July 27, 2008
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Devil’s Club and Tourists
Jaynebug saw this closeup of devil’s club seed capsules (some call them “berries”) that I uploaded yesterday, and asked, “Could you take a picture of the whole plant? What does the flower look like? Is that succulent like or just thick?“
I have no personal knowledge of their succulence or lack thereof. I have never touched one. On one of my early trips out of Anchorage into Alaska, I saw what appeared to be a beautiful roadside patch of Queen Anne’s lace or wild carrot, and asked Charley to stop so I could look at them up close. He stopped, but he warned me not to get close. He said it was devil’s club and that the stickers cause a nasty rash on contact.
This is the only plant in this part of Alaska with a contact poison. We don’t have poison ivy, oak or sumac here, and no devil’s paintbrush. Having come into contact with plenty of them in my youth in the Lower 48, I am wary of devil’s club, and thankful that it is so big and showy, nearly impossible to just blunder into.
Oplopanax horridus is known to natives here as cukilanarpak, the big plant with needles. The berries are said to be toxic, some parts are used medicinally, and young shoots are edible. There are recipes, HERE, and a great photo of it, taken in the Panhandle of Southeast Alaska, where it really grows big in the rainforest.
Two weeks ago, when I drove past that patch of devils club down by Sheep Creek, it was a mass of white flowers. Yesterday when we went to the spring for water, most of them had gone to seed already. One seed head was close enough to the roadside 4-wheeler trail that I could capture that closeup. I had no desire to venture down into the mud for more.Incidentally, I have never seen Queen Anne’s lace around here. I guess it can’t take the winters.
In the turnout across from the spring, two rigs were parked. The bus above, pulling a pickup with a camper shell, canoe on top and dirt bike on back, is the sort of thing we all hate to come up behind on the hills and curves of this 2 lane highway. It’s not my way to travel. Fifteen years ago when Doug and I spent the winter Outside, we put 28,000 miles on our Fiat X1-9, sleeping in those Bertone seats when we didn’t find a good place to pitch the tent.
The old guy in his little motorhome, selling jerky to pay his expenses, is more my speed. I guess I scared him. I bought some jerky as a birthday gift for Doug, and told the old carpetbagger the story of how the state’s sign law enforcers made Greyfox quit selling knives in that location. Then I asked if I could take his picture, and as I was getting a few shots of his rig, he had a little flash of paranoia. I’m not sure even now that I convinced him I wasn’t photographing him so that I could turn him in for violation of the billboard law.
I tried to reassure him. I meant him no harm, but I wasn’t particularly in a mood to be nice to him, either. I gathered from his conversation with the man from the big bus beside him that he was having a mechanical problem. He had asked me when I walked up, “Is your husband a mechanic?” That sort of knee-jerk sexist bullshit disinclines me to volunteer my mechanical skills. My husband the poet has only recently, through association with me and my kid, ventured to gain some proficiency at tightening screws and driving nails.
Comments (13)
It looks very similar to a plant we have here, I wonder if is the same? The ones here in the UK have a purple variety as well.
“That sort of knee-jerk sexist bullshit disinclines me to volunteer my mechanical skills.” I’m recovering from a need to prove myself when people pull that shit. I’m not fully there, but I will be.
I use to be full of my own sextist bullshit after being brought up by a “I can fix anything guy” My husband is not him, but I use to try to make him be that guy. I’d say: “oh have you noticed the drip in the kitchen?” “yeah, Lyne, I did,” he’d say. Two days later when it was still dripping I’d go get the stuff to repair it and get it done. That technique of not expecting him to preform worked better as over the years, he’s actually shown new skills of repair and I haven’t lost mine from giving away my power to do. Thanks for the devil’s club info. I break out in a rash just looking at poison oak. ha ha
Rest assured if it grows around here, it is brown, not white… I guess if one wanted to plant the Lace, and tend to it every moment they might make it grow, I don’t know.
So, how have you been? I haven’t heard from you in a few days.
Hugs, Tricia
If only all poisons, contact or otherwise, were big and showy and impossible to accidentally blunder into. That’s certainly not a rule you can apply successfully to mushrooms. Any mushrooms peek out about your parts?
