For years, this remarkable tree has greeted me on countless walks through the never-depeveloped forest at the New York Botanical Garden. I have come to know it in every season, but it is in the dimming afternoon that it never fails to stop me in my tracks. Looking up through its crown, I find what appears to be a constellation overhead.

As Robin W. Kimmerer states, its greatest gift may be the way it nourishes relationships, offering its berries freely to birds, wildlife, and people alike, inviting us to consider a world rooted in reciprocity, gratitude, and abundance.

As spring deepens, the plants that brightly illuminated the forest floor in early spring gradually disappear. In their place, the small trees and shrubs within the forest begin to stretch and awaken. Trees such as the serviceberries, redbuds, dogwoods, and various types of azaleas and flowering shrubs… If you look upward at about a 15-degree angle and your view is filled with blossoms, it means the lower vegetation is well-developed and the forest is healthy. This is like the forests along the backbone of the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States, where these plants originate.

As spring deepens, the plants that brightly illuminated the forest floor in early spring gradually disappear. In their place, the small trees and shrubs within the forest begin to stretch and awaken. Trees such as the serviceberries, redbuds, dogwoods, and various types of azaleas and flowering shrubs… If you look upward at about a 15-degree angle and your view is filled with blossoms, it means the lower vegetation is well-developed and the forest is healthy. This is like the forests along the backbone of the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States, where these plants originate.

Under the warm spring sunlight, the magnificent pairing of the New York Botanical Garden Library and the magnolia shines brightly. My book, Asking the Way in the Garden, has been cataloged as part of the Library’s collection.

Whenever teachers at school gave us planting design assignments, they would say, "You must use a lot of North American native plants." Somehow, that always felt “right” to me. In one of the classes, that book was a supplementary textbook. As I binge-listened to the Native Plant Podcast, I found myself gradually, partially indoctrinated. If my English had been better, I might have been fully indoctrinated.