Camas

Weippe Prairie Observations

William Clark, pushing on in advance of the hungry men of the Corps, came upon two adjacent Indian villages totaling about 30 lodges on Weippe Prairie^[1]Now usually pronounced WEE-ipe, or OY-ipe by the Nez Perce people, the literal meaning of the name of this great meadow and gathering-place is so old that its original meaning has been lost. From the … Continue reading late in the morning of Friday, 20 September 1805. Soon he met three Indian boys and a man, and some other women and children. Their first conversation, carried out in Plains Sign Language, must have included Clark’s mention of the hunger he and the Corps of Discovery were suffering, as they soon gave him and his six hunters “a Small piece of Buffalow meat, Some dried Salmon beries & roots in different States, Some round and much like an onion which they call quamash the Bread or Cake is called Pas-she-co Sweet,^[2]Camas bread is indeed sweet and inviting to hearty appetites. Some people today say it somewhat resembles carrot cake. of this they make bread & Supe they also gave us the bread made of this root all of which we eate hartily.”

At Weippe Prairie on 11 June 1806, while waiting for the snow to melt on the high ridges of the Bitterroot Range, Lewis found time to write one of the longest, most detailed descriptions of any of the plant specimens he collected. Below, we present Lewis’s description, detail by detail, illustrated by digital artist Bob Gilman, and with commentaries by James L. Reveal, professor emeritus of botany at the University of Maryland. We choose to reproduce Lewis’s description exactly as he wrote it in terms of spelling as well as punctuation—or the lack of it. Even though the frequent absence of punctuation may compel the reader to study each phrase or sentence carefully to extract the precise meaning, it serves to emphasize the urgency of Lewis’s business here, which is essentially observation.

What is remarkable about Lewis’s description is the close attention he pays to a host of details, including some that he knows a dried specimen will not reflect, such as color and shade, texture, relative moisture, flexibility, and delicate structural relationships. He analyzes the plant with the loving eye of a farmer. His curiosity is intensified by the sensuous, tactile sensitivity of an herbalist like his own mother. His vision is clarified, no doubt, by the use of a magnifying glass, or perhaps the “microscope” from his sextant. He may have asked questions of his Nez Perce hosts, for there is more to his account than he could have discovered on his own. Evidently he has studied Benjamin Smith Barton‘s Elements of Botany^[3]Benjamin Smith Barton (1766-1815), a Philadelphia physician, linguist, and botanist, taught Lewis the craft of pressing, drying, and preserving the plants he was to discover on the expedition. His … Continue reading and Miller’s Linnaeus,^[4]John Miller (1715-1790), a London-based, German-born engraver of botanical subjects, published his English translation of works by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus, titled Illustration of the … Continue reading which were in the company’s portable library, for he employs some of the current anatomical and morphological nomenclature with exceptional accuracy and appropriateness.

On 12 June 1806, the day after he wrote his description, Lewis remarked: “the quamash is now in blume and from the colour of its bloom and at a short distance it resembles lakes of fine clear water, so complete is this deseption that on first sight I could have swoarn it was water.”

Weippe Prairie has been farmed for many years, and no longer contains large camas meadows as it did when Lewis and Clark saw it. However, Musselshell Meadow, only a few miles east of Weippe, still retains its historic beauty.

All of the above notwithstanding, and despite the excellence of his academic exercise, it was, as Gary Moulton has pointed out, the specimen of the plant he collected on 23 June 1806 after their return to “the flatts,” that enabled Frederick Pursh to define Camassia quamash precisely and accurately as a new species.

Captain Lewis wrote:

As I have had frequent occasion to mention the plant which the Chopunnish call quawmash I shall here give a more particular discription of that plant and the mode of preparing it for food as practiced by the Chopunnish and others in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains with whom it forms much the greatest portion of their subsistence.

Regarding the plant’s habitat, Lewis continues:

we have never met with this plant but in, or adjacent to, a piney or fir timbered country, and there, always in the open grounds and glades; in the Columbian vally and near the coast it is to be found in small quantities, and inferior in size to that found in this neighborhood,^[5]By “this neighbourhood” he meant the deep, warm canyon of the Middle Fork of the Clearwater River, near today’s Kamiah, Idaho. At Weippe Prairie, 2500 to 3000 feet above, and … Continue reading and in the high rich flats and vallees within the rocky mountains. it delights in a black rich moist soil, and even grows most luxuriantly where the land remains from 6 to nine inches under water untill the seed are nearly perfect which in this neighbourhood or on these flats, is about the last of this month. neare the river where I had an opportunity of observing it the seed were beginning to ripen on the 9th inst.^[6]Two days previously—9 June 1806. and the soil was nearly dry. it seems devoted to it’s particular soil and situation, and you will seldom find it more than a few feet from the inundated soil tho’ within it’s limits it grows very closely in short almost as much so as the bulbs will permit

Captain Lewis:

The radix is a tunicated bulb, much the consistence, shape and appearance of the onion; glutenous or somewhat [slymy]^[7]Lewis had crossed out this bracketed word, as indicated in Gary Moulton’s edition of the journals. when chewed; and almost tasteless and without smell in its unprepared state. It is white, except the thin, outer tunicated scales, which are few, black, and not succulent. This bulb is from the size of a nutmeg to that of a hens egg, and most commonly of an intermediate size, or about as large as an onion of one years growth from the seed.
The radicles are numerous, rather large, white, flexible, succulent and diverging.

