What is your plant story?
We have two ways for visitors to tell their stories.
Click here to submit a story for our story garden.
We will add additional images, herbarium specimens, and other features such as hyperlinks. You are welcome to share images with us if you choose, but these are not required.
Snapshot Story Submission Form
Maybe you don’t have the time or inclination to write a story but still want to be part of the community?
Click here, and you will be invited to share a “Snapshot Story” where you can upload a photo and answer a few simple questions about your plant.
Root Stories
Root Stories offer plant stories written by historical figures–nature writers, scientists, poets, and others. If you wish to contribute to this part of the site, please contact us directly.
Need some help getting started with a Story Garden post?
Check out the following prompts.
Some prompts to think about people and plants:
What is the first plant you remember encountering? What was significant about the encounter?
Is there a plant you use for medicine? How did you learn of its use? Do you still use it today?
What is your favorite / most interesting / most terrifying / happiest encounter with a plant?
What is your favorite plant to cook with? Why?
Have you relocated and are you missing a plant?
Have you relocated and found a new plant to love?
Did someone help you to see a new plant, or to see an old plant in a new way?
Some prompts to think about plant life:
What are some challenges the plant faces?
Does it struggle with too little or too much water / sun / shade / insects / other threats?
Where or when does the plant thrive? Spring? Summer? Fall? Shade? Sun? Forest? Garden?
If the plant could share a story of its life, what might that be?
Does the plant change color over time?
Do its leaves or blossoms move to follow the sun / close up at night / climb over rocks / twine around supports or other plants?
Do you think the plant communicates with other plants or insects in its environment? If so, how (color / scent / other)?
Reflection Questions:
Looking back now on this experience with ___ plant, I can see that . . .
What I didn’t know then that I know now is . . .
What I wonder about now regarding this plant is . . .
The Herbaria 3.0 team may edit your story for length or content. By submitting your story on our site, you permit us to edit your story accordingly.
