Braiding Sweetgrass

identity is tied to the plants the people use, so it was for the
European immigrants who sought to make a home here. They
brought along their familiar plants, and the associated weeds
followed the plow to supplant the natives. Plants mirror changes in
culture and ownership of land. Today this field is choked by a
vigorous sward of foreign plants that the first sweetgrass pickers
would not recognize: quackgrass, timothy, clover, daisies. A wave
of invasive purple loosestrife threatens from along the slough. To
restore sweetgrass here we’ll need to loosen the hold of the
colonists, opening a way for the return of the natives.
Tom asked me what it would take to bring sweetgrass back, to
create a meadow where basket makers can once again find
materials. Scientists have not devoted much effort to the study of
sweetgrass, but basket makers know that it can be found in a wide
array of conditions, from wetlands to dry railroad tracks. It thrives in
full sun and especially favors moist, open soil. Tom bent and picked
up a handful of the floodplain soil and let it sift through his fingers.
Except for the dense turf of exotic species, this seems like a good
place for sweetgrass. Tom glanced at the old Farmall tractor in the
lane, covered with a blue tarp. “Where can we get some seeds?”
It’s a strange thing about sweetgrass seed. The plant sends up
flowering stalks in early June, but the seeds it makes are rarely
viable. If you sow a hundred seeds, you might get one plant if
you’re lucky. Sweetgrass has its own way of multiplying. Every
shiny green shoot that pokes up above ground also produces a
long, slender white rhizome, winding its way through the soil. All
along its length are buds, which will sprout up and emerge into the
sunshine. Sweetgrass can send its rhizomes many feet out from
the parent. In this way, the plant could travel freely all along the
riversides. This was a good plan when the land was whole.