Wolf willow
Elaeagnus commutata
Also called Silverberry
We do not have a Blackfoot or Cree name for this one yet. Tell us the name and we will add it, with your word on where it comes from.
The silver shrub of the coulee sides, whose heavy sweet smell in June is one of the surest signs of early summer on this prairie. Not a willow at all.
Commonly shared knowledge. Learn it, gather it, and follow the protocol.
What it is confused with
Easily confusedCanada buffaloberry Shepherdia canadensis
Buffaloberry leaves are green on top and silvery with rusty specks underneath. Wolf willow is silver on BOTH sides.
How to know it
- Leaves
- Silver on both sides, oval, and covered in tiny scales that make them look dusted with metal.
- Smell
- A powerful sweet scent from small yellow flowers in June, carried a long way on a warm evening.
- Berries
- Dry, mealy, silvery with a large stone. Edible but not good.
- Habit
- Thicket-forming on coulee slopes and roadside banks, spreading by suckers.
The country it grows in
- Coulee slopes
- Open prairie
- Riverbanks and willow flats
- Roadsides and disturbed ground
Landscape types only. We do not publish where a patch is, and we are not going to.
When it is ready
- Berries August to October
- Flowers June
Right now it is July. Nothing on this plant is in season.
What it is used for
- Tools and materials
- Food and drink
The hard seeds were drilled and strung as beads, which is the use most often recorded.
Berries are edible but dry and mealy, and were a hungry-time food rather than a favourite.
How it is prepared
- Dried and stored
Berries dried, and the stones cleaned and kept for beadwork.
Protocol
Ask the plant first, and offer something before you take anything. Tobacco is what is most often offered here. Say who you are, and say what the medicine is for.
Harvest the mature plants and leave the small ones to grow. Never take the first plant you find, and never take all of them.
Take only what you will actually use. Medicine picked and then left to rot in a bag was taken for nothing.
Leave the ground as you found it. Put back any dirt you dug up, and return any plant material you do not use to the earth.
Do not gather beside roads, highways or trails, where the plants take up whatever has been sprayed or spilled there.
If you are not certain what a plant is, do not pick it and do not put it in your mouth. Ask someone. Being wrong in the field is how people get hurt.