Interesting stuff. I enjoyed the photos one down, as well. Very good capture of the piebean cali cat.
@notforprophet - No morels at all this year — too much rain,
not enough warmth. Other than the tiny ones in the moose droppings, I
have seen exactly one shroom so far. Warm weather would bring them up,
if we get any. It’s raining now.
@pray14me - I have been more fatigued than usual, sleep fragmented, eyes wonky, getting very little done, having to choose activities carefully, conserve energy.
I still liked the moose mushroom the best. i would love to buy that Jerky too. My son eats so much of it and I try to get homemade organic all natural. hard out here in the Corporate American east coast.
Your are so blessed by the stars to be living out there. nature is so lovely.
All of these plant names remind me of either bands or individual songs. I build bridges of association between music and… well, everything really. Maybe the same thing will happen with literature if I ever decide to pick up a book.
Anyways… like jerky man, I too have prejudices. Intepreted in a sociological/evolutionary psychology context, they may not be a bad thing because they aren’t particularly maladaptive, and have perhaps been quite advantageous over the course of my life.
As an example, I’m prejudiced against aboriginals. I’m wary of them, because in my experience (and seemingly in accordance with studies) 90% of them have turned out to be violent, erratic drunks. Do I blame them for their condition? Not necessarily. I don’t [consciously] discriminate against them either – they recieve treatment similar to everyone else until their actions demonstrably justify something alternative. I’ve met some with a more agreeable demeanour and within 30 seconds, my wariness has disippated and often we became friends – or at least acquiantances. My prejudice isn’t particularly rigid.
Growing up, I was also prejudiced against your old kind – bikies. This one was probably due to media influence. There are some friendly Christian bikies around here who do charity work for hospitals and such, and I guess that’s why I find it much harder to make certain assumptions about a bikie’s character and way of life. Those guys seem more guided by the values of Jesus than most Christians I know.
Just the other day I was discussing this topic with someone who thinks he doesn’t prejudge to some extent. I think he’s simply not aware of it… I’m only beginning to become aware of the assumptions I make about people.
Another comment: I semi-regularly meet women in their 40′s or 50′s who make denigrating remarks about their own gender. They’ve internalized a lot of traditional socio-cultural beliefs regarding gender roles, perhaps.
I sometimes wonder: why the 40 or 50 age-bracket?
@Apocatastasis - Was there a women’s lib movement in Oz as there was in the U.S. in the ‘seventies (ours started before then, but became headline news in the early 1970s)? You could be seeing some women who had a negative response to some overeager libbers. It could also be a result of Pluto in Virgo. The generation that pushed for equality was born with Pluto in Leo. Those who came after them had more traditional values.
“Prejudice” in the sense of expecting individuals to conform to the typical behavior of their group, is probably hard-wired. Transcending it is not only difficult, but often counterproductive when we encounter the ones who do conform to type. Trust is a sensitive issue. Being on guard is not only crazy-making because of the brain chemistry involved, but it also tends to bring out aggression in others who sense it.
Do your Aboriginals have biochemistry similar to Native Americans? We (and many Asians) lack the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase. Alcohol is metabolized to acetaldehyde and then doesn’t get further broken down, but stays in our systems causing pain, skin flushing, and aggressive behavior. It also seems to make alcohol more highly addictive for us than for most Europeans. My ancestry is mostly European, but I got the gene for alcohol intolerance. I don’t use the stuff.
@SuSu - I’ve heard of Asians having that problem with alcohol, but I didn’t know it was similar with Native Americans. Weren’t Native Americans descended from azns or something?
Interestingly, Aboriginals weren’t legally allowed to drink until 1964 because it was thought that they were more adversely affected by it.
I’m not sure whether they posess a similar genetic variation to azns or Native Americans, but they don’t handle Western diets too well either.
Neglected to respond to this earlier.
Yes, there was a Women’s Liberation Movement here in the ’70s – this Aussie woman was very influential to feminists everywhere http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germaine_Greer.
We tend to echo the US and Britain; a WLR was no exception.