FOOD RESOURCE COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SCIENCES, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
OENANTHE SARMENTOSA
Hedrick, U.P. editor. 1919. Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants. Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year 1919 II. Albany, J.B Lyon Company, State Printers. [References Available]
is a plant of western North America. The tubers form one of the dainty dishes of the Oregon Indians. They are black, but, when boiled like potatoes, they burst open lengthwise, showing a snowy-white, farinanceous substance, which has a sweet, cream-like taste with a slight parsley flavor.
Hi, You may wish to revise your information on the edibility of Oenanthe sarmentosa, the Pacific Water Parsley (as to its tubers).
My research in the attached unpublished paper should explain the mistaken information. I believe you have it listed both under Oenatha in general, and for Oenanthe sarmentosa.
Sincerely,
Steve Dupey
Twisp Washington
Dupey, Steven E. 2008. Oenanthe sarmentosa, the Pacific Water Parsley Attributes of Mixed Identity An Ethnobotanical Enigma Solved, Unpublished. The available ethnobotanical information on Oenanthe sarmentosa (Pacific Water Parsley, Western Water Dropwort, Western Water Celery) is very much in conflict, leaving this plant in the potentially dangerous position of being described as an interesting sounding and delicious edible wild plant, while at the same time being described by other sources as toxic, emetic, cathartic, and even psychoactive. An investigative resolution of these conflicting reports and determination of the real nature of the plant would seem to be strongly in order.
Most (but by no means all) authoritative authors on edible wild plants do strongly caution their readers that this plant should not even be experimented with, as some of the deadliest plants known to man are very closely related and difficult to differentiate from it by anyone but a competent botanist. (Actually, the differences in root and leaf formation are fairly clear in properly used keys, nonetheless it is not advisable for the novice to place confidence in his own identifications, and one must concur that neither he nor she should experiment with the plants at all due to the extreme risk factors involved.) Conium maculatum (poison hemlock), the suicide agent of choice for Socrates is one common example of the poisonous look-alikes, whereas Cicuta douglasii (western water hemlock) is often noted to be so toxic that a piece of root the size of a walnut can kill a cow. Both of these deadly plants share the same range with Oenanthe sarmentosa, and indeed Cicuta douglasii often shares the same wetland. Fatalities from either of these plants are well documented, and their toxicity to both man and livestock is noted as quite drastic, severe, rapid, and with an often fatal outcome. Death can occur within half an hour. The genus Oenanthe itself is also known to contain species fatal to both livestock and humans, with Oenanthe crocata (hemlock water dropwort) of Europe being one of the more commonly cited examples, the active poison being listed as oenanthotoxin.
Error in species recognition, combined with enthusiastic but naïve curiosity, compounded by profound lack of awareness of deadly look-alikes, is the primary cause of human fatality with these genera of plants. This, though tragic, isn't really surprising when we consider that the Apiaceae, or carrot/parsley family, to which these plants belong, contains over 300 genera with more than 3,000 species worldwide, many of which are highly edible and cultivated. Some of these common root-crop plants revert to the wild rather easily, with wild parsnip, wild chervil, and wild carrot being well known examples of such. An abundance of genuinely edible and sometimes delectable wild plants in this family further entices the novice into these sometimes fatal explorations of what he or she typically sees as wild parsnip, or wild carrot. Oenanthe sarmentosa even has a cultivated Asian counterpart, which is an esteemed edible green and flavoring agent, Oenantha javanicus (Asian or Japanese water dropwort). Some reports suggest that there is a form cultivated for its root also, and at least one report suggests wild Oenanthe javanicus (in Queensland Australia) can bear tubers (edibility not stated), though most descriptions refer to thin fibrous root systems only. This information may add to the dubious and possibly dangerous conviction that Oenanthe sarmentosa is an edible tuberous plant, which may well not be the case.
The cautionary advice to leave this plant alone is not only well founded upon the danger of deadly look-alikes, but also upon Oenanthe sarmentosa's own ambiguity in the literature. Its status is either a toxic plant or an edible one depending upon what and whom one reads. The accounts are certainly at odds with one another, and an examination of this conflicting literature will follow, along with some investigation and discussion of historical sources for the information, reasons for the conflicting information, related questions, and why this issue has apparently not been examined before.
A partial review of many available sources stating the purported highly edible nature of Oenanthe sarmentosa's tubers follows, and then I shall review contradictory ethnobotanical reports of a more academic nature. It should be noted that the accounts of the plant's tuber ediblity all seem to come from the same source, and that there is no actual personal evaluation, experimentation, verification, or even description of said tubers other than in the original. Unverified information can still tend to propagate widely and without question as we shall see.
Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World. 1919.
