Last month, I turned a spring ski session into a usnea harvest outing while in the mountains of Montana. If I am in a new area, or bioregion with plants different than the ones from my own homeland, you can be sure I am out learning plants and gathering those I know and that are useful in my apothecary.

Traveling gives me a unique perspective as a forager and herbalist. It allows me to gather medicines I don’t have immediate to my neighborhood (once of course I have firm bearings on the plant’s distribution and a potential gathering site), and it helps me appreciate the uniqueness of the land of both where I am visiting and where I live. AND it gives me a reason to seek out local, regional plant guides!

Usnea species or Old Man’s Beard grows prolifically in Northern Michigan and across alpine regions of the Midwest, across the Rockies and beyond. It’s a common lichen and useful in the apothecary as a tincture for infections in combination with herbs like echinacea. I gathered this usnea to compare it to the usnea local to my bioregion to see how they may differ in flavor and depth.