By Dara Saville

Forests communicate in myriad ways—through root connectivity, chemical signaling, or networks of mycelium. They also communicate with people through the examples they provide living their lives every day. Upon sustained and attentive observation, we can learn a lot about individual species, ecosystem functions, and how we might embody the wisdom of the natural world and apply it in our work or personal lives. The cottonwood (Populus deltoides wislizenii) forests along the Rio Grande floodplain, also known as the bosque, are the most extensive example of this ecosystem type in the Southwest and are also among the most altered and endangered environments globally. Yet, these enduring trees and their forest companions have an inspiring story to tell—one of nurturance, resilience, and connectivity.

Cottonwood trees are the matriarchs of the bosque, speaking to us through example, showing us how to foster life. They provide shade for animals and understory plants during the hot summers of the desert valley. They offer leaf litter mulch to keep plant roots moist and create habitat for insects and small mammals. Upon their bark and in their branches they house fungal organisms, porcupines, birds, and mistletoe (Viscum album). These forests weave themselves together with other habitat types to form a mosaic of ecosystem resilience that has existed for millions of years along the banks of one of the Southwest’s great rivers. These corridors of life stretch for hundreds of miles connecting critical habitats for migrating birds and other animals and have provided the sustenance of life for innumerable generations of people. The magnificence of their rugged bark, twisting branches, and heart-shaped leaves decorate the foreground of the skyscape above me as I walk through this living landscape. Inspired by such an example, the non-profit organization, the Yerba Mansa Project was born, and our community found a new pathway to reclaim its responsibility to care for the floodplain and facilitate the restoration of native medicinal plants.

As treasured as this riparian environment is, both ecologically and culturally, extensive water diversions, dams, and groundwater pumping threaten its health and vitality. In a state of accelerating decline, the trees that have nurtured life for so long and all the accompanying native plants of this living system now need help. The Yerba Mansa Project volunteers have been mimicking the message of cottonwoods, taking sustained action for the last six years, helping to foster native medicinal plant communities along the floodplain. As our name suggests, the Yerba Mansa Project’s field crew, comprised of multigenerational community volunteers, has planted several stands of yerba mansa (Anemopsis californica) as well as four species of milkweeds (Asclepias subverticillata, A. asperula, A. latifolia, and A. speciosa), New Mexico olive (Forestiera neomexicana), wolfberry (Lycium torreyi), and false indigo (Amorpha fruticosa), totaling nearly 200 live plants. Working with our community’s children, we have also reseeded nearly 4,000 square feet of bare ground with native grasses, forbs, and shrubs. In addition to planting and reseeding, our volunteers also help to restore native plant habitat through hand removal of invasive nonnative ravenna grass (Saccharum ravennae), a large bunchgrass that overtakes extensive areas, choking out native shrubs and understory plants. To date, nearly 1,700 of these have been removed, providing an opportunity for coyote willows (Salix exigua) and other native plants to rebound in the absence of overwhelming competition for scarce water resources. Students from the Albuquerque Herbalism program demonstrate reciprocity by helping to plant, weed, and water the restoration site and sustaining and tending the live plantings year-round.

The cottonwood forest communiqué, summoning us to care for this land and its native medicinal plants goes beyond this restoration service. Our volunteer staff members also provide free educational programs for school classrooms and the general public in our effort to deepen our community’s understanding, appreciation, and stewardship for the bosque as a living system. The Yerba Mansa Project has worked with 16 local schools, over 300 individual students, and provided over 50 free public programs. These students have also researched local native plants and published their work in our in-progress Plants of the Middle Rio Grande Bosque Field Guide via iNaturalist, creating another valuable community resource to help others learn about our local plants. Our staff members continue their work fact checking and editing the guide for accuracy and consistency.

The Yerba Mansa Project serves as an example of what a community can do when roused into passionate and informed action inspired by the living example of a forest that we love. We continue to coalesce under the canopy of cottonwoods despite prohibitions on in-person events during the pandemic and other ongoing challenges. These trees showed us the way to stewardship, and we now embody that. The call of the cottonwoods is clear. It is a message of carrying on the traditions of nurturance, resilience, and connectivity with our botanical companions and all living systems. Join us at YerbaMansaProject.org.

If you are inspired by our story and want to learn more about how to start a similar project or why this botanical community is threatened, see:

Saville, Dara. (2017). The Yerba Mansa Project. Journal of Medicinal Plant Conservation, 12-13.

Saville, Dara. (2020). Yerba mansa monograph. Journal of the American Herbalist Guild, 18 (1): 33-42.