So, I was stuck in Salem, OR again the other day and fortunately I took my camera, because if I’d have come across what I did that day in Salem, and not had my camera, I would have never forgiven myself.
I visited the Bush House in Salem a few years ago with a friend. It’s a beautiful place with not only an awesome official Rose Garden, but several other flower gardens scattered throughout the grounds. I remembered the spot and decided to re-visit. I walked around the grounds of the house seeing what flowers were blooming. Unfortunately, the roses weren’t ready yet, but many, many other flowers were making their presence known. You’ll get to see some of these flowers in upcoming posts. I couldn’t wait to show you the lovely Camas Flower.
What I didn’t do a few years back was explore the park more where the Bush House is located. What a huge park! It includes the athletic stadium for Willamette University, and offers up several other sports fields as well. Along with a fairly huge forest, both evergreen and deciduous trees, with paths for running and walking. I never knew this park was so big.
On this particular day I came across a beautiful Oak Grove. At the base of these mighty Oak Trees was a field of purple and yellow flowers. I can only hope that I captured what I saw in it’s full beauty with these images? What a site to see! At the time I’d only read about the Camas Flower in some of my readings on the local native inhabitants. It’s native to the Pacific Northwest and use to be a main staple of food for the local folks. But then was nearly run extinct after conversion of these fields to farmland. It appears Camas Pastures pretty much littered the Willamette Valley 200 years ago? Check out this great article about it on WillametteLive.com.
Wow! I actually got to see some Camas Flowers. Millions of them too! It’s estimated that there are 2 million of these flowers in this particular field at Bush Pasture Park. One of only three known pastures left in Oregon. To be honest I didn’t know what the flower was when I came across this field. But did a little research online when I got home and found the article above.
I can only hope I captured what it was really like with these images? Please share this post with your friends and connections.
Peace
~V
Emerald Studio Photography 
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