Braiding Sweetgrass

underside, which is crisp and grainy like a charred potato chip. It is
anchored tightly to the rock at its center by a short stalk, like a very
short-handled umbrella. The stalk, or umbilicus, cements the thallus
to the rock from underneath.
The forest the lichens inhabit is a richly textured plantscape, but
they are not plants. They blur the definition of what it means to be
an individual, as a lichen is not one being, but two: a fungus and an
alga. These partners are as different as could be and yet are joined
in a symbiosis so close that their union becomes a wholly new
organism.
I once heard a Navajo herbalist explain how she understands
certain kinds of plants to be “married,” due to their enduring
partnership and unquestioning reliance on one another. Lichens are
a couple in which the whole is more than the sum of its parts. My
parents will celebrate their sixtieth wedding anniversary this year
and seem to have just that kind of symbiosis, a marriage in which
the balance of giving and taking is dynamic, the roles of giver and
receiver shifting from moment to moment. They are committed to
an “us” that emerges from the shared strengths and weaknesses of
the partners, an “us” that extends beyond the boundaries of
coupledom and into their family and community. Some lichens are
like that too; their shared lives benefit the whole ecosystem.
All lichens, from the tiny crusts to the stately Umbilicaria, are a
mutualistic symbiosis, a partnership in which both members benefit
from their association. In many Native American wedding traditions,
the bride and the groom present each other with baskets of gifts,
traditionally representing what each promises to bring to the
marriage. Often, the woman’s basket contains plants from the
garden or meadows to show her agreement to provide food for her
husband. The man’s basket may contain meat, or animal hides, a