Braiding Sweetgrass

 Robin Wall Kimmerer is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass. This book was recommended to me by the young woman who led a foray at the local nature center on edible and medicinal plants. The author is a botanist who teaches in Syracuse, New York. She is also a member of the Potawatomi Nation. Her chapters are not limited to the New York region. She writes about plants in Oregon and New Mexico and Florida as well. She writes about fields and forests and ecosystems. In one chapter she describes a ten day long ecological experience with college students out in nature, collecting cattails to eat and also weaving matts from the cattail leaves and collecting pollen from the flowers. She writes about climate change and pollution. She explained that plantain is a plant that was not on this continent until the Europeans came across the Atlantic. I didn't know that. She explains that plantain has found a niche in the paths of the white people and has naturalized much like the immigrants have naturalized. She has an interesting perspective and I enjoyed her educational book.