Plants, continued
looking like a smaller, ground-creeping
Morning-Glory with pink or pink-striped
flowers; the Beach Carrot (Glchnia littoralis),
looking somewhat like Angelica creeping
prostate on the beach; or the Yellow Sand
Verbena (Abronia latifolia), with small,
fleshy, glistening leaves (reminiscent of “ice
plants") and a cluster of small, bright yellow
flowers.
On the lowest point on the beach slope,
where patchy vegetation gives way to bare
sand, only a very few , uniquely adapted
plants can survive the severe salt, sand, and
exposure. Among the small patches of
Dunegrass and European Beachgrass, there
the American Searocket (Cakile edentula)
with its fleshy, lobed leaves, small purplish-
white flowers, and elongated, pulpy green
fruits (roughly _ inch long); its close
relative, the introduced European Searocket
(Cakile maritima) is common and more showy,'
with larger flowers, and more deeply lobed
leaves. Also, this zone is home to the
Seabeach Sandwort (Honkenya peploides),
growing in dense mats, with fleshy, bright
green leaves growing symmetrically aroun
short stalks, topped in the spring by small, r
greenish-white flowers.
On the northern Oregon coast, we do
not yet have much Gorse (Ulex europaeus),
that awesomely spiny, invasive, and
flammable relative of Scott’s Broom with
broom-like yellow flowers. Introduced from
the British Isles (where it is sometimes used
for hedgerows) Gorse has crowded out all
other plants with vast, impenetrable, spiny
thickets, covering the dunes and beach
margins of the southern Oregon coast.
Nitrogen-fixing nodules in its roots allow it to
occupy marginal, sandy soils, while oil in its
tissues allows gorse fires to burn hot and fast,
like a grease fire, resistant to light dousings
with water; Gorse was implicated in the 1914
and 1936s fires of Bandon, Oregon, both of
which leveled that coastal town. Gorse s
range is currently expanding on the coasts of
Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. If
you see any Gorse in the vicinity of Cannon
Beach, dig it up. Find a secure place and burn
it. Show no mercy.
For a highly readable, and well illustrated
summary, I recommend food Plants of Coastal
First Peoples by Nancy Turner, published in
1995 by the University of British Columbia
Press in Vancouver. For those who want to
dig even deeper into this topic, I would
suggest two other books written by Nancy
Turner and published by the British Columbia
Provincial Museum in Victoria: Plants in
British Columbia Indian Technology (1979),
and the more technical and comprehensive
Ethnobotany o f the Nitinaht Indians ot
Vancouver Island (1983). Though both books
emphasize tribes on the British Columbia
coast, these tribes occupied vegetation zones
very similar to the Oregon coast, and they are
more trustworthy, on most counts, than l.rna
Gunther’s widely-read book, Ethnobotany ol
Western Washington. (Little has been
written on the ethnobotany of Oregon coast
peoples [though such projects are in the
works]. While ceremonial and medicinal uses
of plants varied somewhat between tribes, the
native peoples of coastal Oregon and coastal
coast British Columbia used plants in verv
similar ways, particularly those plants used
for food or in the production of material
objects).
Explore the shore, and look at its
plants! Results may vary. You may not find
these plants, or you might find yet others,
you might find them unremarkable or you
might become a card-carrying phytophile.
Regardless, these plants are something to
behold; often overlooked as we bound over
i -r the dunes and down to the beaches, they
' ^deserve a_ second glance.
O R EG O N BOOKS
O reg o n A u t h o r s • B o o k s a b o u t O reg o n
w it h S e l e c t io n s f r o m t h e p n w
52 NE Hwy 101
Depoe Bay, Oregon 97341
541-765-3293
Let not your tongue cut your throat.
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Cannon Feach, O K 07110
(503) 436-0942
More Morning glory
The people never give up their
liberties but under some delusion.
-Edmund Burke
& &
¿5
TRILLIUM
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NATURÂLF0ODS >
ay
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Scotch Broom
Interested in a good plant guide for the
coast? I would highly recommend Plants ot
the Pacific Northwest Coast, edited by Jim
Pojar and Andy MacKinnon, and published in
1994 by Lone Pine Publishing in Redmond,
Washington. This book features almost 800
plants (including those described above). It
provides clear color photographs of plants,
and descriptions of their appearance, habitat,
and range; it also includes information
regarding edible plants of the Northwest, and
the uses of plants among Native Americans,
historical and contemporary. Despite its
British Columbia bias, the book provides a
comprehensive overview of most of our
common plants of the Oregon coast. Despite
its organization (on the basis of botanical
classifications, as opposed to readily-apparent
characteristics such as flower color), amateur
plant enthusiasts will still find this book easy
to use. Anyone interested in growing wild
plants in the garden might want to consult
the foremost guidebook on the subject:
Gardening with Native Plants ot the Pacific
Northwest written by A rthur Kruckeberg,
and published by the University of
Washington Press in Seattle.
As explained before, many ol the
“wild” plants of the sandy margins are, in
fact, introduced from Europe and elsewhere,
most of these are accidentally introduced
“weeds,” uniquely adapted to harsh or
turbulent environments. Interested in an
informative overview of how such plants
make intercontinental journeys, and what
this means, environmentally? Try Ecological
Imperialism: I he Biological Expansion ol
Europe, 900-1900 by Alfred Crosby, published
in 1986 by Cambridge University Press or, if
you want to get back to the classics, try the
entertaining and enlightening book, Plants,
Man, and fife by Edgar Anderson, published
in 1952 by the University of California Press.
Or simply type the word “weeds” into the
nearest computerized library catalogue for a
host of other books.
Many of the plants described here
were used by local Native Americans (as
foods, medicines, and so forth) in addition to
the examples mentioned above. Interested in
Native American uses of plants on this coast?
(> imuruKi
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The Dog Catcher’s Wife
by T. Dunn
For Abie
Now I know I’ve become more than a little
adamant on the subject, but do you ever really talk to
yourself - - 1 mean talk aloud; maybe a muttered
whisper of what’s going on in your brain? You have
to admit that it is freeing. Now imagine Myrtle.
First just having that name. Second being the
dogcatcher’s wife. No, she doesn’t have those pig
tight overpermed curls --just ordinary brown hair
strewn with gray — and no, she’s not wall -eyed or
squat. Just medium height and neat in her dress,
ordinary being the operative word.
And when she married Norman he wasn t the
dogcatcher. He was a nightwatchman at a business
complex. She was a receptionist going to night
school.
Of course they weren’t well-to-do, but who is I
So you might say that old Myrtle married into her
legacy anyway. Her legacy being that of the
dogcatcher’s wife.
“Mea culpa,” she mutters, farewelling her husband
with a wave through the chain link fence. She
doesn’t know what mea culpa means, but she’s
heard of it and likes the sounds. She rounds on her
heels and strides like the determined person she is -
to do chores. She hums a little tonclessly. She
cleans like a demon. She whips her kitchen to the
bones, proudly.
She speaks aloud. Home alone. In the grocery
store. Overheard and responded to, she just shrugs
down the aisle of the supermarket. If she really
cared what people thought she’d exercise and give
up fries, dye her hair. Instead, she spreads her
comfort zone around her as the sheer proof of
selfhood. She stood for something. She was the
dogcatcher’s wife. She was herself entire.
In literature as in love, we are
astonished at what is chosen by others.
-Andre Maurois
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