Oenanthe sarmentosa Presl. Western North America. The tubers form one of the dainty dishes of the Oregon Indians. They are black, but, when boiled like potatoes, they burst open lengthwise, showing a snowy-white, farinaceous substance, which has a sweet, cream-like taste with a slight parsley flavor.
Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World. 1972 edition
A sweet farinaceous flesh, the root is highly esteemed in the areas where it is eaten.
The World Encyclopedia of Food, by L. Patrick Coyle, 1982, pg. 716
Makes an excellent cooked vegetable. The taste is sweet and creamy.
Survival Skill of the North American Indians, by Peter Goodchild, 1985, pg. 226
Tubers boiled in Oregon.
Food Plants of the North American Indians, by Elias Yanovski, 1939, pg. 49.
Black tubers contain white farinaceous material having sweet cream-like taste when boiled; Oregon.
A Dictionary of Economic Plants, 1959.
A cream-like taste when boiled, with a slight parsley flavor.
Washington Native Plant Society. Oenanthe Sarmentosa. (web plant profile)
http://www.wnps.org/landscaping/herbarium/pages/oenanthe-sarmentosa.html
Medicinal Uses: Used as a laxative, stomach medicine, and headache medicine.
Food Uses: Tubers were cooked and eaten.
Toxicity: Is reputed to be toxic, due to its resemblance to water-hemlock, which is very poisonous.
Oregon State University. Water Dropwort HTML (web food resource page)
http://food.oregonstate.edu/glossary/w/waterdropwort.html
The Water Parsley of our Pacific Northwest is another species of Oenanthe (O. sarmentosa). It produces smallish black-skinned tubers which, when boiled, have long been relished by the Indians of the region for their sweet, creamlike texture and flavor.
Oregon State University. Onenanthe Sarmentosa HTML (web food resource page)
http://food.oregonstate.edu/glossary/o/oplant9.html
The tubers form one of the dainty dishes of the Oregon Indians. They are black, but, when boiled like a potatoes, they burst open lengthwise, showing a snowy-white, farinaceous substance, which has a sweet cream-like, with a slight parsley flavor.
The same information also makes it onto an online encyclopedia site about tubers with ethnobotanical descriptions. http://www.answers.com/topic/tuber
The Plants For a Future database page for Oenanthe sarmentosa
references much of this information (with disclaimer) and also some of the contradictory ethnobotanical information listed further on.
http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/cgi-bin/arr_html?Oenanthe+sarmentosa
These positive descriptions do sound quite appealing, and I must say they piqued my own curiosity about the plant. Oenanthe sarmentosa is useful as a wetlands restoration and waterfowl forage plant, and so, since I did not have a local supply growing nearby, I ordered some young plants to experimentally grow in a tub. I had every intention of sampling some of those tasty black tubers once my plants were grown and my identification was secure. Unfortunately, further research failed to corroborate Sturtevant's information, and even contradicted him and the others severely. A search of the University of Michigan's Native American ethnobotany database revealed a whole list of rather drastic sounding drug entries for Oenanthe sarmentosa:
http://herb.umd.umich.edu/herb/search.pl
Haisla and Hanaksiala Drug (Poison)
Plant considered highly toxic.
Compton, Brian Douglas 1993 Upper North Wakashan and Southern Tsimshian Ethnobotany: The Knowledge and Usage of Plants.... Ph.D. Dissertation, University of British Columbia (p. 216)
Kitasoo Drug (Cathartic)
Roots used as a purgative.
Compton, Brian Douglas 1993 Upper North Wakashan and Southern Tsimshian Ethnobotany: The Knowledge and Usage of Plants.... Ph.D. Dissertation, University of British Columbia (p. 326)
Kitasoo Drug (Emetic)
Roots used as an emetic.
Compton, Brian Douglas 1993. Upper North Wakashan and Southern Tsimshian Ethnobotany: The Knowledge and Usage of Plants.... Ph.D. Dissertation, University of British Columbia (p. 326)
Kwakiutl Drug (Emetic)
Seeds and roots used as an emetic.
Turner, Nancy Chapman and Marcus A. M. Bell 1973 The Ethnobotany of the Southern Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia. Economic Botany 27:257-310 (p. 277)
Kwakwaka'wakw Drug (Emetic)
Plant used as an emetic.
Compton, Brian Douglas 1993 Upper North Wakashan and Southern Tsimshian Ethnobotany: The Knowledge and Usage of Plants.... Ph.D. Dissertation, University of British Columbia (p. 216)
Kwakwaka'wakw Drug (Emetic)
Roots used as an emetic.
Compton, Brian Douglas 1993 Upper North Wakashan and Southern Tsimshian Ethnobotany: The Knowledge and Usage of Plants.... Ph.D. Dissertation, University of British Columbia (p. 326)
Makah Drug (Laxative)
Pounded roots used as a laxative.
