Ethnobotany in the Arboretum

I intern at the UC Davis Arboretum as an Arboretum Ambassador. We provide outreach and support for Arboretum events and plan and lead our own projects. My personal project for the year has been to develop a tour focusing on the ethnobotany of California native plants. I drew on my knowledge of Chumash culture (with a smattering of research into the Patwin people of the Davis area) to give some general information about how various plants are traditionally used.

I use the present tense and the word "traditionally" because these plants haven't changed. The plants are just as useful today as they were 200 years ago, but the perception of their usefulness has changed.

We met at the Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center (near the Mondavi Center). Ten people attended, most of them fellow Ambassadors, but one [Arboretum-unattached] student and a few people from the community came. I was happy with the turnout, considering the dreary weather.

Talking about the medicinal uses of California Wild Rose

I gave a brief introduction to ethnobotany and how I got interested in it. If you don't know, ethnobotany is a word we use to talk about the way people interact with plants and use them to make a living. In the case of my talk today, we were looking at how Native California people traditionally used plants for food, medicine, construction, tool-making and basketry.

Wood from the Santa Cruz Island Ironwood (Lyonothamnus floribundus) can be made into harpoons. Redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) that float down the coast to the Santa Barbara/San Luis Obispo area were used to make to'mols, the Chumash plank canoe. Seeds from California Buckeye (Aesculus californica) were eaten in years when the oaks didn't produce enough acorns. Etc. etc.

California Buckeye

The point I tried to get across today is that these plants don't just provide habitat (for insects, fungi, birds, small mammals...) or aesthetic beauty, they can also serve very practical purposes and were incredibly important to the native Californian way of life. This idea can be extended to other cultures in other places and other times. It can also be extended to us in our lives today. Many of the medicines, foods, and materials we use today were found using plant knowledge. This stuff is still important.

If you happen to be reading this post in the month of May, join me on my next talk on May 31. We'll be leaving from the Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center at 2pm. View a map here.