Welcome to the Natural Coalescence Blog

Oak Life Lesson: Coordination helps you breed with your neighbors & overload your hungry enemies. Bigger nuts are cool, but not best.

Irises aren't just in all the colors of the rainbow, they seem to also be every scent of the cornucopia- a nose rainbow. But do their colors match their smell? Sniff for yourself and read all about them.

Why does New Zealand seem to have a dense and stark forest strip, with the trees ending sharply compared to other global regions?

Making and testing natural inks & dyes from fruits and flowers in PNW.

Differences between WA Erysimum species- yellow Erysimum capitatum vs arenicola.

Testing out a new tasty little melon inspired by dino eggs

Edible or lethal plants. Comparing and admiring common camas with death-camas, and a few native plant relatives in the PNW.

Oak apples aren't a fruit, they're a gall from a wasp and they may not be edible but you can use them for home-made ink.

You know you're a botanist when typing.... you keep trying to spell "left" but muscle memory keeps making you type "leaf". Even better if autocorrect on your phone has learned you text "take a LEAF" a lot more than "take a LEFT". I call this plantsylexia. Which is still hard to spell, just like dis...dyslexia.

All about the popular spring bulbs that are nearly all varying levels of toxic

Special plants make unique blue pollen and pollen can come in a range of colors too.

Info about whether you should have a camp fire in the wild and fire safety from ecological view

medical traits and ID of wild shelf mushroom red belted conk (Fomitopsis pinicola)

There are many cool trees all over the world and possibly more than our 'fair share' in the Pacific northwest due to the variety of habitats and historic geological disturbances of glaciation that isolated tree group progenitors and pushed others into severe habitats. I try not to be biased but also find a lot of incidents of having to pause to admire or fully caress some of our trees. So... there are cool ones. And high on the list of favorites is the western red-cedar, w

Blue flowers are the RAREST color. I’ve noticed this for a long time. And it makes sense. But it is also confusing and weird and beautiful. blue Himalayan poppy (Meconopsis betonicifolia) TLDR: Flowers are blue through difficulty for the plants, but because it draws more animal pollinators and they show up more in areas with steeper competition for pollination. And we are a bit obsessed with them and their color, despite seeing less than bees can. Blue, not plum or lavend

*(sweaty, even while standing still because… heat domes & such) It’s a berry Pacific Northwest kind of life in summer time here. The sun finally came out and surprisingly this year, it receded a few times for some early summer showers. Many thanks from the wildflowers and fruits, and even the conifers. Trail breakfast with wild blueberries- pure luxury! When the sun is warm enough in spring to encourage sustained blooms and successful pollination (it takes the two to tango

There’s a disturbance in the woods. The snow has melted in most places, the skiers have slipped away with the entrance of spring. And as you come to a bend in the trail, there's a whole crowd of brilliantly radiating guys, just chilling there, letting it all hang out. Meet, the avalanche bros, the glacier guys, the yellow alpine lilies. Erythronium grandiflorum, avalanche lilies Try not to stare. They always have their junk out in the breeze, suspended on long filaments wi

Hydrangea season approaches! Blue is coming. blue hydrangea starting to open, by sayo ts 2 The special and huge draw of these shrubs for many gardeners is the unusual color of certain hydrangea. They are a vibrant rich blue. You’ve seen blue flowers of course, but if you think hard, you’ll notice they are actually quite rare. Which makes the blue hydrangea both pretty and pretty special. ombred hydrangea, by Cindy Gustafson These plants are not grown just anywhere either.

As the summer solstice passes, a very 'spring to summer' plant comes to mind- oso berry. They are pretty much the very first native plant to bloom in our area, a PNW herold to spring. And around the summer solstice is when their oso-dangly fruits ripen. Previously known still as "Indian plum", the progress of renaming plants to remove the colonial offensiveness is in favor of oso berry. “June plum” is better too and helping highlight the deep purple berries.They are a native

Plant obsessions go through trends, just like the huge tulip obsession and flash trade market that was huge for a short time, then crashed very suddenly. Can you imagine coming to financial ruin because you invested in the wrong seller of tulip bulbs? I am seriously considering creating a big planter just for irises a wide variety of irises, just investing way too much in prettiness because it will please me. So… bad idea? I’ll try to stay strong. Tulips, roses, African vi