Gunther, Erna 1973 Ethnobotany of Western Washington. Seattle. University of Washington Press. Revised edition (p. 42)
Nitinaht Drug (Gynecological Aid)
Roots squashed and swallowed to facilitate and speed up delivery.
Turner, Nancy J., John Thomas, Barry F. Carlson and Robert T. Ogilvie 1983 Ethnobotany of the Nitinaht Indians of Vancouver Island. Victoria. British Columbia Provincial Museum (p. 93)
Nuxalkmc Drug (Emetic)
Plant used as an emetic.
Compton, Brian Douglas 1993 Upper North Wakashan and Southern Tsimshian Ethnobotany: The Knowledge and Usage of Plants.... Ph.D. Dissertation, University of British Columbia (p. 216)
Tsimshian Drug (Ceremonial Medicine)
Roots eaten as an emetic to seek supernatural powers and purify.
Compton, Brian Douglas 1993 Upper North Wakashan and Southern Tsimshian Ethnobotany: The Knowledge and Usage of Plants.... Ph.D. Dissertation, University of British Columbia (p. 326)
A number of tribes from British Columbia to California report eating the tender young stems as food.
Costanoan Food (Unspecified)
Raw or cooked stems used for food.
Bocek, Barbara R. 1984 Ethnobotany of Costanoan Indians, California, Based on Collections by John P. Harrington. Economic Botany 38(2):240-255 (p. 251)
Cowlitz Food (Unspecified)
Young, tender stems used for food.
Gunther, Erna 1973 Ethnobotany of Western Washington. Seattle. University of Washington Press. Revised edition (p. 42)
Hesquiat Food (Unspecified)
Stems formerly eaten.
Turner, Nancy J. and Barbara S. Efrat 1982 Ethnobotany of the Hesquiat Indians of Vancouver Island. Victoria. British Columbia Provincial Museum (p. 61)
Skokomish Food (Unspecified)
Young, tender stems used for food.
Gunther, Erna 1973 Ethnobotany of Western Washington. Seattle. University of Washington Press. Revised edition (p. 42)
Snuqualmie Food (Unspecified)
Young, tender stems used for food.
Gunther, Erna 1973 Ethnobotany of Western Washington. Seattle. University of Washington Press. Revised edition (p. 42)
Are these Native American informants even talking about the same plant as Sturtevant and the other sources above?
It certainly doesn't sound like it. Of the various tribes reporting on eating the tender young stems of this plant, strangely, none even mention a delicious edible tuber. This discrepancy is too general and widespread in the tribal ethnobotanies to be accounted for by lost knowledge. Such a tasty tuber would have been well known by all. Clearly the root is described as chemically potent and toxic rather than as a highly esteemed farinaceous food. This data is provided by Native American informants to trained ethnobotanists reporting in botanical journals, or in their own works, and as Ph.D. dissertation material. It would seem very unlikely that these people could have all gotten their identifications wrong. The tribal uses also tend to agree with each another. Granted, the informants may not have personally used the plant in more modern times, but knowledge of a valued carbohydrate root food would almost certainly not have been forgotten collectively, especially where coastal peoples had a dearth of carbohydrate sources to begin with and therefore would have valued the plant all the more.
The Plants For a Future database site provides some possible support to the psychoactive sounding aspect in the Tsimshian use of the root in seeking supernatural powers and purification.
Duke. J. A. and Ayenso E. S. Medicinal Plants of China. Reference Publications, Inc. 1985.
It is said to contain the alleged 'psychotroph' myristicine.
One cannot really tell if this is truly the same species or an Asian variant, nor if the allegations are substantiated anywhere. The original source for this statement is not given. Nonetheless, compounding the edibility/toxicity question, the potential for some very unwise experimental drug use in a very deadly group of closely related plants should not be discounted here.
If Sturtevant and the others are either erroneous in their information, or a completely different tuberous species is being described, wild edible plant enthusiasts using this information are sooner or later going to encounter toxic digestive consequences and/or possibly psychotropic effects of an unknown nature, that is, if the tubers even exist.
My own investigation of this plant is incomplete and hampered by lack of local populations to examine, otherwise some light could easily be thrown upon the root morphology question at the very least. Mostly it ranges west of the Cascade Mountains, though my tub-grown samples show themselves to be very freeze hardy in nature. These plants remain immature, but probably will continue growing indoors at a windowsill and ultimately provide some clarification of these questions. I did sample a couple of green sprigs about an inch long, and found these to be quite flavorful, (in a parsley sort of way), and fairly tender. No ill effects were observed, but only a minute quantity was eaten. One should keep in mind that the young stems, not the leaves were reported to have been eaten.
So where do those descriptions of a highly esteemed, farinaceous, sweet cream-like tasting black tuber that splits open when boiled originate?
