, from British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
and Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and east from Washington state to Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
and Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
.
The pale blue to deep blue flower
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...
s grow in a raceme
Raceme
A raceme is a type of inflorescence that is unbranched and indeterminate and bears pedicellate flowers — flowers having short floral stalks called pedicels — along the axis. In botany, axis means a shoot, in this case one bearing the flowers. In a raceme, the oldest flowers are borne...
at the end of the stem. Each of the radially symmetrical, star-shaped flowers have 6 petals. The stems have a length between 30 cm and 90 cm. The leaves are basal and have a grass-like appearance.
The name Quamash is from Nez Perce
Nez Perce language
Nez Perce , also spelled Nez Percé, is a Sahaptian language related to the several dialects of Sahaptin . The Sahaptian sub-family is one of the branches of the Plateau Penutian family...
qém’es, a term for the plant's bulb, which was gathered and used as a food source by tribes in the Pacific Northwest
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...
. The bulbs were harvested and pit-roasted or boiled by women of the Nez Perce, Cree
Cree
The Cree are one of the largest groups of First Nations / Native Americans in North America, with 200,000 members living in Canada. In Canada, the major proportion of Cree live north and west of Lake Superior, in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, although...
, and Blackfoot
Blackfoot
The Blackfoot Confederacy or Niitsítapi is the collective name of three First Nations in Alberta and one Native American tribe in Montana....
tribes. It also provided a valuable food source for the members of the Lewis and Clark expedition (1804–1806).
Quamash is not just an edible plant, it is also grown as an ornamental plant
Ornamental plant
Ornamental plants are plants that are grown for decorative purposes in gardens and landscape design projects, as house plants, for cut flowers and specimen display...
. Even in the wild, large numbers of quamash can color an entire meadow blue-violet.
While quamash is edible and nutritious, it may occasionally grow with Zygadenus species which are extremely poisonous and which have very similar bulbs.
There are eight subspecies
Subspecies
Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...
:
- Camassia quamash subsp. azurea – Small Camas
- Camassia quamash subsp. breviflora – Small Camas
- Camassia quamash subsp. intermedia – Small Camas
- Camassia quamash subsp. linearis – Small Camas
- Camassia quamash subsp. maxima – Small Camas
- Camassia quamash subsp. quamash – Small Camas
- Camassia quamash subsp. utahensis – Utah Small Camas
- Camassia quamash subsp. walpolei – Walpole's Small Camas
Cultivation and garden uses
Ornamental useThis bulb
Bulb
A bulb is a short stem with fleshy leaves or leaf bases. The leaves often function as food storage organs during dormancy.A bulb's leaf bases, known as scales, generally do not support leaves, but contain food reserves to enable the plant to survive adverse conditions. At the center of the bulb is...
flower naturalizes well in gardens. The bulb grows best in well-drained soil high in humus. It will grow in lightly shaded forest
Forest
A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...
areas and on rocky outcrop
Outcrop
An outcrop is a visible exposure of bedrock or ancient superficial deposits on the surface of the Earth. -Features:Outcrops do not cover the majority of the Earth's land surface because in most places the bedrock or superficial deposits are covered by a mantle of soil and vegetation and cannot be...
s as well as in open meadow
Meadow
A meadow is a field vegetated primarily by grass and other non-woody plants . The term is from Old English mædwe. In agriculture a meadow is grassland which is not grazed by domestic livestock but rather allowed to grow unchecked in order to make hay...
s or prairie
Prairie
Prairies are considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type...
s. Additionally it is found growing alongside stream
Stream
A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, "crick", gill , kill, lick, rill, river, syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, run or...
s and river
River
A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...
s. The plants may be divided
Division (horticulture)
Division, in horticulture and gardening, is a method of asexual plant propagation, where the plant is broken up into two or more parts...
in autumn after the leaves have withered. Additionally the plant spreads by seed
Seed
A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...
rather than by runners
Stolon
In biology, stolons are horizontal connections between organisms. They may be part of the organism, or of its skeleton; typically, animal stolons are external skeletons.-In botany:...
.
