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Volume 8, Issue 3 | March 2021
"Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Reviewed by Priscilla Grundy

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"Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants", by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Milkweed Editions, 2013.

"Braiding Sweetgrass" makes for good reading about all of the topics listed in the subtitle. Robin Wall Kimmerer writes engagingly, drawing the reader in. The book is full of information about Native American connections to plants. Because the author is a biologist, the scientific relationship to her Indigenous background is always made clear. Kimmerer is a member of the Potawatomi nation and a professor of environmental and forest biology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

She weaves the title elements together with her life as the mother of two daughters in a series of loosely connected essays. Her main themes are gratitude and responsibility, qualities valued highly among Native American peoples, values she argues are necessary if we are to save our planet from climate change and especially from our own greed. No one will find saving plants important enough to make sacrifices, she insists, unless they have a relationship with those plants.

Each chapter combines essay with narration. For instance, in “Maple Sugar Moon” she begins by telling an Anishinaabe creation story about Nanabohzo, the Original Man, diluting the sap of the maple tree, which originally had come directly from the tree as syrup. Now many hours of boiling down are required to make the same syrup. He did so as punishment after people became lazy and had not expressed gratitude or acted responsibly toward nature’s gifts.

Then Kimmerer tells how she had her daughters collect many buckets of maple sap and spend hours boiling them down, using Native American methods – a lot of very hard work. She believes part of being a good mother was teaching the girls their heritage through this work. Mixed into her narrative Kimmerer explains scientifically how the tree creates sap and how the process benefits the tree. She is blending the elements of gratitude, to the tree for producing sap, and responsibility, the work of making the syrup for people to enjoy.

Kimmerer doesn’t expect her non-Indigenous readers to follow her own practices of asking plants’ permission before harvest or giving them a tobacco offering in gratitude. By including these practices, she does illustrate ways of developing human-plant relationships. With her students, described in other chapters, as with her daughters, she shows that by taking them into nature she can help them make those connections. The rest of us will have to find our own paths, perhaps using her examples as models. This book makes a convincing case that those connections are necessary for the future of the plant world and therefore of our own.
Garden of Cultural Diversity grows with virtual book display
cover imageNo-contact lending is off to a strong start, and we're so grateful. All the same, we miss helping library visitors find what they need in person. Readers tell us how much they miss browsing the shelves and seeing what's new in our collection. With that in mind, we've added a browse the shelves feature to our website.

Our new Garden of Cultural Diversity display is at the top of the page this month, featuring a vibrant array of inclusion and equity resources. There is a separate list just for youth and the adults in their lives. Each image is linked to a catalog record, where you can learn all the details and place holds. The display will vary from day to day, showing a selection of the many titles we offer. See also the academic shelf browse feature, with topics such as Propagation, Restoration Ecology and Coping with Climate Change.
Ask a Librarian: What can you tell me about Amarine?
Researched by Rebecca Alexander
Q: What's an Amarine and should I grow it? Also, when do you plant the bulbs?

A: x Amarine is a cross of the South African bulb Nerine and Amaryllis belladonna (Naked Ladies). According to the Pacific Bulb Society, the plants have larger flowers than Nerine. The cross was developed in the Netherlands in 1940, according to this article by Graham Duncan of Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in South Africa.

This British commercial gardening site says that x Amarine improves upon Nerine's reluctant and unpredictable blooming habits. x Amarine keeps its foliage while it is blooming. Nerine, on the other hand, produces foliage in the spring and flowers when the foliage dies back in autumn.

In his article on Belles of the Autumn Border, Graham Rice says that x  Amarine tubergenii is in between its parents in flower numbers and flower size. For a Pacific Northwest perspective on growing Nerine (and its cousins), you may find Susan Calhoun's article in Fine Gardening magazine useful. As far as when to plant these fall-flowering bulbs in the Northwest, we suggest doing it in May when all danger of frost is long past.
RETURN YOUR BOOKS
The courtyard bookdrop is open every day for no-contact book returns. Enter and exit the courtyard on the northwest side, passing the Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) and sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum) trees on your way. Remember to check out the witchhazels, now in bloom on the north side of NHS Hall.
Digital resources
Floral Report Card detail from thesis by Allison McCarthy    UWBG pine cone logo
Miller Library book and 
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