Plants Pacific Northwest

Gaultheria Shallon: Salal

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Gaultheria Shallon: Salal (Coast Indian)

The Salal lives particularly along the West coast from Alaska to British Columbia, and as far south as California.

Although not as spicy as its cousin (gaultheria procumbens) the western Salal is widely used medicinally, is an evergreen shrub growing up to several feet high with nodding flowers, each boasting a yellowish five-cleft calyx and urnlike corolla which have five tiny recurved lobes and eight to ten stamens, which mature by Late August, into black spicey berries. The leaves are roundish to oval, glossy dark green, and finely toothed.

The still familiar wintergreen flavor was once the reason for gathering huge amounts of the plant. By October, the plants were picked, leaves dried and baled to where the volatile oil, (poisonous when highly concentrated) could be distilled.

The native Indians considered the leaves to be an important remedy for arthritis and overexerted muscles and joints. Steeped into a tea, it was drunk for this purpose and also used as a gargle for sore throats. Crushed into a poultice, it was applied externally to aching and painful parts, including those arising from lumbago.

Poultices were also placed on swellings, boils, carbuncles, felons, wounds, rashes, eruptions, and inflammations. Even on aching teeth. The oil was often used externally as a counterirritant and antiseptic, and a means to bring down swelling from a bruise to a contusion.

The leaves must be used for tea and poultices as freshly picked, as the leaves loose their aromatic qualities.

Steaming solutions made by steeping the plant in hot water were sought by Indians and pioneers to bring on sweating in the treatment of typhus. In general, it was used to induce perspiration in an effort to bring down fevers. It was an early ingredient in commercial sarsaparillas and in some brews concocted by traveling medicine salesmen.

These days, Salal leaves are desirable for florists to be used in arrangements. Year around processing plants are scattered around the Pacific Northwest and provide woodsmen with an employment opportunity.

The berries are picked and eaten raw, cooked for jams and preserves, and dried for winter stores. The West coast natives used plenty of berries raw and dried, making them into blocks or cakes.