Professor Reveal:

The term “radicles” here refers to the roots at the base of the bulb. The entire structure—roots and bulbs—is a “radi”X and in this case a specialized type—a tunicate bulb (e.g., having scales). Lewis’s use of “radicale” in his description means the leaves arise from the top of the bulb. The term is correctly spelled “radical.”

Captain Lewis:

the foliage consists of from one to four seldom five linear, sessile, and revolute, pointed leaves; they are from 12 to 18 inches in length, and from 1 to 3/4 of an inch in the widest part which is near the middle; the uper disk is somewhat gro[o]ved of a pale green and marked it’s whole length with a number of small longitudinal channels; the under disk is a deep glossy green and smooth. the leaves sheath the peduncle and each other as high as the surface of the earth or about 2 inches; they are more succulent than the grasses and less so than most of the lillies, hyesinths, &c.—^[8]Lewis’s comparisons are appropriate. Given what was known until recently, Camassia quamash was considered to be a member of the lily family (Liliaceae). Using modern biochemical and DNA … Continue reading

Professor Reveal:

When Lewis says “the leaves sheath the peduncle and each other as high as the surface of the earth or about 2 inches,” he is referring to the fact that in plants with several leaves arising from the bulb (in some species of Camassia there can be numerous leaves, and even in C. quamash there can be more than the maximum of five leaves as suggested by Lewis) the basal leaf sheaths surround the base of the peduncle for a few inches between the bulb itself and the ground surface where the leaves can diverge from the peduncle.

When he refers to “the upper disk” what he means is the upper (or inner) surface of the leaf-blade. Likewise, the “under disk” refers to the lower (or outer) surface.

Captain Lewis:

the peduncle is soletary, proceeds from the root, is columner, smooth, leafless, and rises to the height of 2 or 2-1/2 feet.

[The pedicel] supports from 10 to forty flowers, which are each supported by a separate footstalk of 1/2 an inch in length, scattered without order on the upper portion of the peduncle.

Professor Reveal:

Unlike many modern botanists, Lewis clearly understood the difference between a peduncle (the stalk that holds the inflorescence and arises from the bulb) and a pedicel (the stalk that holds an individual flower). In describing the inflorescence, Lewis states that the “10 to forty flowers” are on a “footstalk.” The term “footstalk” is equal to “pedicel” so that the individual flowers are pedicellate, or “on a pedicel.”

The plant pictured here, based on the variety seen at Lolo Pass differed from what he saw in the “Columbian vally.” The Lolo Pass plant is the var. quamash. Two other varieties are found mainly in the Columbia River area. West of the Cascade Range is the var. maxima, but a shorter plant—and the one Lewis was likely referring to specifically in his description—is the var. breviflora, which occurs along the Columbia east of the Cascade Range. Clearly, Lewis had a keen eye to note the differences.

Captain Lewis:

. . . the calix is a partial involucre or involucret Situated at the base of the footstalk of each flower on the peduncle; it is long thin and begins to decline as soon as the corrolla expands.

Professor Reveal:

His expression “the calix is a partial involucret situated at the base of the footstalk” is an incorrect understanding of floral parts. What Lewis is referring to here is the subtending bract at the base of each pedicel. These bracts are associated with the bud and act as a protective layer over the bud as the inflorescence is elongating and the buds are maturing. As the buds mature to the point of anthesis (flowering, or the opening of a flower), the bracts wither and are torn apart by the expanding bud. By the time an individual flower opens, the bracts are usually decurrent (bent downwardly) and well away from both the flower and the pedicel.

Captain Lewis:

. . . the corolla consists of six long oval, obtusly pointed, skye blue or water coloured petals, each about 1 inch in length; the corolla is regular as to the form and size of the petals but irregular as to their position, five of them are placed near e[a]ch other, pointing upward while one stands horizantally or pointing downwards, they are inserted with a short claw on the extremity of the footstalk at the base of the germ; the corolla is, of course, inferior; it is also shriveling, and continues untill the seeds are perfect.

Professor Reveal:

The flowers are slightly irregular in this species, meaning that one of the tepals is positioned slightly differently from the other five. Lewis noted this, a fact not readily seen by many who look at the flowers of the species. Lewis says the corolla is “of course inferior” meaning the petals and sepals are not differentiated (today the term “tepals” is applied to the undifferentiated sepals and petals). His expression about the “corolla” being “inserted with a short claw on the extremity of the footstalk at the base of the germ” refers to the narrowing of the tepals at the base of the ovary; both the tepals and the ovary are positioned atop the pedicel.

