A species of Lomatium Biscuitroot coming up on a rocky basalt hillside outside of Sedona, AZ. I’m beginning to learn more about these Carrot family food and medicine plants lately that have been eaten and tended for a long time by the indigenous folks that have and do live in their ranges. At times during the last 12 years of my intensive plant studies I have felt overwhelmed by a group of plants (hello grasses, I’ve still not figured you out🤦♀️) and eventually learn them. In the west, there are so many members of the Carrot family, and so much variability according to soil, altitude and location. // // // Two things have become clear to me after this past year of learning from and engaging these particular plants, as well as shadowing folks who have spent way more time with them. First, it’s ok to swim in the mystery of not knowing the ‘name’ of a thing. You can know lots about a plant being without knowing it’s name. In fact, names are usually problematic as common names are often Anglo-centric or named after some dead botanist explorers who say that ‘discovered’ the plant (eh... Fremont, Lewis & Clark) ignoring the names used for thousands of years by native folks. In fact, what the plants have to tell us may be clearer when we aren’t attached to a naming kind of knowing. Or have any expectation of them at all. // // // Second, that the ethnobotany, archaeology, anthropology and ecology literature often ignores how humans played a huge role in where plant populations are today. Since we have a mainstream cultural paradigm that focuses on how humans are separate from nature rather than a part of it which bleeds into our every action and thought process; the interpretation of how ecologies work, or how thing ‘came to be’ often completely ignores the fact that humans and plants (and other earthly beings) co-evolved WITH one another. Humans have always had a huge impact on the land. It’s just that, the way it looks has changed. // // // It’s not an impossible thing to consider that this Biscuitroot ended up on this hillside because humans planted it at one point, alongside the lilies and other food and medicine plants found there. #rethinkingethnobotany (at Sedona, Arizona) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8eRKj-hPj5/?igshid=esaqejv2dacb
