Shrubs Archives - Wild About Utah

August 18, 2025August 17, 2025

Chokecherries

Chokecherry Fruit Prunus virginiana Courtesy US National Park Service — Chokecherry Fruit
*Prunus virginiana*
Courtesy US National Park Service

Chokecherry in Bloom Prunus virginiana Courtesy US Fish & Wildlife Service — Chokecherry in Bloom
*Prunus virginiana*
Courtesy US Fish & Wildlife Service

Chokecherry Flowers
*Prunus virginiana*
Courtesy US Fish & Wildlife Service

Chokecherry Flowers Prunus virginiana Courtesy US Fish & Wildlife Service — Chokecherry in Bloom
*Prunus virginiana*
Courtesy US Fish & Wildlife Service

Chokecherry Flowers
*Prunus virginiana*
Courtesy US Fish & Wildlife Service

Certain plants were considered sacred by many native tribes. Chokecherry made the list. This versatile plant was highly prized for food, medicine, implements, and building material. And you could rightfully say it changed the history of our nation.

Legend has it that the young Shoshoni girl Sacajawea was gathering choke cherries when captured by the Hidatsa tribe and later traded to Lewis and Clark on their voyage of discovery. Without this very young mother, it is highly doubtful they would have completed their journey as she saved them from starvation, was a translator/mediator with many potentially hostile tribes and retrieved some of their precious journals from being lost to the Missouri River when their boat capsized in a rapid.

These stories ran through my mind as I gathered massive quantities of the fruit in preparation for the Stokes Nature Center “From Forest to Fork” wild foods banquet on August 24th of this month. It also channeled images of a black bear in the Tetons, gorging on choke cherries in preparation for its winter big sleep. Picking several pounds of these delectables, I decided to take a broader perspective looking for other virtues of this remarkable plant.

In addition to the above, chokecherry’s tough, springy wood was used for fabricating both bow and arrow, digging sticks, and fish spears. Native people across America routinely smashed the fruits, dried them thoroughly in the sun, and added them to rendered fat and dried meat to produce pemmican, which provided all essential nutrients in one’s diet.

Chokecherry makes a very useful natural dye. To make a dye, pulp the fruit and create a mashed mix of juice and berries. Placing fabric in this mixture will take on the beautiful pinkish red color of the dye. For lighter stains, leave the product in for shorter periods.
Due to their quick and abundant growth, chokecherries have been planted in tree rows for wind protection, for wildlife habitat and for erosion control. Today they grow in a variety of climates and regions around the country.

Nutritionally, the dark purple, red, or almost black berries are high in fiber, vitamins, and minerals. They can be used in vinegar, syrups, jams, juice, and make excellent wine. This small yet potent fruit provides an array of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, which contribute to its health benefits.

Chokecherry has a variety of medicinal uses. Dried berries were used to treat several bowel conditions, from diarrhea to loss of appetite, and those suffering from ulcers and other conditions. The bark is reported to be a remedy for respiratory ailments, such as a bad cough. The fruit’s high antioxidant content, particularly anthocyanins, is linked to a reduced risk of chronic diseases including cancer, heart disease, and age-related cognitive decline. Additionally, chokecherries have anti-inflammatory properties and are believed to have a positive effect on the immune system.

This is Jack Greene for Bridgerland Audubon Society, and I am Wild About Utah’s wild choke cherries!

Credits:

Picture: Courtesy US FWS and US NPS
Audio: Courtesy & © Anderson, Howe and Wakeman.
Text: Jack Greene, Bridgerland Audubon, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/
Additional Reading: Lyle W Bingham, Webmaster, and Jack Greene, Author, Bridgerland Audubon, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading:

Jack’s Wild About Utah pieces.

