Wild edible fruits beginning to ripen

Summer is here and so are the wild fruits beginning with serviceberries and thimbleberries. 

The blue to purple fruit of the serviceberry ripens on six to 30-foot tall shrubs in late June or early July. Serviceberries are also known as saskatoons, juneberries, and shadbushes. 

Ripening saskatoons (also called serviceberries)

While serviceberries look like blueberries in size and shape they aren’t a berry. The plant belongs to the rose family and the fruit resembles the pomes of apples and pears. Unlike berries, saskatoons have two to five seeds like pear and apple cores with flesh around the core. 

Saskatoons can be substituted for blueberries in recipes because the flavor is likened to blueberries, apples, crabapples and almonds. The fruit is an excellent source of fiber, manganese, magnesium, iron, calcium, potassium, copper and vitamin C. Dried saskatoons have more iron and copper than raisins. 

Spit bugs most powerful jumping insect

Spit bugs, spittlebugs, froghoppers. They’re all the same insect that produces the globs of spit-like froth on the stems of grasses, flowers and shrubs this time of year.

While the spittlebug may be well-known for its spit, it isn’t as well known for its jumping capabilities. The name froghopper is well-suited for the most powerful jumping insect, though the frog part comes from its head resembling a frog.

As spit bug nymphs progress through five stages they become more developed and transition from green to brown

Froghoppers can accelerate in less than one millisecond to velocities of 10.5 mph which is ten times faster than a flea. Adult froghoppers can jump up to 27 inches vertically and up to 100 times their body length (which is approximately 1/8 to 1/4 inches). The human equivalent would be jumping over the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. 

Sun halos and sun dogs possible year-round

On a hike over Memorial Day weekend I happened to look skyward and see a colorful ring around the sun. The ring didn’t last long enough for me to reach the ridgeline above the trees. The rainbow-colored circle turned out to be a sun halo, more specifically a 22 degree halo. 

Sun halos can either be white or rainbow-colored 

Like rainbows, sun halos are unique to the observer because they depend on light refracting through an object and entering the eye of the observer. Each observer sees light being refracted from different objects or different angles from the same object. 

Identifying orchids in North Idaho

The orchids in North Idaho aren’t as spectacular as tropical orchids but they have their own attractiveness. Some of the orchid flowers are so small they may not be recognized as orchids at first. 

Orchids are among the most specialized flowers. They have three sepals and three petals but the lower petal (called a lip) is highly modified. The lip is larger than the other petals and sepals and may have lobes, forks, pouches, spurs or a different color. 

A few of the orchids found in North Idaho include spotted coralroot, mountain lady slipper, fairyslipper, Alaska rein-orchid and rattlesnake plantain. All of these orchids are perennials, so you can return to the same location every year to find them. 

Spotted coralroot