Food use
The Quamash has been a foodFood
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
source for many native peoples
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
in the western United States and Canada. After being harvested in the autumn, once the flowers have withered, the bulbs are pit-roasted or boil
Boil
A boil, also called a furuncle, is a deep folliculitis, infection of the hair follicle. It is always caused by infection by the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, resulting in a painful swollen area on the skin caused by an accumulation of pus and dead tissue...
ed. A pit-cooked
Earth oven
An earth oven or cooking pit is one of the most simple and long-used cooking structures . At its simplest, an earth oven is simply a pit in the ground used to trap heat and bake, smoke, or steam food...
camas bulb looks and tastes something like baked sweet potato
Sweet potato
The sweet potato is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the family Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting, tuberous roots are an important root vegetable. The young leaves and shoots are sometimes eaten as greens. Of the approximately 50 genera and more than 1,000 species of...
, but sweeter, and with more crystalline fibers
Natural fiber
Fibers or fibres are a class of hair-like materials that are continuous filaments or are in discrete elongated pieces, similar to pieces of thread. They can be spun into filaments, thread, or rope. They can be used as a component of composite materials. They can also be matted into sheets to...
due to the presence of inulin
Inulin
Inulins are a group of naturally occurring polysaccharides produced by many types of plants. They belong to a class of fibers known as fructans. Inulin is used by some plants as a means of storing energy and is typically found in roots or rhizomes...
in the bulbs. People have also dried the bulbs to then be pounded into flour
Flour
Flour is a powder which is made by grinding cereal grains, other seeds or roots . It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...
. Native American tribes who ate camas include the Nez Perce, Cree
Cree
The Cree are one of the largest groups of First Nations / Native Americans in North America, with 200,000 members living in Canada. In Canada, the major proportion of Cree live north and west of Lake Superior, in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, although...
, Coast Salish
Coast Salish
Coast Salish languages are a subgroup of the Salishan language family. These languages are spoken by First Nations or Native American peoples inhabiting the territory that is now the southwest coast of British Columbia around the Strait of Georgia and Washington state around Puget Sound...
, Lummi
Lummi
The Lummi , governed by the Lummi Nation, are a Native American tribe of the Coast Salish ethnolinguistic group in western Washington state in the United States...
, and Blackfoot
Blackfoot
The Blackfoot Confederacy or Niitsítapi is the collective name of three First Nations in Alberta and one Native American tribe in Montana....
tribes, among many others. Camas bulbs contributed to the survival of members of the expedition
Exploration
Exploration is the act of searching or traveling around a terrain for the purpose of discovery of resources or information. Exploration occurs in all non-sessile animal species, including humans...
of Lewis and Clark (1804–1806).
Though the once-immense spreads of camas lands have diminished because of modern developments and agriculture, numerous Camas prairie
Camas prairie
The name camas prairie refers to several distinct geographical areas in the western United States which were named for the native perennial camassia or camas, including regions in the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington...
s and marsh
Marsh
In geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....
es may still be seen today. In the Great Basin
Great Basin
The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America and is noted for its arid conditions and Basin and Range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than away at the...
, expanded settlement by whites accompanied by turning cattle and hogs onto camas prairies greatly diminished food available to native tribes and increased tension between Native Americans and settlers and travelers. Both the Bannock
Bannock War
The Bannock War was a series of conflicts in 1878 between various Bannock, Northern Shoshone and Paiute tribes against the United States.- Background :...
and Nez Perce War
Nez Perce War
The Nez Perce War was an armed conflict between the Nez Perce and the United States government fought in 1877 as part of the American Indian Wars. After a series of battles in which both the U.S. Army and native people sustained significant casualties, the Nez Perce surrendered and were relocated...
s began after Nez Perce became incensed at the failure of the US government to uphold treaties
Treaty Clause
Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, includes the Treaty Clause, which empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly negotiate agreements between the United States and other countries, which become treaties between the United States and other...
, and at settlers
Settler colonialism
Settler colonialism is a specific colonial formation whereby foreign family units move into a region and reproduce. Land is thus the key resource in settler colonies, whereas natural and human resources are the main motivation behind other forms of colonialism...
who plowed up their camas prairies, which they depended on for subsistence.
While Camassia species are edible and nutritious, the white-flowered Meadow death-camas species (which are not the genus Camassia, but part of the genus Zigadenus) that grow in the same areas are toxic, and the bulbs are quite similar.