Welcome to the Natural Coalescence Blog

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.

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

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.

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

*(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

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

I will never forget being puzzled by a large tree, trying to ID it during a plant monitoring project but the leaves were all too high up and young to distinguish. So I climbed it. That’s when I had the “oh duh!” moment. Looking closer at a small branch, the large paired thorns below leaves of many pinnate leaflets were a total give away- that’s a black locust tree! Quite pretty actually, but still not a tree I especially like. Dang, not what we wanted to find. botanist,

What's the best way to get rid of weeds? Eat them, of course! And we are hitting prime dandelion season, so it's time to get digging. And roasting. And sauteing. While weeding the older dandelions out of the yard which are ready to bloom right away (continuing to spruce up the area after a tenant's prior neglect), I filled a 5gal tub with some decent sized taprooted dandies and nice tender young ones for their leaves. Naturally I needed to pluck out the pristine ones for

You know how it is. When you're a pretty little thing with a brown complexion, folks tend to nickname ya "Chocolate". Not that I have anything against actual chocolate. Cocoa. Theobroma cocoa is her full name actually and boy what a fascinating lady. But we ain't even in the same order, let alone the same family. Just got a color in common. Needless to say, I also don't have Cocoa's bittersweet flavors. But we do have some bulbous parts (pardon my French) and we are e

There are dozens of flavors for vodkas on the liquor shelves, some fruity, some floral. As delightful as a toasted marshmallow vodka can make your cocktail, I have found a new favorite. And it's one you WON'T find on any store shelf (unless you have a special boutique and botanical liquor store, lucky you!). Ribes sanguineum (red flowering currant) in full bloom on early sunny spring day I was admiring the red flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum) in my yard, the very rich

I would bet this plant is among those that most people, even the botanically interested, would pass right by. Rosy twisted-stalks, and other twisted-stalks (we have several in the PNW) look like a cute zip-zagging plant similar to Solomon's seals. But if you lift one up you'll see- I think of it like the classic romantic scene moment where the confident love-interest lifts the chin of the bashful beauty for a kiss that says "I love you for you and see just how beautiful you

Begonia flowers are cooler than most people realize. I painted their corkscrew pistils as an oil painting, honoring them as I eat them.

Junipers are not the trees you think of associated with the drizzly Pacific Northwest. But they are old friends from home in the much drier south, much to the dismay of many pollen allergy sufferers there. The male trees can be so prolific it looks like smoke in the air. For this and other misinformed reasons, there is a trend of hating these trees, which are in fact native to this area across the south though they are spreading in an unhistorical way. To my endless annoy

Roast them by an open campfire, if you can find them. Or stick to chestnuts. I challenge you to roast pine nuts though. So small. old sketches of the two hazelnuts native to Washington. Not just for toasty European winter harvests, we have native hazelnuts that are also great wildlife-supporting large understory shrubs, and so tough. Above are the common North American species, showing the fruits on left and flowers on right. They may not technically be trees, but I thin

collecting fall leaves, then giving them a bath