Braiding Sweetgrass

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two streams of knowledge together. This title was one of the books considered for possible discussion by the Monash Alumni Book Club in January 2026.

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teaching of plants was published in 2013.  In 2022 another edition, Braiding Sweetgrass for young adults was published. 

An aim of the books is to acknowledge and celebrate our reciprocal relationship with the earth resulting in a wider, more complete understanding of our place and purpose in the land. Although Kimmerer is writing about indigenous people and their relationship with the environment in North America, the philosophy expounded also applies to other countries, particularly Australia.

Other books by Kimmerer include The Serviceberry: an economy of gifts and environment, Gathering Moss: a natural and cultural history of mosses, How to Love a Forest: the bitter sweet work of tending a changing world and This Book is a Plant: how to grow, learn and radically engage with the natural world.