Related Species: Wintergreen (Gaultheriaprocumbens), Western Teaberry (Gaultheria ovatifolia), Prickly Heath (Gaultheriamucronata), Snowberry (Gaultheriahispida), Creeping Snowberry (Gaultheria hispidula)
Sitting With: Spreading anonymously like a lullaby A little arrogant, sometimes…
Body System Affiliations: 1.Digestive 2. Respiratory
3. Urinary 4. First-Aid
5. Nutritional 6. Pediatrics
Botanical Description: Habit: Perennial Shrub Size: 6-7 ft. tall in shady thicket, 1 ft. on roadsides Arrangement: Alternate Leaves: oblong to elliptical ovate, acuminate, very finely and sharply toothed, evergreen, thick, leathery, 1-4 inches long Flowers: urn-shaped, pink, clusters of 5-15 at top and sides, “typical of Heath family (1)” Fruit: flowers mature in late summer into purple-black berries, edible, high in flavonoids, bland taste, a little spicy, PLENTIFUL Bark: mealy stems Twigs: zigzag in new stem growth, red when mature, brown Underground Parts: “Sprouts profusely from rhizomes (6).” Personal Observation and Description: I find the leaves to be most interesting. They are pubescent, and very smooth like a countertop, they seem to curve and curl at the margin because of their stiffness. The margin is ever so slightly toothed, almost serrulate-ulate, the tip being perfectly acuminate. At the base, the leaf is round, sometimes oblique, and what I think is the node (where the leaf attaches to the branch), is a pleasant lemonade yellow with a vibrant magenta blotch. The plentiful berries have died off for the winter, but new buds are already forming (mid-November).
Ecology: Habitat: moist forest understory- mostly Evergreen and coniferous forests, coastal mountain areas, also grows on roadsides Range:Western North America, Santa Cruz, CA to Alaskan Panhandle, East to Cascades in Washington, stops in Southern Central OR Native: in Pacific Northwest only (Northern CA to AK, all through BC) Ecological Relationships: Salal is usually found growing abundantly under Douglas-fir, Western Hemlock, and Sitka Spruce. Common associates include salmonberry, vine maple, western sword fern, and California hazel. Personal Observation: Salal is an abundant plant in the Pacific Northwest, which seems to take up, and comprise much of the forest floor. It seems that Salal prefers to grow around the base of large trees, basking in their shade
and spreading outward. I have begun to recognize Salal as the “green that exists under the trees” around the Pacific Northwest, especially around the Olympic peninsula area. I have not noticed much of a variation in plant size or shape within this area.
Western Uses/Relationships: Food: using berries: mash and dry, store in flat box lined with leaves, until dried into dense cake, mix in fresh blueberries for taste/adhesive. Dried unmashed berries can be eaten like raisins with crunchy seeds. (1) Recently, “salal berries have been prepared as jam or preserves, and ripe berries from healthy bushes are hard to beat for flavor and juiciness (9).” Salal is one of many edible plants being grown at a restaurant outside Victoria for culinary use (8).
Materials/Technology: A small drinking cup can be made by “shaping the leaf into a cone (9).” Medicine: Part Used: leaves Medicinal Actions: anti-inflammatory (throat, intestine, lungs, sinus, bladder), anti-diarrhea, astringent, analgesic, hemostatic (1) Body Systems/Indications: Pediatrics: gas pain, colic, digestive food allergy (2) Respiratory: raspy, dry cough (1) Urinary: irritated bladder (post urination), cystitis (1) First-Aid: scrapes, abrasions, burns (1) Constituents: flavonoids, aglycones, sideroxylin, latifolin, tannic acid (1) Application: Infusion with leaves, poultice with powdered leaves Preparation: Infusion = 5-6 crushed leaves Poultice = powdered dry leaves in short-term poultice (1) Pharmacy: Tea is safe and helpful 2-3 hours after meal for gastritis For diarrhea, the tea is safe and frequently repeatable. Poultice (for minor abrasions) = “short term”(1) Cautions: None found for salal, though relative Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens) contains volatile oils high in methyl salycitate, like Aspirin, and “6ml can kill an adult” if ingested (3).