Jack Greene writes: “Legend has it that the young Shoshoni girl Sacajawea was gathering choke cherries when captured by the Hidatsa tribe and later traded to
Lewis and Clark on their voyage of discovery.”
Sacagawea: The Shoshone Woman Who Guided Lewis and Clark
Full History Documentary | History Revealed @History_Revealed01
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xssko2bJfNM

Chokecherry Prunus virginiana, iNaturalist (Courtesy Wikipedia), https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/54835-Prunus-virginiana

Chokecherry Prunus virginiana, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, The University of Texas at Austin, https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=PRVI

September 19, 2022November 19, 2023

Berries

Red Raspberry Rubus idaeus var. strigosus Courtesy NPS, Yellowstone's Photo Collection, JW Stockert Photographer, 1972 — Oregon Grape
*Mahonia repens*
Producing Blue Berries in the Grand Tetons
Courtesy Pixabay, Mike Goad, Photographer,

Red Raspberry
*Rubus idaeus var. strigosus*
Courtesy NPS, Yellowstone’s Photo Collection, JW Stockert Photographer, 1972

Thimbleberry
*Rubus parviflorus*
Courtesy NPS, Yellowstone’s Photo Collection, JW Stockert, Photographer

Utah-Serviceberry
*Rosaceae Amelanchier utahensis*
Courtesy National Park Service, Lee Ferguson, Photographer

Rose Hips
Wood’s rose *Rosa woodsii*
Courtesy NPS, Yellowstone’s Photo Collection, J Schmidt, Photographer, 1977

The berry season is upon us- huckleberries, raspberries, gooseberries, chokecherries (not a berry but close enough), elderberries, bearberries, while early berries have faded- golden current, serviceberries, thimble berries are now fruit leather.

Berry picking during my youth in the North woods of Wisconsin was a wonderful tradition that I, and our black bear neighbors, looked forward to with great anticipation. We often shared the same patch evident by fresh bear scat and tracks. Those rare occasions where brother and sister bear were with us are frozen in time. “Just keep picking and talking- they won’t bother us.” My grandmother’s refrain. I was enthralled, watching every move and sound they made, with an occasional “woof” from mother bear alerting the youngsters.

Now, so many years later, I take my students to the Tetons hoping for a glimpse of bruins harvesting berries, rose hips, and thorn apples along streams and roadsides. Black bears are efficient berry-eaters, consuming up to 30,000 berries a day in a good year. They gather berries quickly, using their sensitive, mobile lips swallowing them whole. The berries enter a two-part stomach, which grinds the pulp off the seeds which pass through unbroken and are able to germinate, making black bears important seed dispersers.

Our Bear River Range here in Northern Utah was once a stronghold for the bruin. Overharvesting by hunters and the government has left it wanting, but the berries remain. One berry favored by bears is the white snowberry. Don’t copy the bears on this one as it’s toxic, but a great medicinal. Another that I avoid is the buffalo berry, called soapberry in the northwest. It contains saponin, the active ingredient in most soaps. It’s much like biting into a bar of soap, applied in my younger years for mouth cleansing. And please avoid the voluptuous red and white fruit of the bane berry, and cute little mini tomatoes of deadly night shade. You will be all the better for it.

“Harvesting berries can be a powerful meditation, centering us in the power of “now,” and is one of the oldest human experiences. This simple action can be an opportunity to revel in the abundance of nature. Tangibly interacting with food that is so wired into its life source is otherworldly, and it reminds us of a time when humans were more directly connected to the origins of our food. It is a grounding experience that demands every cell in your body resonate with the source of our food, catalyzing our connections to the universe.” Valerie Segrest quote

I strongly recommend “Blueberries for Sal” for younger generations. A delightful 1948 children’s book by renowned author Robert McCloskey. I recently visited the Blueberry Hill in Main’s Acadian N.P., the location for this story, and picked a few myself. Unfortunately, the bears had been replaced swarms of tourists!

Jack Greene for Bridgerland Audubon Society, and yes, I’m wild about Utah’s bears and wild berries!

