Salal

Salal is a leathery-leaved evergreen shrub that often forms dense thickets under the Douglas-fir and western hemlock forests of the Cascades’ western slopes. Each glossy leaf lasts two to four years, so the plant stays green through winter.

From late spring into summer, salal hangs out rows of small, urn-shaped flowers in white to pink, and hummingbirds visit them. The flowers turn into round, dark purple to bluish-black fruits that feed black bears, grouse, band-tailed pigeons and many songbirds, along with chipmunks and Douglas squirrels. Black-tailed deer and elk browse the leaves, mostly in winter, and the thickets shelter deer from cold winds.

Salal spreads by rhizomes, root suckers and stems that root where they touch the ground. Under a fairly closed canopy it may not flower at all and relies entirely on that underground growth. After fire its roots and rhizomes usually survive and send up new shoots, and cover can come back within a decade unless a very hot burn on thin, dry soil kills the buried parts.

Around Mt. Hood, look for salal in the lower and middle forests on the west side, where it often shares the understory with dwarf Oregon grape.