Indian Plum a late winter bloomer

Island Wild Jan. 22, 2010

Indian Plum (Osoberry) is among the first wild plants to leaf out and flower in early springtime. Photo Christine Scott.

"Plum blossoms soften a stone wall, and give warmth to the moon." (Tony Black Feather, 1934-2004).

Nothing says spring like the first wild blooms on our native plants. Although the familiar hot-pink Salmonberry is well-known to Pacific Northwest residents, another early indigenous fruit shrub recently caught my attention.

Indian Plum (Osoberry) is among the first wild plants to leaf out and flower in early springtime, and it’s a beauty, both in floral delight and for its multi-coloured, edible little plums. Delicate white bell-shaped flowers with five little petals hang in pendant clusters from reddish-brown branches bearing long pale-green leaves with a cucumber scent.

Oemleria cerasiformis, a shrub native to the Pacific coast, grows on Vancouver Island; it’s known to grow naturally as far north as Comox but was once successfully transplanted at Sayward. Gardeners would do well to find and cultivate this wild shrub, which attains a height of 1.5 to 5 metres.

Indian Plum is already leafing out on the Lower Mainland, with blossoms rushing out almost before the leaves. How precious those first fresh greens must have been to First Nations groups, who ate the cucumber-flavoured leaves, the ripe fruit, and tea made of the bark.

One to five little plums – about 1 cm long – grow per cluster. Ever resourceful, aboriginal peoples also dried the fruit for winter use, although a taste-test last summer revealed it to be slightly bitter – but nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a little honey.

Bees and hummingbirds relish Indian Plum’s early nectar, and birds ravenously attack the fruit. For people, however, it’s only safe to eat in small quantities; indeed, only a thin layer of flesh is available, along with one large pit.

A member of the Rosaceae family, this deciduous shrub does a triple-header, offering blooms in late winter, tiny plums in summer and early yellow leaves by mid-summer.

Indian Plum – a perennial – grows in moist, humus-rich soil in part-shade, from ripe seeds or greenwood cuttings, and suckers may be transplanted in the dormant season. The flowers are ‘dioecious’ (individual plants are either male or female, so both are needed for pollination.

This is one shrub well worth seeking out at a native plant nursery for backyard wildlife habitat or native plant restoration purposes.