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Flannelbush: beautiful flowers, strong bark for making rope
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Posted by editor Wed Nov 30, -0001 00:00:00 PST
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0 responses 0 comments Look in the hills above Brites Valley and Cummings Valley now and you’ll see large shrubs covered with bright yellow blossoms: the flannelbush have awakened.
While many wildflowers sat this season out because of a shortage of rain in January and February, Flannelbush (Fremontodendron californicum) and Farewell to Spring (Clarkia cylindrica) have put on a great late spring showing. Flannelbush does bloom most years, but 2006 is an exceptional year for these extremely hardy shrubs.

Found only in California and small portions of Arizona and Baja California (Mexico), flannelbush is a drought-tolerant, evergreen resident of chaparral slopes and arid woodland communities, most commonly at elevations between 3,000 and 6,000 feet.

Flannelbush is little-noticed throughout the year except for May and June, when its tough branches are covered with bright golden blossoms that look like hibiscus flowers carved from yellow wax. They are incredibly prolific and when in full bloom, the shiny banana-colored flowers eclipse the small leaves and branches so that the whole plant look yellow. A big flannelbush has more flowers than a float in the Rose Parade.

The Nüwa (Kawaiisu) Indians of the Tehachapi area made some of their strongest cordage from the inner bark of flannelbush. The Nüwa word for flannelbush is uuparabü “oo-par-rub” and the Indian people would peel off long strips of flannelbush bark and twist three strands together to form amazingly stout string or small rope.

The resulting cordage was used as a pack strap, as a tumpline for women carrying burden baskets, it was used to form the smoke hole at the top of their kahni (house) and many other purposes.

The botanical name Fremontodendron honors John C. Fremont, who first collected specimens of flannelbush in the Sierra Nevada. The genus was formerly called Fremontia, which was the name chosen by the California Native Plant Society for their newsletter.

The plant’s durable leaves are somewhat wooly underneath, hence the name “flannelbush,” but the tiny hairs can be an irritant and the leaves are nothing like soft flannel pajamas.

Teamsters once cut whips from Fremontia’s resilient and flexible stems and called it “leatherwood.” In my grandfather’s time flannelbush was known as “California slippery-elm, because the inner bark is mucilaginous and so (like true slippery elm) was used as a poultice on burns and scrapes, as well as saddlesores or harness-chafing on horses.

If you wet some flannelbush bark you will discover why it was called California slippery elm, even though it is unrelated to the true slippery elm of the Midwest: add water and the bark suddenly becomes totally slick and slimy.

Though considered a shrub rather than a small tree, flannelbush blurs the distinction and there are places where old Fremontia is larger than neighboring blue oaks. The “narrows” or canyon just east of the Alpine Forest Park chalet on Banducci Road features some enormous Fremontodendron — it looks like a flannelbush orchard of small trees in several places.

As always, enjoy them while you can: they only shine their brilliant yellow lights for about a month.

Have a good week.

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