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I went into the forest today to be thankful for the bounty and ask Great Spirit who loves us all to teach me about these amazing beings we call plants. I had that feeling I often have that I once lived in the forest with my tribe and my people. I feel at home in that forest. The farmers have brought in honey bees and the oak and maple have attracted the bees and other pollinators. The air is churning with activity. It is like a natural air conditioner swirling above me. The sound of the bees is so loud that I can barely hear the other sounds of nature. Wildflowers are blooming everywhere: trillium, bleeding hearts, coral bells, false Solomon seal. The pinks and buttercups and the wild berries are all in bloom. The smell of the forest is sweet and musky all at once.
I have in my life time been introduced to many native plants and I have been taught about how everything is connected to this forest, even humans belong here if they will just slow down to be at peace with this place.
It is spring and I am collecting many starts: cuttings, roots, sprouts. Once they have roots and are strong, I will put them in pots and take them to the nearby farmers market and try to teach others about opening up their garden doors and letting the native plants back in. It is important. We are losing the pollinators and the fertility of the soil, and the hillsides and streams and rivers because we take out the native plants. We call them weeds and poison and chop and throw them away. These plants are our future and our hope. Once gone, so goes our food, medicine, clean water, clean land, and beauty so great that our essential energy is affected and changed for the better.
Soon at the local farmers market I will be setting up my table and handing out simple brochures on how to incorporate native plants into gardens, farms, parks, roadsides and river and stream banks. I will sell the plants to support the overall Radical Botany project and to give back to the farm I am living on now. Carly, the land owner is allowing me to finally have a home for me and my plants. I have moved a half dozen times in the last five years, always carrying my many plant friends with me. We are tired. We need a real home that is safe and long term. I think I am home. I love this land. I am thankful for this land. I respect this land and the creatures and people who live here.
Thank you Great Spirit who loves us all for bringing me home. Thank you Carly, Deb, Mitchell, Annie, the farmers for inviting me in from the cold.
Here is a list of a few of the plants I saw today and why they are important:
| Common Name | Scientific Name | Ecological Importance and Human Use | ||
| Pacific Willow | Salix lucida ssp. Salix lasiandra |
The same for Hooker’s Willow The Fraser River Lillooet called Pacific Willow the “match plant”. They dried the wood and used it for both the hearth and the drill in making friction fires. The ashes were mixed with diatomaceous earth and were made into a fine white powder to treat wool. |
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| Hooker’s Willow | Salix Hookeria | The bark was used in shingle baskets, the young plants were split into twine and made into rope. | ||
| Pacific Ninebark | Physocarpus capitatus | Used to make small tools, but was also used as a laxative and needs to be handled properly. The flower attracts many insect pollinators and the birds will eat the berries of the plant. Beautiful shredding bark, this plant is found along streams, rivers and wetlands. | ||
| Oceanspray | Holodiscus discolor | Found in dry to moist, open sites (open woods, clearings ravine edges and coastal bluffs). Commonly called ‘Ironwood” because of the hardness and strength of the wood. Was used to make digging sticks, spears, harpoon shafts, bows and arrow shafts by almost all coastal groups from BC southwards. An infusion of berries was used to make a tea that was used to treat diarrhea. Also used as a blood tonic. May attract as many as 50 pollinating insects.The flowers provide nectar for butterflies and insects. A caterpillar host plant for Pale Tiger Swallowtail, Lorquin’s Admiral, Echo Blue, Brown Elfin, and Spring Azure butterflies. Oceanspray provides foraging habitat for insectivorous birds including Bushtits and Chickadees | ||
| Red Elderberry | Sambucus racemosa | Found along stream banks, swampy thickets, moist clearings and open forests, sea level to middle elevations. The unripe or uncooked berries are toxic can cause stomach cramps or worse. They should always be cooked even when making Elderberry wine or jellies. The stems, bark leaves and roots, especially in fresh plants, are toxic due to the presence of cyanide-producing glycosides. Elderberry is an important caterpillar host plant and its white flowers attract hummingbirds. | ||
| Thimble berry |
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| Salmon berry |
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| Nookta Rose | Rosa Nutkana | Found in open habitats (shorelines, meadows, thickets, and streamside areas). Was often used in pit cooking. The leaves were placed over food for flavoring. Tea from the bark were used as an eye wash. The chewed leaves were applied to bee stings and the ripe hips were cooked and fed to infants for diarrhea.Its seed-filled hips are full of vitamins A & C and are eaten by a variety of birds and mammals. Bees and butterflies seek nectar from its flowers. A caterpillar host plant for Western Checkerspot, Mourning Cloak, and Gray Hairstreak butterflies. | ||
| Indian Plum | Oemleria cerasiformis | The flowers arrive very early spring to late winter – often before its leaves appear. Important food source for pollinating insects, butterflies and the fruit is eaten by many woodland animals. The fruit can be quite bitter and astringent so it was often mashed with sweeter berries such as Salal. It bark was used to make tea that was used as a purgative and tonic. | ||
| Bleeding hearts | Dicentra Formosa | Pink heart-shaped flower. Found in moist forests, ravines, streambanks; low to middle elevations. Its namesake pink flowers attract hummingbirds and its rhizomes are reported to be medicinal by some, toxic by others. Ants feed on an oil-rich seed appendage. Bleeding heart is an important caterpillar host plant for the Clodius Parnassian. | ||
| White Oak or Garry Oak | Quercus garryana | A beautiful, heavy-limbed tree that is very important in helping to maintain the integrity of several low-lying ecosystems. Found in dry, rocky slopes and bluffs, sometimes in deep, rich well-drained soil. The springtime catkins (flowers) are highly attractive to honeybees and many native insect pollinators. The acorns are an important food source for ducks, deer, squirrels and other wildlife. First peoples used the bark as one ingredient in the Saanich “4 barks” medicine used against tuberculosis and other ailments. | ||
| Big leaf Maple | Acer macrophyllum | Large, often multi-stemmed. In the spring the flower will often appear with or before the leaves. Found in dry to most sites, often with Douglas-fir, often on sites disturbed by fire, at low to middle elevations. Bigleaf maple supports a large ecosystem on its trunk, limbs and stems. These symbiotic relationships are important to native forest. Living on this tree you will often find: mosses, lichens, ferns, fungi, herb-like plants, small flowering plants etc. Many parts of the tree were used for food, medicine and utility. Insects and bees pollinate the tree and produce about 1000 pollen grains (55µm each) for an individual flower. Important solitary bees such as the Blue Orchard Bees, Osmia lignaria, are attracted to this tree | ||
| Fringecup | Tellima grandiflora | In the Saxifrage family. Found in moist forests, glades, stream-banks, thickets and clearings; common from low to middle elevations. The Skagit pounded fringecup, boiled it and drank the tea for any kind of sickness, especially lack of appetite. Provides habitat and cover for small insects. | ||
| Yellow Wood Violet | Viola glabella | A common perennial in moist, shaded forests. Its flowers are yellow, with some petals boasting violet streaks. The flowers have a small spur which provides an excellent landing platform for insects, which are attracted to its nectar. A caterpillar host plant for a variety of butterfly species. Also known as stream violet. | ||
| Stinging Nettle | Urtica dioica | Common in moist, rich soil, often in disturbed habitat, nettles are a tasty green if cooked, a valued medicinal herb, and traditionally a good source for strong plant fiber. Nettles are also an important caterpillar host plant for the Milbert’s Tortoiseshell, Satyr Anglewing, and Red Admiral butterflies. | ||
Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
