To wrap up the annual celebration of mortality, the View explores the mythic theme in the California Floristic Province. Every year the sun brings beautiful buckwheat to rusty-brown perfection, that is, death, around Halloween. It signals the season the way fat orange pumpkins do back East; and the fall colors of roasting buckwheat are as gorgeous as maple leaves. For a few weeks, the floors of canyons and arroyos are streaked with bloody red stains, where the winds and the ants gather drifting buckwheat chaff. Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Buckwheat.

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Eriogonum fasciculatum. California buckwheat, a keystone species of scrub and chaparral. Its grains make a very edible flour; pioneers made batter for pancakes by sifting the tiny grains from the sun-burnished flowers. The Tongva and Tataviam taught them how; this was a staple in their diet. It is highly nutritious, with a pleasant, nutty, earthy taste. In the Missions, the Neophytes practically had to force the Franciscans to allow them to add it to their atole stewpots.

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The flowers are worshiped by bees, who turn it into California’s tastiest honey. (I’ve seen bee hive crates stationed near stands of buckwheat in the Verdugos and in Little Tujunga Canyon. I wonder if I can demand these varietals at the Studio City Farmers’ Market? Watch this space…)

The ants also make this a staple. They gather the crop, thresh out the chaff, and store the grains underground. Buckwheat often grows with sagebrush and white sage, as here at Tujunga Wash. See how clever the ants are at separating and storing their foodstuffs:

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