Introduction

One Ojibwe legend tells of a lone chickadee who sought shelter under a Tamarack tree in winter. During a fierce storm, the chickadee was cold, trapped, and alone. Chickadee asked the Tamarack tree to lower its branches for warmth, but the tree refused. For this, the Great Spirit, Wenabozho, punished the Tamarack.

As Ojibwe author Anne M. Dunn writes in her book, Fire in the Village: New and Selected Stories,¹ Wenabozho promises the Tamarack,

“Every autumn, your fine green needles will turn brown and fall off. Then you will stand naked in the forest all winter, as a reminder to others that it is always better to be kind and merciful than it is to be vain and selfish.”

In the telling of the story, the Tamarack becomes a signifier of something larger than itself, the ephemeral nature of life on earth, and the reciprocity that living beings should practice and nurture.

The needles of each Tamarack meet the ground every autumn, golden and crisp, marking the passage of time. Its lively expression in October is brief and wondrous. Vibrant fuchsia cones and baby-green needles are part of the cycle of new growth in spring. This and the Tamarack’s “wind-swept sweetness” define the character of the landscapes where it grows.²

These become places we can begin to understand more fully through Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and stories in addition to the plant’s biology. Plant knowledge held through the oral traditions of Indigenous peoples compels us to view plants as living archives rather than simply specimens, a shift in perspective that is necessary to understand how to use plants for ecological design and restoration. With its rich roots and spiny branches covering most of New England, the tree’s seasonal qualities could become a symbol for the conservation of America’s wetlands.

The Tamarack tree species belongs to the genus Larix in western botanical nomenclature and is known by many names across different regions. In North America, the common name Tamarack refers to the American Larch (Larix laricina), also known as the Eastern Larch and Hackmatack. The other ten widely accepted species in the same genus are generally referred to as Larch trees. This narrative focuses on the characteristics of the Tamarack, while also introducing other Larch species to compare their significances within indigenous cultures across different regions globally.

Among the Ojibwe Nation in the Great Lakes Region, the Tamarack is called mshkiigwaatig in the Ojibwa language, among other names.³ Some of these names specifically relate to Indigenous philosophies about the interconnectedness of humans and plants, such as the Siberian Indigenous dialect name Tuuru for the Siberian Larch (Larix sibirica), while others such as “tamarack” are adopted from misinterpretations of indigenous words in English from colonial times, and as a result carry little to no holistic meaning in English.⁴ The Ojibwe word is similar to the word that Potawatomi people use to refer to all plants, mshkikinek, or “the growers of the world.”⁵ According to 2022 MacArthur Fellow, ecologist, ethnobotanist, and Indigenous scholar Robin Wall Kimmerer, mshkikinek directly translates as “medicines,” with the root mshkiki meaning “strength of the earth.”⁶

Humanity’s fascination with trees has been expressed in many ways across time, from cosmology to botany to landscape design. Trees are often treated as both living organisms and botanical specimens through Indigenous rituals, traditional ecological knowledge, and Western scientific taxonomies.⁷ The legend of the Tamarack and the Chickadee illustrates how Indigenous storytelling can connect people to place through plant species. Tamarack trees and other Larix species are featured in many histories, inspiring us to think of how a palimpsest of narratives can inform the future of landscape and plant knowledge, and what role Indigenous knowledge can play in understanding living systems.

Characteristics and Habitat

Larch trees belong to the pine family and are native to the northern hemisphere in North America, Europe, and Asia.⁸ Like most pine trees, they prefer colder climates. Unlike any other pine species, however, the Larch is deciduous. It stores nutrients in dormancy during winter, adapting to tough climates easily: without needles, branches are less likely to break from the weight of snow and the force of wind. It is also more fire resilient when new shoots emerge in the spring. Its roots are fibrous, shallow, and wide-reaching. The Larch is monoecious and produce cones at around 25 years of age.⁹ Tamaracks are a pioneer species, meaning after a large disturbance such as erosion, pollution, or fire causing other species to perish, the tree is known for aggressively colonizing those soils, being one of the first species to grow there. It is an extremely resilient plant species. Observing the growth patterns of Tamarack trees can signify unique traits of an ecosystem such as disturbances to a wetland or other historic climatic events.