One has to go back 165 years to those picturesque and romantic times of covered wagons and the Oregon Trail to find out. In the delightful account of Charles A. Geyer's journey across the continent, and his carefree botanizing rambles in the hills around the Whitman Mission at Waiilatpu near what is now Walla Walla, Washington, I found the original description. Even then it's not clear just what the plant really is. Even Geyer himself seems to have his doubts, and in the account never really clarifies this by detailed description of the plant itself. He thinks it must be what is then known as Helosciadium californicum, but there is a question mark within the name. This is apparently a plant collected by David Douglas in his journeys to the region some twenty years earlier, though I have not been able to locate just where in his journals it may be mentioned. It is a very strong point of curiosity to examine just what Douglas has to say about this mysterious plant. Is the question mark from Douglas himself?
One thing is quite clear, Geyer has a very high opinion of this plant's esculent qualities, collecting many seeds to send home, and speculating that it should lend itself well to domestication and selection for size as a cultivated plant. It seems very probable that he consumed it himself to arrive at this state of enthusiasm, although he doesn't quite state this explicitly. Ah, but all too soon this diligent botanist is off again in his rambles, distracted by other beckoning plants in the rolling Palous hills and canyons, leaving us with an enigma to ponder many generations later.
Charles A. Geyer's classic account as a wandering botanist on the newly open frontier was published in the London Journal of Botany, volume 5, 1846, under the rather extensive title “Notes on the Vegetation and general characters of the Missouri and Oregon Territories, made during a Botanical Journey in the State of Missouri, and across the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, to the Pacific, during the years 1843 and 1844”. It is a very entertaining read in the flavor of the times for its own sake, but concerning the plant at issue we should examine his words as they were written to glean what we may.
“On the plains near Peloose river appears another species of the noble Calochortus, of which I could get no specimens, and only saw the large winged fruit (C. pterocarpus of my Journal). Here also, and in fact almost throughout the Upper Oregon, on grassy, moist slopes, and in shady meadows, grows the Umbellifera, Helosciadium ? 576,* the tubers of which are one of the dainty dishes of the Saptonas, and truly a delicious root.
This is probably Helosciadium Calfornicum, Dougl., an inconspicuous Umbellifera, perennial, with a black tuberous root. By boiling the tubers, like potatoes, they burst open lengthwise, showing a snowy-white farinaceous substance, with a sweet cream-like taste, and somewhat of the aroma of young parsley leaves. This plant, it seems to me, would be an excellent acquisition to our kitchen gardens; for the purpose of introducing it, I gathered a great quantity of seeds, which are now in possession of Messrs. Lucombe, Pince, and Co., at Exeter, and who may possibly have raised plants. It holds in Oregon exactly that place which the wild carrot does with us; and I feel sure that the tubers would similarly increase in size in cultivation.” (pg. 518-519)
One should point out that this does not sound like a description of Oenanthe sarmentosa's common habitat, which is typically wetland, fairly level and marshy, with standing or flowing water much of the time. It seems that Geyer describes a habitat more suitable to Yampah (Perideridia), or any of a number of possible umbellifera, it being of a moist, meadowy, and sometimes sloping nature in his description. One might suggest a Yampah was actually the plant, except that Geyer is clearly familiar with the genus as seen in other sections of his account under the name of the time Carum, and so he would undoubtedly have recognized it as such. Also, none of the species of Perideridia have a black root that I am aware of, most being shades of brown, with P. erythrorhyza being reddish and not found in that area to my knowledge. The characterization as having a wild carrot-like recognition and very common usage by the Native Americans throughout what was then Oregon does suggest something like a Yampah though, it being a well known and favorite food plant.
Of the Lomatiums (biscuit roots), which are diverse and abundant throughout this area, one may suspect Lomatium dissectum as a candidate, it being sometimes known by the common name of wild black carrot. However, Geyer was also very familiar with the biscuit roots (Genus Ferula at the time), leaving us some of the best descriptions of the native processing of the roots and the form of the resultant biscuits. Lomatium dissectum is also more of a medicinal, with a very aromatic and foul taste, often causing a serious body rash when consumed, and so it could hardly be considered to be a highly esculent root at all. Lomatiums are, however, some of the most abundant umbellifers throughout this area, and they do vary a lot in size and form, and nearly all are considered edible. They usually have a parsley-like taste, and so any other known black-skinned forms of Lomatium in this area would be very likely candidates for Helosciadium californicum, or at least for the plant that Geyer thought was Helosciadium californicum.
