colorchallenge Wednesday: Yellow Oregon Grape Flowers

The state flower for Oregon is the Oregon Grape, but it's not related to true grapes - a more accurate name would be Oregon Grape-Holly. They bloom with yellow flowers in the spring and then develop blue/purple berries in the summer, which look like clumps of very small grapes.

I grew up being told that the Oregon Grape was poisonous and to not pick the berries. My mind was boggling while I read about it on Wikipedia and it's uses to make jelly or fermented to make wine - but the berries are very tart and require lots of sugar or mixed with other berries to soften the tartness. Some Pacific Northwest Native American tribes used the plant roots medicinally (steeped into a tea) to treat indigestion. Further, I found that berries can be applied to the skin to combat certain skin irritations, like psoriasis.

The burnt red leaves captured my attention, as well as the spotted red blooms. Captured this on a bike ride down the Fern Ridge Bike path just a few days ago with my family, using my Canon EOS Rebel T6.

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