Each tamarack species prefers distinct growing conditions. In the Pacific Northwest, long swaths of gold needles from Western Larch (Larix occidentalis) cover the sunny mountainsides, depending on snowmelt to carry nutrients and water to its roots in early summer. The Tamarack, or American Larch (Larix laricina), can be found in wet soil along wetlands and bogs across the Northern Hemisphere in Canada and the northeastern United States. Its prominent Asian counterparts are Larix siberica, which has inhabited the Northern taiga in Siberia, and potaninii and kaempferi, found in the temperate forests in China and Japan, respectively.¹⁰

Larches grow old, but not alone. Like most forest trees, the Larch is part of a network of living systems. Even though most live for about 200 years, and the European Larch has been reported to live as long as 2,000 years, almost all grow among other tree species. They often grow in pure stands and occasionally as an understory tree to other conifers. Insects and small mammals consume the tree’s bark and needles. Often, ospreys will choose to nest in its crown.

Among the three North American species, ectomycorrhizal fungi are often found burrowing in their tree roots; these microorganisms are essential for 90 percent of all temperate and boreal forest trees for nutrient cycling, plant health, decomposition, and carbon sequestration.¹¹

One need not look far into New England’s temperate forests in the fall before seeing the golden cloak of Tamarack needles. In an urban context, 169 Larches representing six species, including the Tamarack, currently thrive at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston. The Arboretum has documented each of the trees’ provenance, tracing their place of origin as a seed from Siberia, Mongolia, and Russia to Western Sichuan, China, to Central Europe and the Pacific Northwestern United States. Many of the trees arrived as seeds, shipped from other continents in the 1800s to exhibit Larix’s diversity of species. Botanists were confident these non-native species would thrive alongside the Tamarack in the New England climate due to similar growing conditions in east Asia.¹²

Western Botanical Documentations of Tamarack

Early European travelers’ accounts sometimes referred to the medicinal properties of the Tamarack in North America before Linnean classification became the standard in the eighteenth century. John Josselyn, an English traveler and physician, recorded medicinal uses of the tree while recording species of plants in America. “The Turpentine that issueth from the Cones of the Larch-tree … is singularly good to heal wounds, and to draw out the malice of any Ach,” recalls Josselyn in his travel record, An Account of two Voyages to New England, in 1674.¹³ “Groundsels made of Larch-tree will never rot … Oh, that my Countreymen might obtain that blessing with their buildings,” he writes of the benefits of using the tree for timber.¹⁴ Josselyn’s account also preserves some Indigenous knowledge of North American trees recorded at the time by white settlers.

Several Western botanists who traveled the globe attempted to document and classify all species of Larch trees, including the Tamarack. North America was of particular interest, and between 1768 and 1900, several scientists published taxonomies of the trees native to the continent. Such publications, however, seldom included information about traditional ecological knowledge or Indigenous knowledge about plants.¹⁵

The first classification of North American Larch trees in botanical science dates to when French botanist André Michaux traveled to the newly formed United States in 1785, with a mission of bringing trees home constructing ships for the French Navy.¹⁶ Following in his father’s footsteps, Francois André Michaux became a successful botanist and traveler, who continued to document American plant life.¹⁷ He published The North American Sylva; or, A Description of the Forest Trees of the United States, Canada, and Nova Scotia, in three volumes.¹⁸ Francois André later managed farmland in France, pursuing his interest in the cultivation of trees grown from the seeds he collected in North America. The work of both father and son provided a strong base upon which American botanists were to build scientific knowledge of Larix species for the next century.

Enter Charles Sprague Sargent, a leading American botanist, conservationist, and educator, whose work in taxonomizing North American plants became essential to introducing the North American public to the trees that were not native to New England. In 1873, Sargent became the first director of the Arnold Arboretum. He sought to protect American forests from lumber harvesting and worked alongside landscape architects and city planners to ensure the future of the trees at the Arboretum. Sargent followed his predecessors in the field of western botany to categorize and document plants for the larger purpose of expanding plant knowledge in the United States, as reflected in his landmark publication, The Silva of North America: a description of the trees which grow naturally in North America exclusive of Mexico.¹⁹ As the work’s scope was scientific, it included minimal cultural references, although Sargent was familiar with John Josselyn’s travelogue, as a footnote in Silva indicates. With “untiring zeal and energy,” Sargent worked to introduce to the United States tree species from China, Siberia, Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Tibet, and Nepal through a series of expeditions led by experienced plant collectors to whom he outsourced his work.²⁰ What survives of these expeditions are the species that make up the living collection at the Arboretum.