A Google search of “black tuber lomatium” turns up the following report on Lomatiums in precisely the geographical area in question, dated from 1889. The root characteristics and qualities mentioned in the report on three species of Peucedanum (genus name for Lomatium at the time of the report) strongly suggest that a biscuit root may have been the species in question. One of the species is described by none other than Geyer himself, and given the suggestive name Peucedanum farninosum. In reproducing the pertinent parts of the report, I must give due credit to Michael Moore, of the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine, for taking the time and effort to bring such information to the web where it can be so easily accessible. The article is from The American Journal of Pharmacy, volume 61, # 11, 1889, p. 4-5.
Some Indian Food Plants, III Peucedanum* Eurycarpum, Coulter and Rose, by Henry Trimble.
This food plant was, like the preceding,* furnished me by Dr. V. Harvard, U.S. Army Surgeon at fort Abraham Lincoln, Dakota, together with the following description.
“The genus Peucedanum, as defined by Coulter and Rose in their Revision of North American Umbelliferae, is the largest of the order. Of the 46 species therein described, nine have edible tubers and are more or less used by the Indians as food plants. Of these 9, the species now under consideration is not one of the best, nor is it probably the worst. It is described as follows: Perennial herb, caulescent, branching, a foot or two high, more or less pubescent, frequently from a much enlarged tuberous root; leaves ternate-pinnately decompound, with small linear cuspidate segments; umbels 3-12 rayed, with involucels of lanceolate acuminate often united bractlets; flowers white, inconspicuous; fruit broadly elliptical, glabrous, 5 to 9 lines long 3 to 4 lines broad, with wings as broad as body or shoulder, and filiform dorsal and intermediate ribs; oil tubes large, solitary in the intervals, 2 on the commisseral side.
This species is closely allied with P. macrocarpum (Lomatium macrocarpum, noted by Michael Moore) of Nuttall, in bulb and foliage, and was long considered a variety of it when at all distinguished from it. It is found from the Sacramento river in California, northward through Oregon to Washington and British Columbia. It has not yet been collected east of the Rocky Mountains. It is quite common on the Spokane river Washington, and is there call Skelaps by the Indians who use it as an article of food.”
“The thick root expands below into one or more irregularly oblong, often much misshapen tubers, _ to 1 _ inch in diameter, and covered with brownish black epidermis. On section, they are found to be composed almost entirely of a white spongy, starchy material which has a pleasant farinaceous taste.”
“Of the three species of Peucedanum used by the Spokane Indians, the best, in size and flavor of bulbs, is the Chucklusa (P. Canbyi, Coulter and Rose) ( Lomatium canbyi, noted by Michael Moore) which in their estimation is only second to Camus as native food; the next best is the Tuhwha (P. farinosum, Geyer) (Lomatium farinosum var. farinsom, noted by Michael Moore), and the least, the Skelaps (P. eurycarpum) (unknown to Michael Moore).”
“The bulbs of these species, although very good and palatable when raw, are generally prepared by roasting or baking and then pounding into a flour from which a wholesome and nutritious cake or bread is made.”
*Western No. Amer. species of Peucedanum are now classed as Lomatium, notation by Michael Moore *Am. Jour. Phar., 1888, p. 593, and 1889, p. 4.
So, here we have reference to a farinaceous black skinned root, the “Tuhwha” of the Spokane language, Lomatium farinosum in present Latin nomenclature. The Latin plant name is credited to Geyer himself, referring to its farinaceous tuber. The description of the closely related “Skelaps”, which we may presume is similar, does indeed describe a brownish black epidermis, and a white, spongy, starchy interior of a pleasant farinaceous taste, much as Geyer himself described his plant in his account. The geographic location described for these Lomatiums is precisely where Geyer wrote about the plant, and furthermore they are rated by the Native Americans of the time as very important and common to their diet, second only to Camas, which is what Geyer alluded to in stating that they hold a place with the natives of the region much like wild carrot does with Europeans, that is, of a very common knowledge and usage. The common usage of the wild carrot (Daucus carota) in Europe would likely have been supplanted by that of the cultivated carrot long before.
Geyer has another Lomatium which is actually named after him, Geyer's Lomatium (Lomatium geyeri). This is a white flowering species also formerly eaten by the Native Americans, but simply based upon the appeal that he found in the farinaceous quality of the root, it would seem that Lomatium farinosum would be the more likely candidate here of the two.
This all seems to lead to the conclusion that the mystery of Geyer's plant has been solved, and so, at first, I was very pleased with my research and logic in arriving at such a conclusion. However, though Lomatium farinosum does seem like it should be the plant in question, this logical conclusion turns out to just not be so. I have finally found, by using a different search engine, Geyer's plant description of #576 (the number noted with his journal entry on that pleasing root which he thought was Helosciadium californicum). Mr. Geyer's Rocky Mountain Plants Umbelliferae, Juss.
