Meriwether Lewis Flower Lewisia or Bitterroot Discovered in Grocery Store

It’s gardening time and I’ve been busy planting outside. I have a lot of little garden spaces around our yard. I grew some plants from seed this year and when I transplanted them I went looking for some new indoor plants to grow under lights in the basement. I have some new African violets which I am watering with bottled water. Omaha’s switch to chloramine (chlorine and amonia) in its water treatment facility killed off African violets which I had grown for 25 years under lights. But hope springs eternal, and I have new plants.

When I was shopping at our Baker’s Supermarket what should I see but a pretty little succulent plant with beautiful small blooms--Meriwether Lewis’s Bitterroot called Lewisia, or some variation of it. It doesn’t look quite like the photos in my two Lewis and Clark plant books: Plants of the Lewis and Clark Expedition by H. Wayne Phillips and Lewis and Clark’s Green World: The Expedition and its Plants by A Scott Earle and James L Reveal. Anyway, I bought two of them, including the one in front of the sign shown here. I’ll water them with bottled water.

As I look at the books I realize that I like the same plants that Lewis and Clark saw and collected: the wild plants and their offspring of our central plains and mountain west.  The more years I garden the more I am pleased to find plants that the bees and the butterflies like. My favorite by far is liatris or gayfeather. It grows in a stately clump about 4 foot tall, doesn’t spread, and is never without bees/butterflies. Another plant the bees like in particular is hyssop. I have a stand near the back of the vegetable garden.  We need to help the bees and the butterflies.

What did Meriwether Lewis write about the Bitterroot, for whom the Bitterroot Valley in Montana is named, and the Bitterroot River?  He found two varieties, one near the Clearwater River and one near Traveler’s Rest. He wrote about them on August 22, 1805: he found boiling made the roots soft, but the bitter taste made him "naucious." He gave them to the Indians "who had eat them heartily."  The Bitterroot is Montana’s state flower. The Bitterroot mountain range extends for 300 miles, from the area of Lost Trail Pass to the Lake Pend Oreille area, defining the Montana/Idaho border. The Bitterroot National Forest covers 1.6 million acres. Almost half the forest is designated wilderness area;  it is the largest wilderness area in the continental United States. The Bitterroot is obviously a very important part of Native American history. The Salish, or Flathead Indians, have lived in this area for approximately 10,000 years. I am thrilled to have found my own little bit of Lewis and Clark plants, the bitterroot Lewisia.  If anyone can tell me more about this variety, I would like to know about it. I don’t plan to eat them.

Posted by on 04/30/2007 at 07:43 PM

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