A Flora of Home

By Tara K. Miller

After coming home during the COVID-19 pandemic, I decided to create a flora of the forest around my childhood home. A flora is a documentation of all the plant species in a location or region. 

Armed with 5-10 field identification books for trees, shrubs, herbs, and ferns, I spent hours wandering the forest, continually noticing new things in the woods where I grew up.

I picked out the tiny spring ephemerals, like spring beauties and trout lilies, that flourish before the trees leaf out.

Me and my field assistant with the spring beauties in early May

I waded through knee-high ferns, which I learned included wood ferns, lady ferns, and sensitive ferns.

I discovered that our forest boasts a few stray box elders and elms in an area dominated by maples, ash, and black cherry.

Black cherry trees are distinguishable by their “burnt-potato-chip-bark,” as my college ecology professor phrased it.

I ate wild strawberries, fought with invasive garlic mustard, and watched the eastern phoebes learn to fly.

Garlic mustard also makes a lovely pesto sauce

It’s never too late to gain a new appreciation of an old place.