1. Edosmia Gairdneri, Torr. et Gr. Am. 1. p. 312. Aelania Gairdneri, Hook. et Arn. Bot. Beech. Voy. Suppl. p. 349. Edosmia montana, paealta et Oregana, Nutt. (sec. Torr. et Gr.)
Hab. grassy mountain slopes and neglected fields, from Colville to Vancouver. The Nez Percez Indians collect the tuberous roots and boil them like potatoes. In rich meadows they are the size of one's finger, and are very agreeable, with a cream-like flavor. (n. 576. This looks to be none other than Gairdner's yampah (or perhaps a black-skinned variant of it), much as in my original supposition, until I was led astray by the Lomatiums, and the black skin color.
The entry is from the London Journal of Botany, by William Jackson Hooker, Vol. 6, 1847, pg. 233. This volume presents a catalogue of Geyer's plant collections from his journey on the Oregon Trail, the travel account of which was published in the previous Volume. Notice that Geyer, at this point a year later, makes no reference to Helosciadium californicum, having presumably had time to get his specimens and identifications more in order (perhaps Hooker edited this out). The publication, The Botany of Captain Beechey's Voyages to the Pacific, by Hooker and Arnott, is cited, so we may assume that the Helosciadium and the Edosmia (Perideridia) of the times are both described therein. One wonders if Geyer's apparent mixup of the two is somehow related to the Edosmia being listed in a supplement to that publication. Were the numbers or pages confused between the supplement and the main body of text by Geyer, or were the two genera confused within the original text itself and the supplement added later to clarify the status of Edosmia as distinct?
While not being Lomatium farinsom, as I had originally concluded, the net result is just the same regarding Oenantha sarmetosa, and for the very same reasons. In this present instance, having the specimen or entry number at hand, we may with certainty conclude that Yampah's delicious food attributes have been mistakenly ascribed to Oenanthe sarmentosa for many many years.
So how does a Periderida become an Oenantha and remain so for 165 years?
Probably at least a couple of individuals are partly responsible, but the primary fault appears to lie with Geyer. The initial suggestion that the plant was probably Douglas's Helosciadium californicum was wrong, and even though Geyer was uncertain, the account of that delicious farinaceous root was published, and there it was, unchanged, tentatively identified as Helosciadium californicum for the world to read, while Geyer himself probably went on to change his own mind when describing and naming his specimens. Geyer's account made it to print fairly early in the pioneer heyday of the mass migrations by covered wagon across the Oregon Trail. Geyer himself made the trip the first year of what was considered the start of the mass migrations in 1843. Seven hundred to more than a thousand other people made it to Oregon that very same year. In the following decades, up to half a million people crossed the trail, with branches splitting off to what is now Utah and California. One can well imagine that Geyer's account was a very popular read in its day with so much burgeoning interest in the Oregon Trail and the settlement of the West. Once in print under those conditions, a tiny bit of misinformation is destined to become a permanent fixture in botanical lore, and so it did become.
A few examples of how this very information was picked up and spread throughout botanical literature over the years may be in order.
The Vegetable Kingdom: Or, The Structure, Classification, and Uses of Plants. By John Lindley, 1853. pg. 779.
According to Mr. Geyer, the tubers of Helosciadium Californicum (?) are one of the dainty dishes of the Saptoria Indians in Oregon “and truly a delicious root”. By boiling the tubers, like potatoes, they burst open lengthwise, showing a snowy-white farinaceous substance, which has a sweet cream-like taste and somewhat of the aroma of young parsley leaves. London Journ., V. 519. Some of the N. American plants Umbelliferous plants allied to Ferula are said to be of excellent quality as food, and to be called Biscuit Roots in Oregon. According to Mr. Geyer, those of the Ferulas are farinaceous and large as walnuts when three or four years old. Another Ferula, call Pooh-pooh by the Spokan Indians, and a Cymopterus on the Platte river, among the Pawnees, are said to have similar good qualities.
I chose this example because, with 984 pages, the book would have to be considered an authoritative reference book in its day. Geyer's description of the biscuit root Ferulas (Lomatiums) is interesting, and we meet our Spokane Indians again. Such a monumental book must have disseminated this information far and wide to other texts, and in fact we can verify such is the case by finding this very same Helosciadium next as far away as colonial India just nine years later, and once again it is in a reference book.
Catalogue of the Economic Products of the Presidency of Bombay, by George Christopher M. Birdwood, 1862. pg. 241.
Helosciadium Californicum. Oregon. Root.
To this order belong also the Pooh-pooh, of the Spokan Indians, and the “Biscuit Roots” of Oregon.
Word got around in Victorian times, especially about novel plants. While in this case Geyer's mistake isn't printed, we can see that the source is the very same, and so we have some idea that the mistake was also being spread far and wide, and was probably making it into many other botanical reference books.
