Home  /  Membership  /  Guild Information  /  Programs & Events  /  Members Pages  /  Resources

Commonly gathered basketry materials by the guild include:

Contact Cory Samia at csamia@earthlink.net for more information, or to suggest a possible gathering activity.

The Ethics Of Gathering Wild Plants
Provided by Metro Regional Parks & Greenspaces (Metro is the Portland area's regional government)

**Note that this handout was written from a general ethnobotany perspective. Some of the plants listed as abundant, might be abundantly available for, say medicinal use, but not necessarily abundant for basketry (for example, Western Red Cedar).**

Right now most native plants are becoming scarcer rather than more abundant. Learning about these plants and especially propagating them on our own land can help alleviate this situation. When gathering from wild land, remember you may not be the only person gathering from the area. Ask yourself this question: if other people I know follow the guidelines I am following at this place, will the harvest still be sustainable? The goal is to be able to come back to the area to find at least as much abundance as when you begin gathering.

Here are some ideas and cautions from different cultures and ethnobotanists on the subject of collecting plants from the wild in a respectful way.

• Gather legally
  • Permits must be obtained on virtually all public lands. Permission must be obtained on private land (trespassing and stealing are illegal).
• Know what you are harvesting
  • If you have ANY doubt about the species of the plant, consult books or a person that has more experience than you do until you have absolute, positive identification.
• Gather safely
  • Gather from plants growing in prime locations. Insect holes and poor health indicate that the plant is at the margin of its preferred growing conditions. Look around for more and healthier plants. If these are the only plants, leave them alone.
• Harvest sustainably
  • Do not over gather. Pick only what you need.
  • In order to harvest sustainably, you must have a broad knowledge of the abundance of the plant species in your bioregion. No matter what the herbal books say, scarce species such as maidenhair fern or species that may have a threatened status such as cimicifuga (cohosh, bugbane) should NOT be harvested for medicinal purposes. Species official status changes daily, and herbal books cannot be up to date on this.
  • Plants that are relatively scarce in a native plant community (for example, Wild Ginger, False Solomon Seal or Vanilla Leaf) should not be gathered when abundant alternatives are available (such as ginger root from the grocery store).
  • For abundant plants, use the “one in twenty” rule. Inspect the area for prior harvesting. If it has recently been harvested, look for a new location rather than picking more.
  • Robust plants that grow back quickly, such as coltsfoot or wapato, or plants that are very abundant, such as cottonwood buds, Western Red Cedar, St. John’s Wort, or nettles, can be gathered more intensively, but never take more than a fourth of what is present. For this reason it is important to know the growth habit of the plant.
  • If the plant is a large solitary bush or tree, pick from the borders of the plant, leaving older, central growth to regenerate outward.
  • If you are digging roots, dig the largest in the group, leaving the younger ones to grow and reseed. Fill holes. Throw a chunk or two of budding rhizome back into the holes or spread seeds around the area.
• Never pick plants that are rare or endangered
  • Go back to your teachers or books and find something else to fill your need.
• Use your intuition
  • If you get a gut feeling that you should or should not harvest a plant, pay attention to that.
• Be grateful
  • Native people are very aware that plants are living things, and so they did (and still do) thank the plant for giving up its life before they harvest it. This seems like a good thing for anyone learning about and using native plants to do; it will increase your awareness of what you are harvesting.
• Consider propagating the plant in your yard
  • This is a great way to increase the abundance of native plants