A Walk in the Park

Connecting with wild plants taught me to be present and to really see things that I had previously only noticed.

- DAKOTA KIM

I'VE BEEN ON FORAGING walks before, where naturalists taught me the medicinal and nutritional properties of wild greenery. But walking through Lower Arroyo Park in Pasadena, California, with Bat Vardeh as my guide feels different. We crouch down and peer at tiny plants that are usually crushed by our feet, marveling at their regenerative and medicinal powers. I'll never look at this park-which I thought was just a dry, dusty bowl-the same way again.

I'm on a plant walk, a tour in which a guide leads you through a designated area to learn about flora, including their biology, history, and edible and medicinal uses. During this outing, I'm learning the biology of the plants that populate this environment, as well as some aspects of each one's cultural significance. Many plant walks also honor Native Americans and Indigenous people by describing cultural and historical uses of the plants and urging those on the tour to leave sacred plants for Indigenous use.

I met Vardeh, a 25-year-old Angeleno with an ardent love for greenery, through the 1,300-member group she founded, called Foraging and Mushroom Hunting Women of SoCal. In her group, women connect to take plant walks, forage together, and trade tips. Vardeh's level of knowledge about plants, which she gained through self-taught research and foraging on her own, seems nearly encyclopedic.

Today, Vardeh's brown braid trails over a shirt advertising a book called Seed Propagation of Native California Plants, by Dara E. Emery. She sports a wide-brimmed canvas hat and long pants, and has a small pouch slung over her shoulder. In this way, he's an unusual sight in a park packed with scantily clad runners, their sweat glistening on their skin. We hurry past them to the next botanic object of fascination.