This is a picture i took this afternoon across my rabbit eye blueberry field into the neighbors hay field that is now a sea of purple-blue camas flowers. It was a staple for the local Kalapuya Indians that lived here. When our government tried to make treaties with them in the early 1850's they insisted on reserving these camas fields into posterity. (Didn't work out for them).

Wow looks awesome

How did they use the camas?

The bulbs were harvested and baked in stone hearths. Then it was formed into large cakes and dried.

Lewis and Clark made the comment that the flatulence that it produced made their sharing of quarters with the local Indians pretty unpleasant.

I take it they didn't bother to sneak up on game animals

They just blew their prey Away!

Beautiful photo

Nice picture.

LMAO!!

Nice pick

Carl, is your neighbor growing camas as a commercial crop?

The color reminds me of chicory. We had some chicory start growing in a small patch further back by our driveway. Diane asked me not to mow it and now it's a large and thick area of chicory.

Keith

When over wintering in Astoria area the Lewis and Clark crew ate huge amounts of elk meat every day and tired of it, so no they were able to close in on the animals to shoot them. maybe the aromatic gas served as a cover scent.

Bryce

Great picture ! It took me a bit to catch on ! I thought the camas was water and the shrub in the foreground was what you called Camas . I was ready to ask if if it was a different variety than what we have here ! It is beautiful and I kind of feel for it as the best stand of it above our place is in the grazing districts horse pasture where they have 10 head of horses in the middle of it . Thank you for that post

The shrubs in the front of the pic are my rabbit eye blueberries then my table grapes. The next field over is the neighbors pasture and the hay field in the far back is a sea of camas right now. Camas tends to come up in uncultivated low lying pastures and hay fields in our area. (So no, Keith, the field isn't managed for camas). The seed can lie dormant for many many years and come up when conditions are right. The Kalapuyas used to burn off these field every few years to keep brush from taking over. Original 1850 land surveys show that the same field in the pic was open prairie at that time, thanks to native field burnings.