My Wild Wisconsin

Plants & Ojibwe Language

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At first, I thought this jack pine / wakik branch had dropped off the tree, but then my eye followed it under the snow and back to the tree trunk. Seeing it grow low, almost along the ground like this reminded me of how sometimes conifer tree words have the suffix -zid in them, like ozid which means (his/her/their) foot. I have seen balsam fir send out ground level branches like this too. I need to look up those tree foot words again and try to learn about them.

On Sunday, I noticed this big Baptisia / wild indigo out in my neighboring orchard while I was driving home. I found some clippers and a basket and went for a walk. Even the open seed pods usually still had a few seeds inside, and some were still closed. I love how they rattle.

I collected a few seeds from this blue beech, or oshka’aaganiminzh (lodge pole tree), by stripping the branch tips into my left hand. I was just outside the library, not planning on seed collecting, and had nowhere to put them. When I got to my car, I found an empty gum package - perfect! Then I forgot, until my 15-year-old opened the package later (for gum reasons) and was cry-laughing at the contents. Just classic mom.

On Sunday, my friend Jinhger took me on a plant walk to a part of the cemetery I didn’t know existed - across the big hemlock ravine🌲🌊, down through a forsookened* orchard 👻🍎 to a mass grave where unidentifiable remains were reburied after a flood had washed them out (80 years ago). We did eat a ghost apple & at one point I stepped too close to a headstone and started sinking into the soggy ground. Delightful. Seeds collected: yarrow, gray goldenrod, danthonia, and some other cute grass.

I fricken love a junk yard, a glimpse of the lake, seed collecting & fall

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