The Backwoods Resurgence: Mountain Angelica

Monday, February 4, 2019

Mountain Angelica

Mountain Angelica (Angelica triquinata). Roan Mountain, North Carolina.

The Appalachian highlands are insanely biodiverse. And by highlands, I don't mean the entire mountain chain. Excluding the river valleys, northern temperate rainforest, foothill deciduous forest, all the impeccable individuality of rock outcrops and other ecosystems, the highlands stand alone with a perfectly unique and absolutely astonishing biodiversity. Similar in temperature and structure to the boreal forests and bald mountaintops of the northern latitudes, such as the Caledonian Forests of Scotland or the taiga of the Canadian treeline, the Southern Appalachian highlands are uniquely bordered with warmer, Southeastern environments. This results in a congested mass of species which have evolved to only live in this cold, southern ecosystem and nowhere else; the byproduct of a long, complex history of breaking and building. The only problem is that they can only live in this kind of habitat. One of these species in particular is Mountain Angelica (Angelica triquinata). This alien wildflower belongs to the carrot family (Apiaceae) and is an important host for boreal hornet, Pyrobombus bumblebee, endemic flower fly and solitary bee species.

Parasitic Blackjackets (Dolichovespula arctica) pollinating

Angelica triquinata.

Despite resembling like a sci-fi scene from another planet, I can assure you that Mountain Angelica is not only as a cornerstone species for the mountain ecosystem, but for people as well! Close relatives have been used for generations in European and Native American folk medicine. The plant is often used to combat bad blood circulation, heartburn, anorexia and insomnia. Mountain Angelica is also a very soothing herb, frequently used to relieve joint and nerve pain in ancient Celtic and Algonquin cultures. Simply chewing on a stalk while hiking is almost like a refreshing parallel to caffeine, both in sensation and chemical activity. The plant also has a decently sweet taste and a very aromatic scent. The seeds and root are typically used in medicine; but I do not advise collecting anything but a few seeds, stalks or leaves in the wild (populations of this fragile species are easily harmed by collection). Also, attempts to grow this plant (or other, preferably native relatives) in your garden are often worthwhile. Both beautiful and useful, Angelica is a unique plant to say the least, and an undeniably fantastic species to share these wonderful mountains with.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Quotes

"Humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn - we must look to our teachers among other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They've been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out." - Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 2013

"Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do." - Wendell Berry, for The Dying of the Trees, 1997

"People need wild places. Whether or not we think we do, we do. We need to be able to taste grace and know once again that we desire it. We need to experience a landscape that is timeless, whose agenda moves at the pace of speciation and glaciers. To be surrounded by the singing, mating, howling commotion of other species, all of which love their lives as much as we do ours, and none of which could possibly care less about our economic status or our running day calendar. Wildness puts us in our place." - Barbara Kingsolver, Small Wonder, 2002

"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset." -Crowfoot, 1890 dying speech to the Blackfoot Nation after the wholesale slaughter of buffalo by the Canadian government.

"Civilization is not, as they often assume, the enslavement of a stable and constant earth. It is a state of mutual and interdependent cooperation between human animals, other animals, plants, and soils, which may be disrupted at any movement by the failure of any of them." - Aldo Leopold, Sand County Almanac, 1949

"The human world is so bleak, simple-minded and tragic compared to that of the living biosphere. Learning about the rest of life on Earth is like having the blinds pulled up on a window that you previously just thought faced a bleak brick wall, only to look out the window and see mountains, forests, beaches and a verdant landscape stretching for miles." - Joey Santore, Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't, 2o20

"We were all meant to be naturalists, each in his degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things." - Charlotte Mason, Out-of-Door Life for the Children, 1904

"Instead of mountain men we are cursed with a plague of diggers, drillers, borers, grubbers; of asphalt-spreaders, dam-builders, overgrazers, clear-cutters, and strip-miners whose object seems to be to make our mountains match our men -- making molehills out of mountains for a race of rodents -- for the rat race.

Oh well, revenge is on the way. We see it in those high thin clouds far on the northern sky. We feel it in those rumbles of discontent deep in the cupboards of the earth: tectonic crockery trembling on the continental shelves. We hear it down the slipface of the dunes, a blue wind moaning out of nowhere. We smell it on the air: the smell of danger. Death before dishonor? That's right. What else? Liberty or death? Naturally." -Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire, 1968

"There is a way of living which is liberating, which does not make us feel trapped and isolated. We could call it "the wilderness mind". It doesn’t matter whether one lives in the city or in the country, whether one works in a factory or a university. The secret to this "wilderness mind" is keeping the power of wonder of the universe alive. If we keep this sense of awe, we will remain young forever. If we lose it, we wither inside." - Enviroscapes, 1995