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Eli's Native Plants

@elisnativeplants.bsky.social
2.2K followers 3.1K following 2.1K posts

The diversity of life is sacred. The diversity of human cultures too. I'm a gardener #NativePlants, vegan, programmer, physics PhD, seed keeper. Trying to stop the 6th global extinction by reconnecting humans with the rest of the living world. /|\

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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 13h
IDK, friend. I only learned about the movement (ecofeminism) last year, when I read something along similar lines. It clicked for me immediately too. Perhaps we heard such things before, and considered them pithy aphorisms. We are clearly primed to understand now.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 22h
Ecofeminism: justification for abuse of each other starts with how we treat the land. Fascism too, grows out of abuse of other animals and the land. Activists who resist abusive exploitation are labeled terrorists, starting with animal rights activists and indigenous people, like water protectors.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Please read this letter from Iran. The world is watching the US and Israel, and our place in the global community going forward will depend on how we atone for our ongoing corrupt imperialism. It didn't start with Trump and Netanyahu, but it can end with them. www.cpiusa.org/news/iranian...
cpiusa.org
Iranian President’s Letter to the American People - FULL TEXT — The Center for Political Innovation
President Masoud Pezeshkian of the Islamic Republic of Iran has written this letter to the American People. Below is the full text: In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful To the people...
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
A burst of purple by the highway warms my heart. Great pictures!
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Teaberry, Boxberry, Checkerberry, Wintergreen... Of all the things people call wintergreen, I give the capital (species name) to Gaultheria procumbens, because it has the flavor to back it up. I love finding these cheerful little red berries. Acton Arboretum, MA, 9/30 #nativeplants #ecoregion59
Shiny, waxy, smooth, entire, lanceolate with aspect ratio 3 leaves on a 10cm tall shrub, adorned with bright, shiny, 1.5cm, spherical red berries in woodchip mulch. 

This is a cultivar that produces large berries, planted here. We have wild-type in the woodlands nearby, but it's not as showy, and the berries aren't as large or abundant.A garden bed full of wintergreen, circling the base of a mature tree. The wintergreen is all under the canopy —it wouldn't appreciate direct sun. It seems to be thriving in the more open setting, but idk how much of that is the cultivar, and how much is the conditions.
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Art & Nature @capecodfairytales.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
#Poetry #Painting #EverdayMagic Nature is not stingy with her miracles We simply forget to look 🎨 Rex Preston
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Gina @createnewpaths.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
“I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us.” ~Henry David Thoreau Yes. Allow Mother Nature to guide you and have a wonderful day✨✨ #eastcoastkin
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
If we replace enough complicit centrist Dems with progressives we might get a real resistance from our politicians, instead of cute speeches that are all just posturing and aren't backed by even steadfast obstruction let alone resistance.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
None of the #Traitorous7 who keep betraying Democrats and e.g. voting to allow ICE to strip search children (’25), voting for increased ICE funding and the SAVE Act (’26) are progressive. They are all centrist Dems. Jared Golden, Marie Peres, Laura Gillin, Henry Cuellar, ...
e.gm
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Definitely the prettiest kind of crow around here 😉
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I take great stock in names. They shape thought. And I don't like the Christian ideas of sexual 'purity,' white at the wedding, white flowers on the wedding bower... Woodbine is better, even as a British catch-all for a vine, but I'll just call it Clematis, lacking a Cherokee or Haudenosaunee name.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Virgin's Bower (Clematis Virginiana) is our only native vine that will flower in full shade, theoretically. I see it more often in wet meadows and forest edges, draping over a shrub or tall clumping herb, blooming profusely. #nativeplants #ecoregion58
White 4-petalled, many-stamened flowers on a waxy-leaved Virgin's Bower vine draping a shrub.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Opening up the field edge for feral apples, Hawthorns (e.g. this Crataegus pruinosa?) and other #nativeplants at my grandparents' place is humbling work. Removing thickets of Alder-leaved Blackthorn. Tools: A weed wrench, hand saw, and seeds. I'll be back with a hatchet to cut resprouting stumps.
