Hello dear subscriber,
Thank you infinitely for being here and continuing to revel in the natural world with me. Your power resides in where you choose to put your attention, so I really can’t thank you enough for the fact that you are taking any of your precious time to commune with my calling of Earth Devotions—it humbles me beyond words. I will keep showing up as long as you do! I hope you had a chance this week to celebrate the vernal equinox (or the autumnal if you are down South), and if not, please make a moment to welcome Lady Spring by finding a weed to eat or at least admire!
I am curious- do you have an inventory going of the species who live near you? If not, maybe you want to start one? Because not only is it deeply rewarding to create, it is a legacy you can leave behind for future generations to understand what was (and if it still is) growing where you now call home. It’s making history for those who are intentional about cultivating a sense of place. You can begin by just naming one thing, and then it may very well take on a momentum of its own.
In 2014, we called on our naturalist friend Luke Cannon of Astounding Earth to help us start an inventory of the flora and fauna that live on our land. We honed in on the flora because we are plant people, but some fungi, birds and insects made it onto the list too. Over the years, this inventory has been a gem, sort of like a treasure map, for us and those visiting here.
Traditionally, they start with an ecological mapping of the area you are going to inventory by setting the setting. Real in-depth inventories note exactly where the species are found, the health of the population, bloom time etc…but with all we have going on right now we are grateful to just be able to name who is here.
Here is a format we used for the ecological mapping of the land as an example. It can be as simple or complex as you want to make it:
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This list begins a general survey of the biota of Herb Mountain Farm Botanical Sanctuary. The property, starting at roughly 2,600ft and rising to about 3,800ft, primarily consists of West facing slopes but also includes some South, Northeast and North facing slopes. Herb Mountain peak rises to about 4,200ft just above, which is one of the major ridges of the Craggy Mountain range, just to the East.
The property of 138 acres primarily consists of young Mixed Pine Oak forest but also includes cultivated gardens residential, commercial and educational infrastructures along the flatter Western edge. Areas of older growth and Rich Cove forest offer higher diversity within the woodland, especially within coves along the drainages. Onion Rock, a Rocky Outcrop/Escarpment, exists along the upper ridge at about 3,600ft which deserves further investigation for uncommon species. There are two smaller westwardly draining streams, Banjo Branch and Dry Branch, that converge on the property in the wooded area of the Nature Trail, just below the old home site(stone chimney) before running down to Maney Branch. The Nature Trail makes a mile-long loop around the lower end of the property.
With hope this list will continue to grow and serve to aid those who will steward and enjoy this land for generations to come.
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For my green-loving friends who want to fully geek out with me, you can find the complete species inventory of Herb Mountain Farm on my Substack homepage.
Shortly after we began this living document for Herb Mountain Farm, our dear friend and ethnobotanist Marc Williams came across a copy of a botanical inventory of a historic inn property just over the ridge from us that was compiled by none other than Hart’s great aunt Ann! I felt as giddy and ecstatic as a kid in a candy shop when I read it! Especially since I had just walked that property and seen some of these very plants she helped tend!
Marc has donated more native plants and updated our farm’s species list over the years as it truly is alive and needs tending- some biota die, some new things arrive, plus we are always discovering beings already living here to add to the inventory. I believe we have over 750 species of flora known on the land (not including annuals) which is something I am super proud of!
I am imagining a world where children are raised to take note, revere and tend to the non-human realm (as well as the human) so devotedly that they would never ever consent to blowing up a place in the name of war, spraying it with herbicides or developing it without grave consideration of the impact on the next seven generations. My species inventory is a small revolutionary act toward manifesting this new world.
Mary Morgaine Squire
waxing moon
3/22/24
~Have you read Weeds And What They Tell Us ? Very insightful!
~Please check out the United Plant Savers Botanical Sanctuary Network. Perhaps you want to become a part of this growing mycelium of plant protectors?
~And a little reminder to support your local botanical gardens! I was so excited to see our Asheville Botanical Gardens invest in an updated comprehensive Floristic Inventory by Joe Pye Ecological Consulting! Plus it gave me inspirations for some new native plants I want to welcome onto the land like: Corydalis sempervirens Rock Harlequin and Viburnum lentago Nannybush.
~Love Letters to our Plant Allies~
Purple Archangel aka Purple Dead Nettle
Lamium purpureum
Lamiaceae family
Mary Plantwalker reading this week’s plant love letter to you, dear subscriber
Dear Purple Archangel,
It is late March where I reside in the temperate region of the Northern Hemisphere, a few hundred miles inland of the Atlantic, and you are going strong in our no spray lawn and gardens, you blessed mint family herb, you. Me thinks, ‘What better way to spend the morning than giving love and praises to a plant in its prime?’ You who cover the ground now in early spring with cheery pink flowers, dancing happily along as if there’s not a trouble in the world, rarely bothered by disease or insect damage, busily feeding bees and building soil—we have a lot to learn from your ease and abundance, Lamium friend!
Even though you are a Lamium, we didn’t have to give you the ‘lame’ name of Purple Dead Nettle. I make an oath right here and now to help bring back the use of your older common name, Purple Archangel (PA). You do tend to be a guardian over our lawns and gardens during the transitional months of late winter into spring, building soil, holding water, protecting seeds and roots of the perennials who haven’t yet sprouted, all the while adding beauty to the land. In the end, you share your seeds as food for birds who then spread you further around in their droppings—you’ve got a good thing going!
PA, I notice how your leaves change shape, color and height dramatically, depending upon your living conditions. Oh, the weeds and what they tell us! I can see where the land has been more disturbed, is more damp or more acidic, and how much sunshine and airflow an area gets just by looking at your form and color. I pick you up and caress your silky hairs and eat your laughing flowers. Your leaves begin green and slowly morph into purple, with black lines edging your square stems where the seed capsules emerge. Your double lipped flowers, light pink and open, wow—you really are a stunning plant from all angles.
You can take a barren environment and turn it into an art piece. Heralding from Eurasia, you’ve naturalized yourself on several continents and are considered a weed, under appreciated for the work you are doing to restore balance to the ecosystem we so ignorantly upset. I see you, Purple Archangel, and know you are here because we brought you here, and because somebody has to do the job of repair. Thank you for being a gracious, free ground-cover, bringing harmony back to our disrupted places.
Another relative of yours whom you are often mistaken for is Lamium amplexicaule, or Henbit, the scalloped, sessile-leaved cousin whose flowers are bright fuchsia. I can see you are very different, but a lot of humans don’t take the time to notice these things in the plant world, Purple Archangel. Oh how much they miss!
I think you are an underestimated herb because you are so abundant. Isn’t that ironic? I wonder what other gifts you have that we have forgotten. I know you are a styptic- stopping blood flow when needed, and a vulnerary- healer of wounds. And as a diuretic, you can bring on sweat and urine when we need support in getting fluids moving on out of our system. Your leaves can be made into a healing poultice for insect bites, stings, cuts, bruises and more. Thank you.
Well, I do have to admit something to you, PA, and that is, I don’t like the way you taste. To me, you taste like furry dirt. Ok- I do like the way your flowers taste. But the rest? Well, I mix you up with chickweed and wild onions and wintercress and violet leaves and then it works. I have cooked you in soups, and that makes you more palatable. But I know you are a good foraged food, full of vitamins, so I keep on eating you. And I still love you for all the days you show up in the world.
Love,
Mary Plantwalker
I am curious- do you already eat Purple Archangel and if so, what do you think of the taste?