Helosciadium californicum itself (of Douglas) may very well have been Oenantha sarmentosa. Hitchcock delineates Oenanthe sarmentosa's range mainly west of the Cascades but extending up the Columbia gorge to Klickitat County. This would seem to exclude the area Geyer was in at the time, but Douglas certainly spent a lot of time in the gorge and on the coast and he was no doubt quite familiar with this very common plant in those areas. Douglas also traveled through some of the very same inland areas visited by Geyer, and, in particular, the very source of his account.
I find some synonyms for Helosciadium californicum in very old botanical works, one synonym being Sium californicum. Sium, as in Sium suave, the water parsnip, does suggest an umbelliferous wetland plant, so this Sium californicum (and the name Helosciadium californicum) may well have been meant for what we now know as Oenanthe sarmentosa, truly an umbelliferous wetland plant. This would imply that Douglas was not describing Yampah. However, one wonders if Sium suave itself might have been the plant Douglas meant, since he also would likely have encountered it. Sium suave really does have edible tubers, which were much sought after by Native Americans within its range. This thus injects an additional possible source of confusion into the picture, and if Douglas described Sium suave with its edible tubers, this could have led to Geyer's mistaken identification, particularly if he only had a vague recollection of Douglas's plant at the time, but knew it was some sought after tuberous umbellifer. Without finding the pertinent Douglas journal entries or having the plant descriptions on hand (in something other than Latin), this has to remain speculative as to just what species Douglas was talking about, but I suspect it was indeed Oenanthe sarmentosa, not Perideridia gairdneri, nor Sium suave or Lomatium farinosum. These other plants do still remain distinct possibilities, but Geyer is the one initially mistaken in this scenario, and he left the rest of the world mistaken for the next 165 years.
The other main character in this botanical drama, who seems to have first identified the mysterious and confused Helosciadium californicum as what eventually becomes known as Oenanthe sarmentosa, is the botanist Edward Lee Greene. Greene indicates that botanists in his day had now been scratching their heads about just what Helosciadium californicum was for at least forty years, or perhaps even sixty if taken from the time of David Douglas. In his work Pittonia, volume 1, 1888, pg. 271, in a section on the Californian umbellifera, Greene is describing what later becomes Oenanthe sarmentosa of today, but what he at the time places in Cicuta, as Cicuta californica. Greene was clearly knowledgeable on the root systems of these plants as a means of taxonomic differentiation, and notes that Linnaeus failed to mention these characteristics, but that Asa Gray's descriptions of the roots (which Greene provides) of Cicuta virosa and Cicuta maculata (from fifty years earlier) were quite clear. Greene adds further comment on the swollen tuberous root of C. virosa and then continues to what we now know as Oenanthe sarmentosa:
“C. californica, were all unknown to him (to either Gray or Linnaeus or both, S.D.), and are still unpublished. The stems of this species spring each from a small (1 or 2 inch long, _ inch thick) deep-seated erect and solid rhizome. Instead of being “stout,” (the aboveground plants are meant here) they are rather slender below, and, for two or three feet of their length, not only prostrate but rooting at each leafy joint; becoming stouter where they rise from the ground to support their two or three umbelliferous joints. With this very peculiar mode of growth the plant forms beds a foot or two deep in open marshy ground, green at all seasons of the year, flowering and fruiting from April until November.”
We might recall here that Geyer refers to Heloscadium (?) californicum, or at least to the plant which he thinks is Helosciadium californicum, as “an inconspicuous Umbellifera” (this phrase may or may not come from Douglas; it is probably Geyer's own). Greene's beds one or two feet deep in open marshy ground, green at all seasons, are anything but inconspicuous, nonetheless he continues:
“I have no doubt that this is the Helosciadium (?) californicum of Hooker and Arnott, so long wrapped in mystery. Their description applies well to our plant: is, indeed, the best description of it extant.”
Hooker edited the London Journal of Botany in which Geyer's account was published. We must assume though, because of the obvious discrepancy, that such a preeminent botanist as Greene is referring to a botanical description of Helosciadium californicum in the works of Hooker and Arnott which is probably the original one, rather than to Geyer's account itself. Geyer, mistakenly, is probably referring to the same Helosciadium californicum source as Greene when writing about his farinaceous root. If the original Helosciadium californicum entries were so uncertain that it took forty to sixty years for Greene to identify them as Oenanthe sarmentosa, then we can well understand why Geyer may have initially tied them to Periderida gairdneri.