Possibly a Frosted Hawthorn, as it doesn't seem like "Large-seeded" (C. macrocarpa) would be the right epithet. 

This just shows some double-toothed hawthorn leaves and twigs, a few thorns...The Hawthorn from 10m back, trunk centered and completely obscured by artfully draped foliage, even after I've just cleared the surrounding buckthorns. 

Hawthorns are subtle. I think that's the fun. You'll notice a lot if you go looking for them. View from the side, a little down the field, at the pile of Buckthorns, roots and all, and the white steel weed wrench. The near side of the Hawthorn has been cleared, but you can't see the small shrubby cluster of trunks from here
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Be cautious and respectful of our friends the Hickory Tussock Moths (Lophocampa caryae). Avoid skin exposure to setae (hairs). Annual life cycle, seen as catrplrs in NE US in fall. Hosts: deciduous, woody plants. Picked around them in the Am. Hazels, NP. More info: extension.psu.edu/hickory-tuss...
A Hickory Tussock Moth on an oak? tree: closeup of bark and centered caterpillar with many white and black hairs, some bristly longer clumps sticking out at intervals.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
It's hard on the vocal cords. I could hardly talk for days after a cathartic screaming session in my car earlier this year. Howling, ritualized wailing, taking inspiration from your indigenous ancestors' grief rituals, and other things that don't leave you (usually temporarily) mute may be better.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus) caterpillar on American Hazelnut leaf (Corylus americana). They prefer Spicebush or Sassafras but will eat Hazel or Birch. #nativeplants #insects #lepidoptera #ecoregion58 (Berne, NY, 09/26)
A caterpillar, green with little yellow snake eye markings, on a serrated Hazelnut leaf.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
It's all connected. Caring about all animals means caring about humans, and ecocide, including marine devastation, deforestation, and genocide. Ecocide is genocide and vice-versa, linked in both causes and effects, as shown in Malm's essay, The Destruction of Palestine is the Destruction of Earth.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Prunus serotina, Black Cherries, are native to most of the Eastern US. To harvest: put the cherries in a blender (low) or food processor with lemon juice (1:4). Process, then strain through a fine seive or cheesecloth. Use juice in dressings, frostings, drinks. #nativeplants #foraging #seedsaving
Clusters of ripe shiny Black Cherries, with a few red unripe ones, hanging densely from every branch of a Prunus serotina treeA Black Cherry, loaded with fruit, standing 10m, sticking out of scrubland (3-5m mostly places) by a mowed path.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
He is just reminding the UK that they are an imperialist power still, and supporting occupation and colonization is in their interest as well. Subtext: support Israel's ongoing colonization and genocide of Gaza, or Israel will point out your colonizer hypocrisy.
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Suzanne Daley @suzannedaley.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Trees ~ keepers of ancient wisdom, holders of the light 🌲🌿🦎 #greenwitch #forest #nature #trees #animism #peace
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Purple-flowering Raspberry (Rubus odoratus) is local species I maligned in our the Rubus podcast episode. @genusbarpod.bsky.social These were delicious: just as good as Thimbleberries (R. parviflorus)—western/northern cousins (in subgenus Anoplobatus) w/ simple leaves. #ecoregion60 #nativeplants
Purple flowering raspberry blooming with magenta wild-rose-like flowers and maple-like rough pale-green leave Purple Flowering Raspberry fruit, thimble shapedLarge round corollas of just picked berries, which give them the thimble shape
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Are you trying to distract from this effort to replace traitors in blue in primaries? This is about having a party that actually resists instead of complying with the fascist regime.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Turncoat Tom Suozzzi voted to allow ICE to strip-search children without parents present, to increase ICE funding after the shooting of Renee Good, for the SAVE Act. He is helping the fascists—no wonder he doesn't want competition for his primary. But the DNC often backs reps like him. #traitorous7
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
These are wonderful! I love the hanging with the Joshua Tree. The Tiger Mosquito gives the the heebeedeegeebeez.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
The strength of these trees... Some of our hardest hardwoods (Janka: 1800+) love the escarpment and Helderberg hills: The Ironwoods, as they call them up there, American Hophornbeam (Ostrya virginiana), and Shagbark (Carya ovata) don't mind holding lots of heavy wood on twisted trunks.
