Holodiscus discolor
Encyclopedia
Holodiscus discolor, commonly known as ocean spray, creambush or ironwood, is a shrub of western North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

. It is common in the Pacific Northwest
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...

 where it is found in both openings and the forest understory at low to moderate elevations.

Description

Holodiscus discolor is a fast-growing deciduous
Deciduous
Deciduous means "falling off at maturity" or "tending to fall off", and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally, and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...

 shrub
Shrub
A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...

 growing to 5 m tall. Its alternate leaves
Leaf
A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

 are small, 5–9 cm long and 4–7 cm broad, lobbed, juicy green when new. Cascading clusters of white flower
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...

s drooping from the branches give the plant its two common names. The flowers have a faint sweet, sugary scent. It bears a small, hairy fruit containing one seed which is light enough to be dispersed by wind.

Uses

Historically the plant has been used for many purposes. The Lummi
Lummi
The Lummi , governed by the Lummi Nation, are a Native American tribe of the Coast Salish ethnolinguistic group in western Washington state in the United States...

 used the flowers as an antidiarrheal
Diarrhea
Diarrhea , also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having three or more loose or liquid bowel movements per day. It is a common cause of death in developing countries and the second most common cause of infant deaths worldwide. The loss of fluids through diarrhea can cause dehydration and...

 and the leaves as a poultice
Poultice
A poultice, also called cataplasm, is a soft moist mass, often heated and medicated, that is spread on cloth over the skin to treat an aching, inflamed, or painful part of the body. It can be used on wounds such as cuts...

. Many other tribes used the wood and bark for making tools and furniture. Noted for the strength of its wood, it was often used for making spears, arrows, bows, harpoons and nails. The wood, like with many other plants, was often hardened with fire and was then polished using horsetail
Horsetail
Equisetum is the only living genus in the Equisetaceae, a family of vascular plants that reproduce by spores rather than seeds.Equisetum is a "living fossil", as it is the only living genus of the entire class Equisetopsida, which for over one hundred million years was much more diverse and...

. Several Indian tribes, such as the Stl'atl'imx, would steep the berries in boiling water to use as a treatment for diarrhea, smallpox, chickenpox and as a blood tonic.

Ecology

Creambush, Holodiscus discolor, is found in a variety of habitats, from wet coastal forests to drier, cooler mountains further inland. It tends to grow in areas dominated by Douglas-fir
Douglas-fir
Douglas-fir is one of the English common names for evergreen coniferous trees of the genus Pseudotsuga in the family Pinaceae. Other common names include Douglas tree, and Oregon pine. There are five species, two in western North America, one in Mexico, and two in eastern Asia...

. The plant is found in areas prone to wildfire
Wildfire
A wildfire is any uncontrolled fire in combustible vegetation that occurs in the countryside or a wilderness area. Other names such as brush fire, bushfire, forest fire, desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, squirrel fire, vegetation fire, veldfire, and wilkjjofire may be used to describe the same...

, and it is often the first green shoot to spring up in an area recovering from a burn. Creambush is commonly found in chaparral
Chaparral
Chaparral is a shrubland or heathland plant community found primarily in the U.S. state of California and in the northern portion of the Baja California peninsula, Mexico...

 communities, which burn periodically. It also may grow in areas swept clear by logging
Logging
Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...

.

Holodiscus discolor is common in a variety of forest overstories. In the case of California Black Oak
California Black Oak
Quercus kelloggii, the California Black Oak, also known as simply Black Oak, or Kellogg Oak, is an oak in the red oak section , native to western North America...

 woodland, common understory associate species include Western poison-oak
Western Poison-oak
Toxicodendron diversilobum, western poison oak or Pacific poison-oak is in the Anacardiaceae family and is a plant best known for its ability to cause allergic rashes after contact...

, Toyon
Toyon
Heteromeles arbutifolia , and commonly known as Toyon, is a common perennial shrub native to California down to Baja California....

 and Coastal Wood Fern.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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