Actually, Asa Gray, well before Greene and to whom Greene refers, described Enanthe sarmentosa (Oenanthe sarmentosa), and Greene clarifies (in Pittonia, volume 2, 1889, pg. 1) that his Cicuta californica is actually Enanthe sarmentosa var. Californica. This Cicuta designation, he claims is with Gray's authority. At the same time, adding to the confusion, it becomes clear that some of Gray's work (root descriptions) were simply translated by Gray from the Latin descriptions of others before himself. Greene's Cicuta species are being challenged and lumped and he is protesting. The relevant part in this volume of Pittonia remains the tie of Oenanthe to Helosciadium californicum, which Greene maintains:
“It is chiefly the Enanthe sarmentosa, var. Californica; but it is named in our Californian herbaria, and that apparently with Dr. Gray's own authority, Cicuta Californica. It is therefore this Enanthe which is identified confidently enough with the Helosciadium Californicum, H. and A. (Hooker and Arnott)”
(Note: Greene's nomenclature of the time does not apply today. Any plant of the genus Cicuta should in no way be interpreted as being Oenanthe sarmentosa. The Cicuta are the water-hemlocks, and are quite deadly.)
The Hooker and Arnott description in question appears to be one reproduced in A Flora of North America, by John Torrey and Asa Gray, 1840, pg. 607. They in turn take it from, The Botany of Captain Beechy's Voyages to the Pacific, 1831 to 1841, by Hooker and Arnott. This in turn is probably from (or it may be) an original description of the plant by David Douglas. (It took some time and effort searching to locate the entry, which is why we finally arrive at the actual botanical description so late in the game and after so much conjecture.)
Umbelliferae, Helosciadium
2. H.? Californicum (Hook. and Arn.): procumbent; leaves pinnately divided; segments 8-10, ovate, acute, incisely serrate; the lower ones pinnatifid or pinnate, with few segments; umbels lateral and terminal; involucres and involucels many leaved; styles elongated. Hook. and Arn. bot Beechey, p. 142.
California, Capt. Beechey.---- Habit of H. repens of Europe but is much larger, with more numerous and more divide pinnae. It appears to depart from the generic character in having several leaves to the involucre and a long style. The fruit is essentially the same in both. Hook. and Arn.
This probably is Oenanthe sarmentosa, though, not being a botanist, nor having keyed it out, I can't with certainty say. However, we not only have Greene's word on it, but we can verify that H. repens is a similar wetlands plant in Europe. The etiology also suggests a true wetlands plant: helos (marsh), sciadium (umbel), from Greek. Geyer probably found the Yampah growing in wet locations of seasonal moisture but not actual marsh conditions (the moist slopes he mentions), and thus initially considered Helosciadium. In the case of Yampah, this seasonal moisture typically dries out later in the summer.
With such hindsight we might wonder what was so puzzling about Helosciadium californicum? Oenanthe sarmentosa is indeed a very common plant in the coastal wetlands of western North America, but the plants of the American West were very new, and the plant taxonomy was still sorting itself out. Oenanthe, Conium, Cicuta, Sium, and other umbellifers, were still settling out of the marshes, so to speak.
So with this exploration of some botanical history from the Oregon Territory of the 1840's to Greene's time of the late 1800's we are able to piece together the mystery of how Oenanthe sarmentosa comes to be imbued with Perideridia gairdneri's edible attributes to this day. Why such a case of mistaken botanical information has lasted 165 years without serious consequences when mixing the attributes of a highly edible plant with a possibly toxic one, we can only speculate upon at this time, but it seems likely that Oenanthe sarmentosa doesn't produce significant tuberization, and may not be significantly toxic, if at all, in its above-ground herbage. The deeply seated short piece of rhizome spoken of by Greene is probably not consequential, with much of the rooting being from the nodes of partially prostrate plants and finely fibrous in form. The only information that I have on actual livestock-testing of various wild umbellifera suspected of toxicity in this region tends to bear this out in the case of Oenanthe sarmentosa:
Wild Celery (Oenanthe sarmentosa)
This plant is common in low wet places and in running water throughout western Washington, and it is sometimes mistaken for Oregon water-hemlock. It however has a white fibrous root and half recumbent stem entirely different from the water-hemlock.
A quantity of whole plants of these species was fed to a yearling steer, on May 3rd, without any injurious effects. At this time the plants had made about a foot of growth. On July 26th another test was made, on two yearling steers, while the plant was in bloom, and with the same result as before. It was again tried Sept. 12th when the seed was ripe, with no apparent effect.
From Poison Parsnip in Western Washington, A Preliminary Report, by D.A. Brodie, Bulletin #45, State College of Washington, Agricultural Experiment Station, 1896, pg. 10-11.
We should note that the above report was only preliminary, but it does suggest that we can all breathe easier about Oenanthe sarmentosa. On the other hand, several test-animals were fed Cicuta douglasii without ill effect, and then others were killed stone-cold by the same roots later in the season. So lets not all rush to the wild celery patches with our salad bowls just yet. The research is still very incomplete.
