blue camas

On both sides of the Cascade Mountains, blue camas (Camassia quamash) offers one of the most alluring displays of spring flowers in the Pacific Northwest. When Meriwether Lewis first surveyed this region, he noted this striking lily in stands that to his eye resembled lakes of blue water. Along with its close relative, giant blue camas (C. leichtlinii), blue camas continues to be a signature species of grassy balds in the San Juan Islands, and east of the mountains camas still forms pools of deep blue in dry grasslands that burst into colour in the flush of spring. As in many places that soon dry up, flowering happens quickly, presenting a spectacular, if ephemeral, view.

This species was the most important “garden plant” of the first people here, people who subsisted by hunting, fishing and gathering wild plants. However, obtaining camas required more than just gathering. Exceptional camas patches were weeded, periodically burned to keep them free of shrubs, and harvested by the families and tribal groups that tended them. This was gardening, in a real sense, and people developed strong bonds to traditional gathering areas. The Nez Perce War flared when settlers began plowing camas lands to convert them to European-style agriculture.