Braiding Sweetgrass

grieves for the one who could have told me stories of sweetgrass. All my life I have felt that loss. What was stolen at Carlisle ...

earned a reputation in America for fervent preservation of its heritage, while in Indian Country the name is a chilling emblem o ...

intent, finishing up her last bundle of transplants. Daniela is making her final notes. The light is growing golden at the end o ...

is for you,” he says. ...

Umbilicaria: The Belly Button of the World Glacial erratics stud the Adirondack landscape, granite boulders dropped in place whe ...

Undaunted, lichens volunteered to put down roots and homestead stone—metaphorically, of course, since they have no roots. This i ...

underside, which is crisp and grainy like a charred potato chip. It is anchored tightly to the rock at its center by a short sta ...

promise to provide for the family by hunting. Plant food and animal food, autotroph and heterotroph—the alga and the fungus also ...

quite loyal. They always choose Trebouxia as their algal partner. The alga, however, is a bit more promiscuous, willing to hook ...

to the rock. The fungal/algal symbiosis so blurs the distinction between individual and community that it has attracted a great ...

with a remarkable physiology to endure drought. Like the mosses with whom it shares the rocks, lichens are poikilohydric: they c ...

belly-button lint. I lean in close and find lots of baby thalli, little brown discs about the size of a pencil eraser, scattered ...

Through the laws of ecological succession, the lichens have done their work of laying the foundation for others, and now the oth ...

These ancients carry teachings in the ways that they live. They remind us of the enduring power that arises from mutualism, from ...

our time long after our delusions of separateness have relegated us to the fossil record, a ruffled green skin adorning the crum ...

Old-Growth Children We’re chatting like vireos as we hike with long, easy strides through rolling stands of Doug Fir. Then, at s ...

up the hill behind her, with the bark ribbon grasped in her hands, pulling until it tore loose. In those days the ancient rainfo ...

people. In this wet climate, where everything is on its way back to decay, rot-resistant cedar is the ideal material. The wood i ...

Who warmed the house? From bow drill to tinder to fire, it was Mother Cedar. When sickness came, the people turned again to her. ...

flight, each branch like a frond of green feathers. Looking closely, you can see the tiny overlapping leaves that shingle each t ...