This is Umbu (Myricaria genus), an incredibly abundant and useful shrub that fills the streambeds of the valleys above Tar.
The flower spikes.
Leaves just emerging in May.
Leaves and flower spikes emerging in late May.
Flowers opening in early June.
An example of the incredibly long, reaching character of Umbu.
Umbu is incredibly tenacious. Here we are clearing a typical umbu area which has countless thin, knobby, finger-thick stems up to two meters long. Thicker and thicker limbs support all these, as you move in and down toward the center of each plant. The trunks get to be six inches thick, usually many coming from the same center in the ground, dense, hard, yellow and even green on the inside, and they make excellent hot-burning firewood.