Botanic Lab

Teloschistes chrysophthalmus, golden-eye lichen, is very common pretty much everywhere, but especially on trees in the Midwest, like this honey locust in Boone County, Iowa. Midwestern specimens often lack the telltale cilia around the apothecia.

Grindelia Herb Uses and Therapeutic Benefits

The Grindelia flower is the most widely used part of the Grindelia plant, but the whole aerial part can also be used, for therapeutic herbal remedies.

In 1875, Mr. Jas G. Steele of San Francisco made relevant research available and published a report on the effectiveness of Grindelia in the treatment of bronchial asthma.

The research was presented to the American Pharmaceutical Association in 1875 and since then, Grindelia has been seen as a possible treatment in the management of asthma and many other respiratory illnesses.

The use of Grindelia in modern times is also for the relief of respiratory illnesses.

Aside from bronchial asthma, it is also effective in relieving thick mucus secretions thereby restoring airways.

The Hidden Life of trees: What they Feel, How they Communicate

While I have long loved forests in all their forms, I had never understood them as deep a way until this book enriched me, giving me as close to an inside perspective on what life as a tree might be like as I’m likely to get. Written by a forester with over 30 years experience managing a communal forest in Germany, the first thing it taught me to do was to slow down my perspective on time, and perceive what life lived at a very different rhythm and in vastly varying constraints must be like. Unlike the events of deep geological time, trees still change on a human scale while remaining able to live for several millennia. The tree your grandfather planted remains but a youngster.