Indian Plum: Or, Cucumber Berry

Indian plum, unripe

Indian Plum, Oemleria cerasiformis, is a native shrub that is currently fruiting in the local forests of Portland. The berries are edible and, when ripe, taste like cucumber. They have a very large pit in the center.

The berries shown in the photo here are not yet ripe. The ripe ones are blue-purple in color and look like this.

When it doesn’t have its berries, you can identify Indian Plum by crushing a piece of a leaf and inhaling, because it, too, smells like cucumber.

Indian Plum grows up to 1.5 meters tall and tends to show up on the sides of trails in forests with some partial sunlight at lower elevations. It has alternate leaves. It is found throughout the West Coast in Canada, Washington state, Oregon, and California.

In other news, this blog has a fantastic new resource in the form of the new Search Plants! page, which now has 50 plants listed. It’s an index of plants I’ve covered here on First Ways. Click their names (not the photos) to read posts about them. And if you find it helpful, please tell your friends about it! I’ll be adding more plants all the time.

~~~

Upcoming Classes in Portland:

* Urban Foraging 101 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, June 16, in the NE Alberta Arts district. $40. Details here.

* Intro to Herbal Medicine Making, a hands-on class that gets your apothecary started, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, June 23, at 1611 SE Bybee. $45 includes all materials and includes a tincture and salve to take home. Details here.

Share this post!

Then learn many more wild plants of spring at my new Search Plants! page.