More Salal

I was surprised some folks in the PNB don’t know about salal because we are drowning in it here in the gulf islands -it grows from Oregon up the coast to Alaska in coastal forests. and it tolerates dry as well as wet. (as in this summer) So here is a picture of one patch in our “backyard” with a path that goes thru the forest to the top of the hill. There is a little clearing for light here because 20+ years ago we had to put 5 poles for our power line from the power on the top of the hill down to our cabin. (We love to have lights in the winter!) We were such tree huggers we worried that we had to cut some trees for this swath and the brown dirt would never grow over. Silly us! Now we have to cut this tiny path thru the salal to get to the trails in the woods. I had H stand here to show the scale - it’s almost to his shoulders - (and besides, he had an orange shirt on!) Our friend Richard who was here last once had a job cutting perfect salal up north of here for the commercial florists, it was hard work for almost no money. No one wants to do this work. I understand the florists pay a lot. It had good preservative power and lasts long. Besides medicine for suppressing hunger (who knows, maybe this had something to do with other digestive ailments).... drying the leaves and crushing them when dry for medicinal tea, it was also used by different native tribes for coughs, TB, and wounds as well as digestive ailments/diarrhea.
Don’t miss Alice’s mad hatter rabbit showing the way to the path that could get overgrown with this lush and lovely and always green salal. In the spring it’s 2 toned, with the lighter new growth that this year seemed to grow an extra foot everywhere. I love this plant!