Ostrya virginiana in a gentle S shape hear the base, then arrow straight for a while. Where it bends the trunk is muscular and bumped under thin, longish and flakes of peeling rough bark. The Birch Family's answer to ironwood, in pale brown.A Shagbark Hickory trunk undulating with a large knotted elbow, smoothing as it shoots up, with more, similar Hickories in the background A dirt woodland trail: dry soil with a wooden fence, Shagbark Hickory and American Hophornbeam trees (Ostrya virginiana), a hint that there's a cliff in the lighting and trees beginning to descend then disappearing.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Helderberg Escarpment [1] #ecoregion60 the Allegheny Plateau falls away changes toward the Hudson Valley, and the ecosystem (eg plant life) changes to #ecoregion59, like the S. ME coast to New York NY. 1/2 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helderb... dmap-prod-oms-edc.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ORD/Ecoregio...
The Helderberg Escarpment, green landscape with with trees falling away in the foreground, with lower horizon than the extension of the green cliff in the distance. Hickories, Oaks and Eastern Redcedar  (Juniperus virginiana)
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
The Peace of Wild Things By Wendell Berry I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
courier-journal.com
Wendell Berry, influential Kentucky writer and activist, has died
Wendell Berry, a Kentucky native and man of letters and the land, who helped inspire the new American food movement, has died. He was 92.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
People suggest that Israel should not exist and don't suggest what that means for a Jewish colonist. This suggests rebranding after restructuring and ending the apartheid state named after the Jews; Israel is a name of David, and the Jewish People. I agree that they will need a new, inclusive gvt.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
You're welcome! It may appear a bit dry, and I certainly haven't read the whole thing. But when I wanted to see what features defined genera e.g. Eurybia and Oclemena, it provided just what I was looking for.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
If it gets big enough to try to procreate, you can mail pollen to the American Chestnut Foundation so they can use it to cross with their blight-resistant chestnuts and increase the genetic diversity. Doomed to die back to the roots again, but they've been doing it for 100 years. Indefatigabe.
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tree creak @moistwelldrained.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Whorled wood aster! #nativeplants #CT
Whorled wood aster dark green leaves and white / yellow flowers on the forest floor
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Neat! I love finding them, even when they are just little resprouts, as a reminder of what was and what will be again. How big was it?
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Seems to me that it's not one of the popular species with native plant gardeners. IMO it should be as it's great high-protein forage for wildlife and hosts many species of butterfly and moth. illinoiswildflowers.info/savanna/plan...
illinoiswildflowers.info
Panicled Tick Trefoil (Desmodium paniculatum)
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
It should do OK. That patch that I took the picture of the other day way under Norway Maples. They like it dry and are one of the few natives I find growing under my invasive nemesis tree.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
I don't often get answers on such things here, but often do on iNat. As someone who has seen a grand total of 3 tree crickets since I found my first last year, I'm not gonna weigh in on ID.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
^ Oclemena acuminata aka Whorled Wood Aster. For a Turtle Island aster deep-dive: www.guynesom.com/GenericConsp...
guynesom.com
Generic Conspectus - Astereae of North and Central America
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
It doesn't seem to grow in dense populations like White Woodland Asters here. I also see it around Eurybia divaricata; maybe a little more out toward the open, instead of between the trees. I should have mentioned it in my quote post with @genusbarpod.bsky.social (on the Turtle Island asters).