Sargent’s interest in Asian species was primarily scientific, though he also counted on the endeavors of botanists seeking to introduce new plants to nurseries for commercial purposes. This is how he met E. H. Wilson, who had been collecting seeds for a large nursery in England called Veitch & Sons. Wilson provided much of the text for Plantae Wilsonianae, an account of the species native to Western Sichuan, the seeds of which Wilson sent to Sargent for the Arboretum. Many of the species that grow in Boston’s soil today originated from expeditions such as Wilson’s.

Wilson referred to Chinese Larch (Larix potaninii), noting its “decidedly handsome and striking” qualities.²¹ He writes of the tree’s practical use for construction as a valuable timber in the western Sichuan region.²² As Sylvia Barry Sutton, the author of Sargent’s biography, writes: “One is thankful, finally, that it was Wilson and not Sargent who explored China, because it is unlikely that Sargent would have written about anything but the flora.”²³ Indeed, Wilson was interested in much more than the species itself, although he did not mention any of the traditional uses of the Chinese Larch.

Traditional Uses of the Tamarack

“Narratives of all kinds—stories, tales, and rumors—are the stuff of ideas—concepts and hypotheses—and the stuffing of history,” write the authors of Dirt.²⁴ But how do we cite, record, and archive oral histories, especially when such stories have been nearly eradicated through colonial and extractive forces? The Tamarack tree, as a living archive, could be one answer. Indigenous groups and shamans have harnessed its bark, sap, and needles for medicinal purposes for over 3,000 years. The long, spindly form of Larix siberica has ties to spiritual worlds of nomadic groups in northern Asia, and local water management organizations have recognized the Tamarack for its role in stabilizing wetlands across the midwestern United States.²⁵

In addition to its medicinal uses known to both First Nations and traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners, Larix is a subject of living legends that reflect traditional lifestyles and plant knowledge.²⁶ Across the Pacific, the world’s largest taiga stretches across Siberia from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Historians have postulated that the Siberian Larch holds great spiritual power to groups of people living in the region, and is the connection between their spiritual and physical worlds through studying illustrations that were drawn on drum heads.²⁷ Since as early as 600 CE, the Evenki people, nomadic groups of three to ten immediate families indigenous to northern Siberia, Mongolia, and eastern China, revered the Larch tree for its practical uses and spiritual meaning. In the winter, they use its needles for insulation inside shelters as protection from the frozen ground. They use the timber for crafting ceremonial sculptures, such as carvings of birds that sit atop a “spirit pole” at the residence of a shaman to signify the connection between the human and spirit worlds.²⁸

Tuuru translates to “world tree” in the Indigenous Siberian Evenki Tungus language.²⁹ The Evenki people believe that Tuuru connected their three worlds: the upper world, where deities and spirits of nature resided, the middle world, inhabited by humans, and the lower world, home to spirits of the dead. Siberian Shamans believe that the tree is the bridge that connects them to the three worlds.³⁰ Perhaps the Siberian Larch is chosen for its grittiness, its strength to survive the harsh taiga, or for its fire-resistant bark. While it is not clear why Evenki Shamans chose the Larch tree, the practice of selecting a tree as symbolic of worldviews is common among many shamanic religions.

Shamanic traditions that center on the Larch tree continue today, including securing ribbons to the tree trunk to symbolize a myriad of offerings for the spirits.³¹ Thousands of Siberian Larches dot the shores of Lake Baikal, where the Buryat people live, another nomadic clan in the Siberian region. Their offerings are tied to the ancient tree’s branches, reaching toward the sun in search of nutrients, and passing down knowledge from the spirits above.

The North Asian Reindeer-Evenki are a small nomadic group of 200 people whose culture is in danger of extinction. They continue to practice traditional ways of life including having their shaman as a “mediator between human society and the world of spirits.”³² Under shamans’ leadership, the clan, or kala in Tungus northern dialect, developed a system of beliefs whereby the spirits of the upper world cause all events in nature, including births and deaths.³³ Tuuru is the physical symbol of how the spirits travel between worlds and is, therefore, one of the cornerstones of Evenki cosmology.

