CAMASS. KAMASS. WILD HYACINTH.
Camassia esculenta, Lindl. Lily Family.
Bulbs coated. Leaves.—Radical; six or eight; grasslike; three to eight lines broad; usually shorter than the scape. Scape.—Twelve to twenty-four inches high; loosely ten- to twenty-flowered. Pedicels three to twelve lines long. Flowers.—From dark blue to nearly white; seven to fifteen lines long or more; an inch or so across. Perianth.—Of six distinct, oblanceolate, three- to seven-nerved segments. Stamens.—Six; shorter than the segments. Anthers yellow. Ovary.—Three-celled. Style filiform; about equaling the perianth; slightly three-cleft at the summit. Hab.—From Central California to Washington.
In some localities these plants are found covering meadows and marshy tracts in great profusion. They bear beautiful clusters of showy blue flowers, somewhat like the hyacinth in habit, and have long been favorites in European gardens. We are especially interested in them, however, on account of the bulbs, which are about an inch in diameter and very nutritious.
Grizzly bears, when more plentiful in the early days, were particularly fond of them; and the northern Indians to-day value them very highly as an article of diet, calling them "kamáss." Indeed, the Nez Percé Indian war in Idaho was caused by encroachments upon the territory which was especially rich in these bulbs. The plants are more abundant north of us than with us.
Mr. Macoun gives a most interesting account in "Garden and Forest" of the preparation of kamáss among the Indians, which is a very important and elaborate performance. He says, in substance: For some days beforehand the squaws were busily engaged in carrying into camp branches of alder and maple, bundles of skunk-cabbage (Lysichiton), and a quantity of a black, hairlike lichen, which grows in profusion upon the western larch. A hole ten feet square and two feet deep was then dug, and a large fire was made in this, in which they heated a great many small boulders to the glowing point. They then piled maple and alder boughs over these to the depth of a foot or more, tramped them down, and laid over them the leaves of the skunk-cabbage. Thin sheets of tamarack bark were spread over the steaming green mass, and upon these were placed the bulbs in large baskets. The black lichen was laid over the uncovered bark, and the remaining bulbs were spread on this. The whole was then covered with boughs and leaves as before, and sand was sprinkled on to the depth of four or five inches, and on the top of the whole a larger fire than before was built. The sun was just setting when this was lighted, and it burned all night. The oven was left for a day to cool. When opened, the bulbs in the baskets were dissolved to a flour, from which bread could be made; while those on the lichen had become amalgamated with it, forming a substance resembling plug-tobacco, which could be broken up and kept sweet a long time.
When boiled in water, the bulbs yield a very good molasses, much prized by the Indians, and used by them upon important festival occasions.
There is a white-flowered form of this same species, whose bulb is said to be poisonous.