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
White Woodland Asters (Eurybia divaricata) are native from Southern Maine to Alabama. They grow in dry woodlands with partial sunlight, often along paths and near woods openings. They host the Pearl Crescent Butterfly (Phyciodes tharos), and multiple moths here, in #ecoregion59. #nativeplants
Floral array of funny centered, bright white petalled (described as star-like) White Woodland Asters flowers, with some brown-centered, pollinated flowers in each clusterWhite Woodland Asters in a dense patch, filling the space in a woodland edge with rough-toothed green leaves and sprays of white flowers
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
That complicit billionaire (Pritzker) does make some cute quips on social media. But he actively courts corporate investment through trade missions and economic agreements with foreign governments, prioritizing business growth over labor protections. He is no friend to the working class.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Both parties serve the 1%. One burns the house down; the other just repaints it. Your wages stagnate either way because the system demands surplus value for owners. We need to organize independently, but we also need grassroots progressives in office to dismantle capitalist structures.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Republicans strip wealth from the working class with reckless speed, gutting safety nets while billionaires feast. It’s looting disguised as freedom. Dems run the same extraction carefully, smoothing over crashes to keep capital flowing. They’re slower, but they protect the rich at your expense.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
And if that critical thinking extends to actually looking into how gvt enacts policy about those issues, instead of making empty speeches and gestures then quietly giving industry free reign, then you go toward the progressive/leftist.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
I said 'ubiquitous' and implied Human credit for the spread. An anthropologist academic would probably just say Wapato was used by many Peoples of the Pacific Northwest and Great Lakes (Chippewa, Maidu, Navajo, Ojibwa, Cherokee, Iroquois, and Katzie) and goes back thousands of years.
archaeologyroadshow.org
About the Archaeology Roadshow | AR
The Archaeology Roadshow is a large-scale public outreach event held on Portland State University campus and in other communities in Oregon, designed to promote stewardship of Oregon’s heritage and educate adults and children about the value of archaeology to all citizens.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
The abundance of this species over the vast majority of Turtle Island is one of the signatures of indigenous cultivation. We have historically dismissed how Indigenous peoples tended their wild garden (Eden), but this species and the ubiquitous use thereof is a hot research topic.
smithsonianmag.com
The Northwest’s Earliest “Garden” Discovered in British Columbia
The 3,800-year-old stone platform was used to cultivate wapato—wild water potatoes—a staple crop for many North American peoples
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Wapato (Sagittaria latifolia) blooming on the banks of the Assabet, in a spike of lovely little lilly-like tri-petalled flowers. It hosts 7 species of butterfly and moth (e.g. the Waterlily Owlet) in my zip code, according to NWFs 'native plant finder.' #nativeplants #ecoregion59 #foraging #wildfood
Wapato (Sagittaria latifolia) floral spikes emerging from a provision of the broad arrowhead-shaped leaves and sedge leaves on the back of a river (not pictured).
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Awen, friend. By Oak and Ash and a Thorn, so mote it be.
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Suzanne Daley @suzannedaley.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Green ~ 🌲nature🌱 growth 🍃 renewal 🐸 balance 🐲 hope 💚 love 🐢 health 🌳 vitality #greenwitch #green #nature #forest #trees #health #peace
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Misinformation and misunderstanding. Seeing it as a conflict between two powers, believing Israeli propaganda about Palestinians. You need to understand their skewed view to correct it. Grandpa set himself up as a defender of Jews in a conservative hilltown. He thought he was still defending them.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
This lovely animal looks like it might be an inspiration for some traditional Turtle Island indigenous artwork.
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
I am in favor of trying to understand people's views, then educate. Grandpa and I had it out on the family chat. I'm trying to deescalate and come back to it. He almost drank himself to death after we argued and I convinced him to watch The Voice of Hind Rajab. I haven't broached the topic since.
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