Captain Lewis:

The stamens are perfect, six in number; the filaments each elevate an anther, near their base are flat on the inside and rounded on the outer terminate in a subulate point, are bowed or bent upwards, inserted on the inner side and on the base of the claws of the petals, below the germ, are equal both with rispect to themselves and the corolla, smooth & membraneous.
. . . the Anther is oblong, obtusely pointed, 2 horned or forked, at one end and furrowed longitudinally with four channels, the upper and lower of which seem almost to divide it into two loabs, incumbent patent, membranous, very short, naked, two valved and fertile with pollen, which last is of a yellow colour—. the anther in a few hours after the corolla unfoalds, bursts, discharges it’s pollen and becomes very minute and shrivled; the above discription of the anther is therefore to be understood of it at the moment of it’s first appearance.

Professor Reveal:

Lewis errs in his description of the anthers, suggesting they are “2 horned or forked.” The anthers are versatile, meaning that the point of attachment of the filament is mid-length or centered along the length of the anther. Most anthers are basifixed, meaning that the filament is attached at the base of the anther. The terms “incumbent patent” allude to the angle of the anthers and filaments to one another, and it is each half of the anther (the two pieces on each side of the filament) that are “very short” and “naked.” The anther is two lobed (“two loabs”) and also two chambered (“two valved”)

Captain Lewis:

. . . the pistillum is only one, of which, the germ [ovary] is triangular reather swollen on the sides, smooth superior, sessile, pedicelled, short in proportion to the corolla, altho’ wide or bulky; the style is very long or longer than the stamens, simple, cylindrical, bowed or bent upwards, placed on the top of the germ, membranous shrivels and falls off when the pericarp has obtained its full size. the stigma is three-cleft, very minute, and pubescent. the pericarp is a capsule, triangular, oblong, obtuse, and triocular, with three longitudinal valves. the seed so far as I could judge, are numerous not very minute and globilar.—

Professor Reveal:

The word ‘germ’ used here has been replaced by the term ovary.

Lewis’s Botanical Terms

These botanical terms were used by Lewis in his description of the camas plant.^[9]Definitions in quotes are from the glossary to Intermountain Flora: Vascular Plants of the Intermountain West, U.S.A., by Arthur Cronquist, Arthur H. Holmgren, Noel H. Holmgren, and James L. Reveal … Continue reading

anther—”The part of a stamen, consisting of one or usually two pollen sacs (and a connecting layer between them), which bears the pollen.”

axil—”The point of an angle formed by the leaf or petiole with [the stem].”

bract—”A specialized leaf, from the axil of which a flower or flower stalk arises; more loosely, any more or less reduced or modified leaf associated with a flower or an inflorescence, but not a part of the flower itself.”

calyx—”All of the sepals of a flower, collectively;” written “calix” by Lewis and others of his day.

decline—”Curved downward.”

disk—The face of any flat body.

diverge—To extend in different directions from a common point.

filament—”The stalk of a stamen, i.e., the part which supports the anther.”

incumbent—Lying, leaning, or resting on something else.

inflorescence—”A flower cluster of a plant, or, more correctly, the arrangement of the flowers on the axis.”

involucre—”A set of bracts beneath an inflorescence; more generally, any set of structures which surround the base of another structure.”

linear—”Line-shaped; very long and narrow, with essentially parallel sides.”

locule—”A seed cavity (chamber) in an ovary or fruit; a compartment in any container.”

membranous—”Thin and flexible, like a membrane, as in an ordinary leaf, in contrast to . . . succulent.”

naked—”Lacking various organs or appendages, in contrast to other forms in which these organs or appendages are present; e.g., a naked flower lacks a perianth.”

ovary (germ, in Lewis’s day)—”The structure which encloses the ovules [seeds] of angiosperms; the expanded basal part of a pistil, containing the ovules.”

patent—Spreading open, expanded.

pedicel—”The stalk of a single flower in an inflorescence.”

peduncle—”The stalk of an inflorescence or of a solitary flower.” The word comes from pedunculus, a diminutive of the Latin pes, ped-, meaning foot.

pericarp—”The wall of the fruit.”

pistil—”The female organ of a flower, composed of one or more carpels, and ordinarly differentiated into ovary, style, and stigma.”

radical—”Pertaining to the root; radical leaves are basal leaves, which seem to arise from the root crown.”

revolute—”Rolled outward or backward, so that the upper side of an organ is exposed and the lower concealed.”

sepal—”A member of the outermost set of floral leaves, typically green or greenish and more or less leafy in texture.”

sessile—”Attached directly by the base, without a stalk, as a leaf without a petiole or a flower without a pedicel.”

stamen—”The male organ of a flower, consisting of an anther and usually a filament.”

subtend—”To be directly below or close to.”

subulate—”Awl-shaped.”

succulent—”Fleshy and juicy; more specifically, a plant which accumulates reserves of water in the fleshy stems or leaves, due largely to the high proportion of hydrophilic colloids in the protoplasm and cell sap.”

stigma—”The part of the pistil which is receptive to pollen.”

style—”The slender stalk which typically connects the stigma to the ovary.”

superior ovary—”An ovary which is attached to the summit or center of the receptacle and is free from all other flower parts.”

triocular—”With three locules.”

tunicate—”Covered or provided with sheathing leaf bases which form concentric circles when viewed in cross section, as the bulb of an onion.”

valve—”One of the portions of the ovary wall into which a capsule separates at maturity.”