Coffeeberry - Rhamnus californica

Coffeeberry is one of the most common shrubs on my property (along with
ceanothus and manzanita) and throughout our chaparral/lower montane
plant community. There are a lot of native plants that aren't grown
commercially (yet), but just last weekend, I purchased a 6" Rhamnus
californica plant at a California Native Plant Society sale in our area.
(Don't ask why I bought this plant when it's growing thick as weeds
here...) I hadn't seen it sold commercially before. I've noticed that,
in the last year, a lot of new native (California) plants are coming on
the market, which is very encouraging.

According to an obscure research document titled "Maidu Uses of Native
Flora and Fauna" (1972) by Dorothy J. Hill, the indigenous people of the
Northern Sierra Nevada used coffeeberry both for food and ritual. Hill
reports that the root and leaves were used "for internal medicine and
poison oak remedy." She doesn't say how it was used, exactly. Also, as
others have stated earlier stated, the berries were used as a laxative.
The root was heated and chewed for toothache. Finally, the berries were
strung as beads.

>From another document I have, a Sacramento State College Master's Degree
project titled "Maidu Ethnobotany" (1963) by John Whitfield Duncan III:
The Nisenan (southern) Maidu word for coffeeberry was la'a'. The Maidus
a bit further north called it sumpiti or sympiti, which translated as
"dog excrement." You can guess why. Duncan, and many other
ethnobotanists who researched the Maidus, interviewed Maidu elder Lizzie
Enos, who was still living in a fairly traditional manner in the 1950s
and 1960s. Anyway, Lizzie said coffeeberry root was boiled to make a
medicinal tea. She told a story that this tea was given to a white
woman, who promptly died. "She said the tea must have been made too
strong." The tea was used both externally and internally as a remedy for
poison oak. Beads were made from seeds. A few berries were eaten as a
laxative.

As for gardening with coffeeberry, it probably has drawbacks that might
prevent it from ever selling like hotcakes. Like many shrubs native to
this area, it grows fairly slowly (slower, it seems, than redbud,
fremontedendron, spicebush and ceanothus), so a gardener would have to
be patient to get a plant big enough to produce a lot of flowers (it
doesn't bloom very long, either) or berries. Also, coffeeberry is
heavily browsed by deer, so it would have to be protected for many years
until its leaves get up high enough to escape being eaten. I'm looking
out my window right now and noticing one 6' plant with no leaves below
5'. On the positive side, coffeeberry obviously needs little water in
the summer. We have had less than 3 inches of rain since the end of
March and no measurable rain for over 70 days and the bigger coffeeberry
plants here still have mostly green leaves (they turn bright yellow in
the fall.) But our native shrubs survive the long dry season, in part,
because they are rooted in heavy clay soil which takes a longer time to
dry out than loamy soil. So, you might plant coffeeberry outside its
native habitat, you might be risking that the soil might be too rich or
too loamy, or it might get too much water. Then again, it might respond
to better growing conditions and a milder climate.

Barry ... "mucilaginous texture."  Nice wordsmithing!

Paul Harrar
Nevada City, California
Sunset Zone 7
2,700 ft.
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