On The Tip Of My Tongue

Day 135: Oemleria cerasiformis is one of the first shrubs to come into bloom in the spring here in the Pacific Northwest. "Oemleria cerasiformis," I said to myself as I passed the first one, "Oemleria...it's on the tip of my tongue...hang on...I know it...it'll come to me...WHAT THE HELL IS THE COMMON NAME?" I gave it another quarter mile of think before I started going through the alphabet. I was pretty sure there was an i-vowel sound in it. "Ia..ib...ic...id. That rings a bell. Ie...if...ig..." and in another quarter of a mile, I'd hit "in" which, coupled with "id" made me yell "INDIAN PLUM!" to an otherwise empty (thank heavens!) forest. After a relatively botany-free winter, it always takes me a while to get the synapses to snap into place. I used to have trouble with Cardamine every year (another early bloomer) until I put it into storage as "something to do with 'heart,'" but it has never been in my mental database as "bittercress." In late summer, Indian Plum (the Oemleria under discussion) makes small oval fruits consisting primarily of a large seed and a little skin. That said, they were used as a foodstuff by native peoples here which, under analysis for calories vs. effort gives one a much greater appreciation of how tough it is to survive as a hunter-gatherer.