Salal: Listening for the Northwest Understory

Fall 2007

Paperback 263 pages

Non-Fiction

Environmental

Click here to listen to an interview with Laurie Ricou and CBC's North by Northwest's Sheryl MacKay!

"This is a thoroughly enjoyable book. ... In this truly remarkable treatment of a plant by one who sought to know it truly, the subtopics span painting, poetry, language, ecology, sociology, economics, and business development. It captures the thoughts and ideas of people who live within an arm’s length of the salal patch, and of urban dwellers who are more attached to the internet than to the mycorrhizal net of salal in the forest floor." Click here for the full review.
- Canadian Literature

Listen for the Northwest Understory ... literally! Click here to listen to Laurie Ricou read from and discuss Salal.

Salal is a unique book about a commonplace plant. Part travel narrative, part literary memoir, part “ethnography” of a plant that usually goes unnoticed, Laurie Ricou’s book traces the poetry and culture of salal while letting readers in on its secrets. Salal’s high-gloss leaves and delicate salmon-white flowers are compelling, and as a staple of the floral greens industry, its impact is global. Through interviews, commentary, and well-documented research, Ricou tells the stories of salal—how it is used, what it means to writers and artists, how it is gathered, and what the vagaries of the salal industry are all about.

Longtime teacher Ricou records visits to Port Townsend and Pacific Spirit Park, to Courtenay and Victoria, to Calgary and San Antonio, to London and Paris, demonstrating that an uncharismatic plant could become an icon. Salal exposes the artificial divide between nature and culture, ecology and the marketplace.