Part Used: Berries Medicinal Actions: nutritional Body Systems/Indications: Vascular: chronic skin and mucus membrane fragility (1). Constituents: High in flavonoids (1). Preparation: Mash berries (can be mixed with blueberries) and dry into a cake (1). Application: Food. Pharmacy: Eat a chunk of berry cake twice a day to strengthen capillaries in chronic skin and mucus membrane fragility (1). Cautions: N/A
Indigenous and Non-Western Uses: The First Peoples of the Pacific Northwest have a vast relationship with Salal, including basic survival off of the berries in the winter time, medicinal uses, and parts of customary feasts and dances. (8)
Food: Many tribes of Northwest Indigenous Peoples have survived long wintermonths using the salal berry as a primary and plentiful source for food. Kwakwaka’wakw people have dipped berries in oolichan grease at large feasts (9), though only chiefs could eat pure salal berry cakes and
commoners ate salal berry mixed with elderberry (8). Quileute have
dipped whole fresh branches of berries in whale oil and eaten raw (2). The berries have been eaten raw, right off the branch by the Quileute (2). One use of the berries that seems to be common among many tribes in the Pacific Northwest is mashing the berries and drying them in large cakes (var. sources). The cakes made by Lower Chinook peoples have weighed 10-15 pounds (2). The Skokomish have used fresh berries to bind the dried mash into loaves (2). Materials/Technology: Many tribes have used the salal leaves as a bed for drying cakes of the dried berries. Haida have used the berries to thicken salmon eggs; other tribes use the berries to sweeten other foods (9), such as ice
cream (8). Salal leaves can be used to line cooking pots, and the salal
brush have been used in Klukwalle dances (2). Leafy branches were used
in pit cooking and in flavoring fish soups and “for trading or selling, the
salal berries were mixed with currants, elderberries, or unripe salal berries (9).” Medicine: Part Used: leaves Medicinal Actions: First-aid, respiratory, digestive, nutrition Indications: burns, sores, cough, tuberculosis, heartburn, colic diarrhea (2) Energetics: Skagit peoples use mild tea for convalescent tonic. Harvest: Storage: Cakes of dried berries were stored in leaf-lined bins in many different Northwest tribes (var. sources). Preparations: Chewed leaves, tea infusion, boiled juice, dried and pulverized. Applications: Chewing leaves – for heartburn and colic by the Quinault, spit onto burns and sores by the Quileute (2), Ditidaht have used to suppress hunger (9). Tea – Swinomish and Sammish have used for cough and tuberculosis, Quinault have used tea and boiled juice for diarrhea, and Skagit use tea for mild convalescent tonic (2). Dried/Pulverized- smoked with Kinnikinnick by Makah and Quileute (2). Pharmacy: All sources have implied that salal has been safe for frequent use. Chewing leaves for application to burns has been considered “proper medical practice” to many Northwest tribes (2). Cautions: N/A
Propagation: Technique: Berries are eaten and dispersed by mobile animals (9). May be propagated by seed and also vegetatively from root, stem, or rhizome cutting. “Salal can also be propagated by layering,
or from suckers and stolons (7).” Timing:Sew seeds in winter or spring, use cuttings from late summer (7). Salal commonly increases after timber harvest (7). Personal Experience: I have not tried to propagate any salal on my own, though I see it growing in almost every forest or single tree understory in the South Puget Sound area. I would like to try to grow some from seed in my own garden this winter.
