Discovered a new plant friend last weekend on a Wildflower Walk with The Outside Institute and Richard Mandelbaum.
“Sweetfern” had me at my first inhale, and its abundance on the lands we were walking allowed me to feel comfortable taking home a few branches to remember her by.
Sweetfern, or Comptonia Peregrina, is not actually a fern though it has a similar shape, and the scent is rich and aromatic, along the lines of patchouli or sage.
After the hike, I also managed to grabbed a copy of Laura Silverman’s Field Guide, which is beautifully illustrated (see image above) and is the first field guide I’ve seen that includes a “craft” section for each plant: sharing the artistic and ritual qualities of these plants.
The culinary section is a gem as well, considering Laura is an amazing chef in addition to being a skilled writer.
The Field Guide suggests infusing into bourbon or simple syrup, but since I only wanted to take a few leaves to start I’ll save that for later.
The bundle from this hike has been tied up to use for incense, I’ll allow it to dry for a few weeks and use it much like a sage bundle, to cleanse spaces.
I’ve begun a transition to using more local herbs as cleansing bundles.Juniper and Cedar are my favorite (also, we planted a few on the property so it’s a harvest from plants that we’re getting to know well) and I’m happy to add sweetfern to the collection!
While it’s fun and refreshing to turn to our local lands for our herbal desires, it’s so important to do so with respect to the eco-system - this means never harvesting more than needed (or any at all if the plant is not well established), spending time with the plant, and asking permission from the land and the plant itself. As the forward from the field guide reminds us:
“The land is not a museum, but it is also not a pantry, from which we simply take what we need. The land is our community.”
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