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...

*(sweaty, even while standing still because… heat domes & such) It’s a berry Pacific Northwest kind of life in summer time here. The sun...

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...

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...

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. ...

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...

There are dozens of flavors for vodkas on the liquor shelves, some fruity, some floral. As delightful as a toasted marshmallow vodka can...

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. Not...

collecting fall leaves, then giving them a bath