Credits:

Pictures:
Oregon Grape Producing Blue Berries in the Grand Tetons, Courtesy Pixabay, Mike Goad, Photographer, https://pixabay.com/photos/blue-wild-berries-in-the-tetons-blue-3842367/
Red raspberry (Rubus idaeus var. strigosus); JW Stockert; 1972, Courtesy NPS, Yellowstone’s Photo Collection, https://www.nps.gov/features/yell/slidefile/plants/rosefamily/Images/08720.jpg
Wood’s rose (Rosa woodsii) hips; J Schmidt; 1977, Courtesy NPS, Yellowstone’s Photo Collection, https://www.nps.gov/features/yell/slidefile/plants/rosefamily/Images/06964.jpg
Thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus); JW Stockert; 1973, Courtesy NPS, Yellowstone’s Photo Collection, https://www.nps.gov/features/yell/slidefile/plants/rosefamily/Images/08718.jpg
Utah Serviceberry, Rosaceae_Amelanchier_utahensis, Courtesy US NPS, Lee Ferguson, Photographer, https://www.nps.gov/arch/learn/nature/images/Rosaceae_Amelanchier_utahensis.jpg
Audio: Courtesy & © Friend Weller, https://upr.org
Text: Jack Greene, Bridgerland Audubon, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/
Additional Reading: Lyle W Bingham, Webmaster, and Jack Greene, Author, Bridgerland Audubon, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading:

Jack Greene’s Postings on Wild About Utah, https://wildaboututah.org/author/jack/

Valerie Segrest, Foods Still Matter: The Muckleshoot Food Sovereignty Project, National Museum of the American Indian, The Smithsonian Institution, 2018, https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/pnw-history-culture/muckleshoot

Valerie Segrest, Food sovereignty, TEDxRainier, TEDxSeattle, https://tedxseattle.com/talks/food-sovereignty/

McCloskey, Robert(Author), Blueberries for Sal, Puffin Books, September 30, 1976 https://www.amazon.com/Blueberries-Sal-Robert-McCloskey/dp/014050169X

A Bear’s Menu, Student Activities, Educator Resources, Yellowstone National Park, https://www.nps.gov/teachers/classrooms/a-bears-menu.htm

February 21, 2022March 12, 2022

PJ Forests

As I write this, I’m babysitting grandkids in Cedar City. I find relief from the little rascals by
handing them off to grandma while I retreat to surrounding pinyon-juniper forests, affectionally titled PJ forests.

Bird calls instantly transform my thoughts to these pygmy forest’s abundant offerings- muffled laughing calls of pinyon jays, twittering of juniper titmice, raucous scrub jays. Drawn by
swooping ravens, I approach a juniper overlooking the canyon below. Thirty feet away, an immature golden eagle sits on a Juniper branch expressing its displeasure by twisting a gold-
mantled head to face the marauders with fierce eyes.

Further up the trail, five mule deer dart though the shadows. A black tailed jackrabbit bolting from its sage hideout startles me. Wishing for binoculars, a flock of sparrow-sized birds fly
across. I attempt to imagine them as juncos, without success. Tomorrow I will return with optics in hand to solve the mystery.

Pinyon Juniper are the dominant forest type in Utah. Much like the sage Steppe biotic community, at first glance one is deluded by the apparent lifeless monotony of this landscape.
To the contrary, both have a high biodiversity. These forests have around 450 species of vascular plants living alongside pinyon pines and junipers. Additionally, over 150 vertebrate
species of animals including elk, mule deer, and bear call pinyon-juniper forests home either seasonally or throughout the year.

Junipers are a birders paradise. The trees offer sites for perching, singing, nesting, and drumming. They also yield plentiful berries (actually spherical cones) and house a high insect
diversity for birds to consume. Mammals also eat the berries while seeking shelter in hollow juniper trunks, taking advantage of the trees’ shade in hot temperatures and the trees’ thermal
cover in the cold. Pinyon pines offer similar benefits to forest-dwellers. Pinyon mice, Abert’s squirrels, cliff chipmunks, Uinta chipmunks, wood rats, desert bighorn sheep, and black bears
all eat pinyon pine nuts.