Design Considerations

Traditional practices ultimately protect ecosystems by forging a strong connection of people with place through an understanding of plant relationships.³⁴ Consider how the spiritual practice of Ojibwe storytelling may impact the daily practice of protecting the value of wetlands, lakes, and the species that thrive there. The Tribal Council of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe’s Division of Resource Management and Environmental Lands Department lists resources and information about wetland health and protection on its website for local landowners to reference and to encourage wetland restoration on the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota.³⁵ While there are no direct mentions of the Tamarack, their website lists the importance of healthy wetlands, including how vegetation along agricultural areas has aided in containing excess phosphorus and nitrogen from runoff water.³⁶

If we consider the Tamarack as a wetland stabilizer that aids in phytoremediation, associating the tree with values of reciprocity can further generate values and respect for our wetland ecologies, which can catalyze efforts to restore and preserve this important landscape typology. When considered alongside Western botanical studies, the two sources of knowledge have very different perspectives to offer. In using texts such as Charles Sargent’s Silva of North America to identify the Tamarack, and in considering the spiritual meaning of the species for shaman rituals, a sense of place can be understood more meaningfully as a complex network of individuals coexisting in places that are unique to the climate, species, and rituals of that area.

Traditional knowledge practices teach us more about plants than just their medicinal and other practical uses. They teach us about our relationship with larger ecological systems. They relate us to place. Through oral traditions like the Ojibwe legend about the tamarack, we begin to understand the spiritual meaning of the species, and the place that it occupies in the worldview of Indigenous communities. Through a single species, we begin to understand the symbiotic patterns of the relationship between humans and plants. This deeper understanding can also shift our perspective on the meaning and purpose of designed spaces.

Design can represent the relationships between plants and by grouping certain species or making connections by storytelling through plants. The key to using plants as the catalyst in the design process is that it must acknowledge the role of the people whose stories are being told. The design may be the agent, but the people are the protagonists. If one were to tell the story of the Tamarack through design, it should be built around the living stories, past and present, about this tree.

The beautiful colors of Tamarack that are catalyzed by the seasonal cycle of decay and renewal make it an atypical choice for design projects. Yet, there are potential opportunities to consider the tree as a symbol to encourage wetland habitats across New England. Tamarack tree forests usually have a dense herbaceous layer and a somewhat full shrub layer, contributing to a rich ecosystem along riparian zones.

Additionally, wetland habitats in the United States have been historically filled in to transform marshes into fields to sustain crops. At the time of European settlement, the United States had 221 million acres of wetlands. Generally viewed as wastelands in the 1700s, wetlands were drained by early colonizers by constructing ditches and rerouting waterways into canals to navigate to western regions.³⁷ This manipulation of American watersheds continued through the Industrial Revolution and increased sharply in the 1900s through government-supported rebate programs for farmers for building levees, water-diversion projects, and dams. By the 1980s, 50 percent of these wetlands had disappeared.

Wetlands are incredibly biodiverse ecosystems that sustain the ecological health of each region. They enhance water quality, control erosion, sequester carbon, and provide crucial habitat for threatened species.³⁸ The protection of American wetland regions began in the 1950s, slowly gaining pace; in the 1980s, federal agencies aided in restoring 90,000 acres in just three years. Tamaracks create a unique sense of place with their seasonal changes of color and dynamic dropping of needles in dense, marshy groves. A Tamarack growing at the water’s edge can also signify abundant moisture in the soil. Observing the conditions of a Tamarack and the distinct manners in which it grows can tell us a great deal about its larger environment and its role in the wetland ecosystem.

Due to these characteristics, the Tamarack could be the poster child of wetland restoration within the design disciplines. The associations it builds with soil, water, climate, and people are at the core of creating a functional and thriving wetland ecosystem. Drawing from Ojibwe stories about the Tamarack can incite a level of reciprocity and acknowledging the tree’s role in a larger living network of beings, one which designers should protect and curate for the health of future wetland landscapes. To conserve marshes along the eastern coast and Great Lakes regions of the United States, the Tamarack could help highlight the significance and history of these landscapes.

References