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By Root 931 0

the same species. Try not to harvest the same stand year after year. Never harvest or disturb threatened or endangered plants. Plant them instead. Seek them out and sing to them. You don’t have to sing out loud. If you have a singing voice like mine it’s probably better that you don’t. Plants hear a silent song (and often prefer it). I know this sounds a bit corny, but I find it true in my experience. Let your songs tell the plants (and wild animals) how beautiful they are and how deeply you appreciate them. Communicate to them how much you want them to remain here with us on Earth. Visualize their well-being and focus on that vision. Let the wild beings hear what’s in your heart, the heart of their ally. The positive vision and songs of a singer whose passion is connected to the source of abundance can singleheartedly turn any tide from depletion to plenty.

As you gather plants, please assume the responsibility to learn which plants, if any, are currently on threatened and endangered lists in the areas you harvest. Keep in mind that a plant can be abundant in one state and at the same time rare and in great need of protection and assistance in the next state. Check with your local herbarium, botanical garden, wildflower groups, native plant society, or the United Plant Savers (UpS) list of “at-risk” plants (see Appendix A).

When digging roots, refill the holes, whether deep or shallow. Whenever possible, replant a section of any budding rhizomes or any root crowns that you can separate from the roots you harvest. Scatter the mature seeds of these root-medicine plants around the area whenever you can. Attempt to leave the area looking as undisturbed as it did upon your arrival. If possible, make the area look even better. Often you will find someone’s discarded trash lying around (they probably figure their high school janitor will get it later); please pick it up and cart it out. You certainly have my sincere gratitude for doing this. And please keep in mind at all times that wild (and frequently garden) plant stands also provide food for the local wildlife. Human debris left lying around can entrap and injure or kill wild fauna in the most unimaginably torturous ways.

You don’t need a lot of plant material to make enough herbal medicine for the year.

PRACTICE AND PROMOTE DAMAGE CONTROL

Be aware of your impact on the plant communities that you are making contact with; make it negligible. Notice the impact of your footwear and your passage on the terrain. Be aware of simple erosion factors.

Hard-soled shoes are the most damaging to delicate hillside ecosystems. It is easy to damage the fragile environment of a rocky hillside or a wet stream bed by treading on them thoughtlessly.

When harvesting the foliage of bushes or trees, pick from the borders of the plants, leaving the central core of the plant to regenerate itself outward.

When harvesting a hillside, begin at the bottom and work your way up the slope. Leave all the plants growing at the top of the hill. These are the community members, often referred to as the grandparent plants, that send their replenishing seed downhill and also protect young plants. You have to love grandparents of all species. An annual Grandparents’ Day would do well in this country; it could be our first interspecies holiday.

GATHER ONLY FROM HEALTHY PLANTS AND COMMUNITIES

Plants that appear to be in poor health or are being successfully harassed by gnawing and sucking insects are probably growing on the extreme peripheral border of their preferred growing conditions and are struggling to survive. These are not appropriate individuals to harvest. However, they may be harbingers of a thriving community lying nearby. Or they may be the only specimen in that area. Regardless, nod to them appreciatively and continue on.

As a general rule, don’t harvest the first plants of any species you find in an area, whether weak or strong. Let these pioneering individuals alone to stake their claim and proliferate as they can. Even when you do come upon an appropriate size community of healthy