For millennia, our own species have been dependent on the pinyon pine for their variable bounty of highly nourishing pine nuts. A staple of the Paiute, Goshute, Ute, and Shoshone, their
lives revolved around the fall harvest with elaborate ceremonies to pay homage for their life sustaining food value. It continues to the present, and we Euromericans have joined them in fall
harvest here in the Intermountain west, including my children and grandchildren.

Like the sage steppe, the pinyon juniper forest has been misunderstood, and under-appreciated for its critical role in the lives of so many species that would not exist without it, nor would
atmospheric carbon be stored in their fiber and their soils. Chaining and other “treatments” are highly controversial given the aesthetic impact of once vibrant forest replaced with piles of
uprooted trees and torn soils. Compounding this, recent decades have witnessed more severe drought and heat events making them vulnerable to insect and disease attacks, and catastrophic fire. We must practice utmost care in how we manage this priceless resource.

Jack Greene for Bridgerland Audubon Society, loving wild Utah and its PJ forests

This is Jack Greene for Bridgerland Audubon Society, loving wild Utah and its PJ forests!

Credits:
Pictures: Courtesy US National Parks Service, Austin Tumas, Photographer
Audio: Courtesy & Copyright Kevin Colver, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections as well as J. Chase and K.W. Baldwin, https://upr.org/
Text: Jack Greene, Bridgerland Audubon, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/
Additional Reading: Lyle W Bingham, Webmaster, and Jack Greene, Author, Bridgerland Audubon, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading:

Jack Greene’s Postings on Wild About Utah, https://wildaboututah.org/author/jack/

Pinyon-Juniper Woodlands – Introduction & Distribution, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, https://www.nps.gov/articles/pinyon-juniper-woodlands-distribution.htm

Pinyon-Juniper Woodlands – Species Composition and Classification, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, https://www.nps.gov/articles/pinyon-juniper-woodlands-species-composition-classification.htm

Tausch, R.J., Miller, R.F., Roundy, B.A., and Chambers, J.C., 2009, Piñon and juniper field guide: Asking the right questions to select appropriate management actions: U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1335, 96 p., https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1335/circ1335.pdf

Plants, Natural Bridges National Monument, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, https://www.nps.gov/nabr/learn/nature/plants.htm

Noah’s Ark Trail, Dixie National Forest, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/dixie/recarea/?recid=24930

October 25, 2021November 19, 2023

Brushes

Paintbrush (Castilleja) Courtesy and Copyright © by Shannon Rhodes, photographer — Paintbrush (Castilleja)
Courtesy and Copyright © by Shannon Rhodes, photographer

Of all the lovely wildflowers to enjoy in Utah, indian paintbrush has to top my list. The nickname “prairie fire” is an accurate one, highlighting the variety of colors we find: reds, oranges, yellows, pinks, purples, and sometimes a mixture of two. In Tomie dePaola’s children’s picture book “The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush,” Little Gopher discovers “brushes filled with paint, each one a color of the sunset.” The legend is a flashy tale celebrating this member of the figwort family and stories captured in rock art. Of course, our petroglyphs are fascinating, but I like to imagine how the pictographs adorning many of Utah’s “learning rock” sandstone walls may have been painted with brushes, fingers, and other tools many centuries ago.

Often, when we see indian paintbrush, whether we’re in Utah’s deserts up in elevation through subalpine meadows, we also see sagebrush. They are both native to Utah. In fact, some species of indian paintbrush are root-parasites for sagebrush, intertwining roots to access water and nutrients because they lack small hairs on their own.

Rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus nauseosus) Courtesy and Copyright © by Shannon Rhodes, photographer — Rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus nauseosus)
Courtesy and Copyright © by Shannon Rhodes, photographer

The Utah State University fight song captures the love we have for the spots in Utah where sagebrush grows. To celebrate Aggie homecoming, my first grade class went out this week to explore describing adjectives of sagebrush compared to those for rabbitbrush, another brush native in Utah. One student wrote that rabbitbrush smells like strawberries and is bushy yellow. Another thought that it looks like a banana, smells sweet, and likes bees and rocks. Alternately, a student wrote that sagebrush is minty, soft, and “smells horrible.” We learned to recognize the sagebrush leaf three-toothed tridents and the magical way rubbing the leaves on paper both releases and traps that distinctive fragrance.