Harvest: Plant Part: Leaves Season of Harvest: “Young, reddish, zigzag leaves” should be harvested from late spring to mid-fall (1). Method of Harvest: Gather, bundle, and dry young branches (1). Ecological Considerations of Harvest: Salal competes vigorously with other species, and increases after timber harvest. Salal is very important as a “ground cover on erosive banks, roadcuts, highway right-of-ways, and other types of reclaimed ground. It can also aid in stabilizing coastal dunes and in protecting vulnerable watersheds (7).” It is an important winter food for many forest animals, as it typically grows taller than other shrubs and is less likely to be covered by snowfall (7). Large patches of the shrub offer protection to deer and elk from winter winds, as well as good hiding places for other animals from predators (7). Cultural Considerations of Harvest: Salal has been an important food and and medicine plant to many people indigenous to the Pacific Northwest. It is also heavily used in floral decoration and landscape, often added to backyards as a way of attracting wild animals (7). Cautions: Dried leaves last for several years (1).
Plant Part: Berries Season of Harvest: Early to mid-fall, when fully mature (1). Method of Harvest: Berries can be picked from the branches, “approximately
8 minutes of harvesting is required to collect 0.44 pint (250 ml) of
fruit (7).” Quileute people have harvested whole branches and eaten berries right off the branch (2). Ecological Considerations of Harvest: Berries eaten by wild animals are primary method of propagation for salal in the wild (7). Cultural Considerations of Harvest: The salal berry has been considered a very important food source for many native tribes for survival in winter months, and also in traditional feasts and celebrations as a food for chiefs. (var. sources). Cautions: The flavor of the berry has been described as spicy, bland but pleasant, fleshy, succulent, sweet, and tart (var. sources).
Personal Experience: Food: I have been unable to eat any salal berries as they have mostly all fallen off the branches. Materials/Technology: The dried leaves are very strong, and I have pressed many leaves for use in book making. I think they will make wonderful delicate book covers when fastened together. Medicine: Part Used: Leaves Desired Medicinal Actions: Anti-Inflammatory, Convalescence Targeted Indications: Bladder irritation, raspy cough Harvest: Site Location: Evergreen State College, Olympia WA Site Description: State-owned, area beneath large alder tree – not completely shady though, moist soil, at the side of a cement path with high traffic volume, smaller leaves from reddish (young) part of branch, first patch of salal noticed upon arriving on campus. Technique: Picked leaves directly from branch. Processing: None. Storage: Fine in my pocket, though between book pages keeps the leaves flat and easy to manage. Experience: I have begun instinctively pulling a few leaves from salal branches when I walk by them and putting them in my pocket. They are so tough that they keep rather well in there. I also like to rub them on my face, for their smooth and shiny surface. Application/Prep/Pharmacy: Applications: Tea infusion Preparation: Bruised 5-6 whole leaves with the back of a butter knife and poured boiling water over them. Steeped for 5-7 minutes. Pharmacy: One cup of 5-6 leaf tea once or twice a day for a few days. Reason/Purpose: I hoped to ameliorate some bladder pain I had been experiencing, as well as a weak cough. I was also interested in the convalescent use of the tea. Experience: The bladder pain was gone after one evening of two cups of the tea. The weak cough is still around, though. Caution based on Experience: No adverse affects. The flavor of the tea is a bit like seaweed, though very mild and pleasant.
1.) Moore, Michael. Medicinal Plants of the Pacific West. Sante Fe: Red Crane Books, 1993. p. 221 – 224.
2.) Gunther, Erna. Ethnobotany of Western Washington: The Knowledge and Use of Indigenous Plants by Native Americans. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1973. p. 43-44, 52
3.) Brill, Steve and Evelyn Dean. “Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and not so wild) Places. New York: Hurst Books, 1994. p. 222-224
4.) Grieve, Mrs. M.
A Modern Herbal: The Medicinal, Culinary, Cosmetic and Economic Properties, Cultivation and Folk-Lore of Herbs, Grasses, Fungi, Shrubs & Trees with their Modern Scientific Uses. Volume II. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1971.
8.) Turner, Nancy J. Food Plants of Coastal First Peoples. Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 1971.
9.) Alaback, Paul et al.
Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast: Washington, Oregon, British Columbia & Alaska. Eds. Jim Pojar and Andy MacKinnonn. Revised Edition. Vancouver, British Columbia: Lone Pine, 1994. p. 53.