Mae Timbimboo Parry, once a recordkeeper of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone, sketched how to identify sagebrush in much the same way. In his appendix of “The Bear River Massacre: A Shoshone History,” Darren Parry shares his grandmother’s handwritten field notes about sagebrush, indicating its use in tea and purifying ceremonies. I was surprised at first that she did not include indian paintbrush in the list of plants until I realized that willow, wildrose, sego lily, and sunflower all had practical uses beyond their beauty. Some have said that the sagebrush is the backbone of the West, and I would add that indian paintbrush adds a splash of color.

Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) Courtesy and Copyright © by Shannon Rhodes, photographer — Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata)
Courtesy and Copyright © by Shannon Rhodes, photographer

Along with horsebrush, buckbrush, blackbrush, bitterbrush which is also known as antelopebrush, and rabbitbrush, indian paintbrush and sagebrush tell a Utah story as distinctive as that portrayed in the brushstrokes of the pictographs of this land.

I’m Shannon Rhodes, and I’m wild about Utah.

Credits:
Images: Courtesy & Copyright © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Audio: Courtesy & © Kevin Colver https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/
Text: Shannon Rhodes, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University https://edithbowen.usu.edu/
Additional Reading Links: Shannon Rhodes

Additional Reading:

Alpine Nature Center. Is It Rabbitbrush or Is It Sagebrush? https://www.alpinenaturecenter.org/rabbit-vs-sage.html

de Paola, Tomie. The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush. Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. 1988. https://www.tomie.com/https://www.audubon.org/news/celebrating-sagebrush-wests-most-important-native-plant

Johnson, Jeff. Head of Sinbad Pictographs in San Rafael Swell. https://thetrekplanner.com/head-of-sinbad-pictographs-san-rafael-swell-utah/

Larese-Casanova, Mark. Desert Plants Field Book. Utah Master Naturalist. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1911&context=wats_facpub

Mozdy, Michael. Bold Figures, Blurred History: The Great Gallery in Horseshoe Canyon. October 2, 2016. https://nhmu.utah.edu/blog/2016/09/29/bold-figures-blurred-history-great-gallery-horseshoe-canyon

Miller, Pam, and Blaine Miller. Rock Art in Utah. https://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/r/ROCK_ART.shtml

Parry, Darren. The Bear River Massacre: A Shoshone History. https://heritageandarts.utah.gov/the-bear-river-massacre-a-shoshone-history-a-conversation-with-darren-parry/

Repandshek, Kurt. Traces of a Lost People. The Smithsonian Magazine. March 2005. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/traces-of-a-lost-people-84026156/

Scotter, Troy, and Nina Bowen. The Rock Art of Utah. Utah Rock Art Research Association. May 13, 2020. https://urara.wildapricot.org/page-18203

Strand, Holly. Woody Plants of Utah. Wild About Utah, December 15, 2011. https://wildaboututah.org/tag/rabbitbrush/

Strand, Holly. Sagebrush. Wild About Utah, January 14, 2009. https://wildaboututah.org/sagebrush/

Susec, David. The Barrier Canyon Rock Art Style. The B.C.S. Project. https://www.bcsproject.org/barrierstyle.html

U.S. National Park Service. Seeing Rock Markings in a Whole New Way. https://www.nps.gov/articles/cany-rock-markings-photo.htm

Wampler, Fred. Paintbrush and Sagebrush. University of Mary Washington Gallery. https://www.umwgalleries.org/paintbrush-and-sagebrush/

Young, Lauren. Saving the American West’s Sagebrush Sea. May 19, 2001. https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/saving-sagebrush/