The song of the tall dogbane: fibers at the riverbank

Tall dogbane stems and seed capsules, April.

It’s an afternoon in late April along the Clark Fork River near Missoula, Montana, USA. The song of the tall dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum) isn’t obvious, like the red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) that are singing in the aspen grove on the other side of the river, or the European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) that are nesting in the cavities of the cottonwoods. But the dogbane has a song, too, a song it sings with the wind. I can hear it this afternoon as last year’s dead stalks whisper and rustle in the breeze, brushing against the dry stems of its neighbor, reed canarygrass (Phalaris arundinacea).

To know the birds is to become weightless for a time, to imagine life with wings, to sing in celebration. To know the plants is something slower, quieter, but equally powerful. A connection with the plants is rooted in the earth, grounded in place. The birds tell us of migrations, invite us to think globally, to transcend borders, to recognize habitats, perhaps to forget for a time the major environmental costs of travel as we try to imitate their journeys. The plants invite us to slow down, to become rooted in our local soil, to breathe and flex with the circular motions of the seasons.

Dogbane and cultural legacy

Tall dogbane holds a cultural legacy that stretches back for countless generations on the North American continent. Indigenous people have used its durable stem fibers to make string and cord for more lifetimes than I can imagine. As a kid in central North Carolina, I learned this ancient practice of making cord by twisting the fibers of plants. There was a small patch of dogbane along the dirt track that provided access to the neighborhood sewage line. I recognized it as a fiber plant, but I didn’t know how to gather its stem fibers then. Instead, I twisted a much weaker cordage by splitting the leaves of the cattails that grew in a local marsh.

Snow peas and strawberries in the pine needle basket, sewn with dogbane. — Snow peas and strawberries in the pine needle basket that I sewed with dogbane.

Years later in Montana, reading Tom Elpel’s book Foraging the Mountain West, I finally learned how to separate dogbane fibers from the stem. (Sarah Corrigan of Roots School gives a video explanation here). Visiting my mom in Missoula, Montana, I got to know a beautiful, thriving patch of it along the Clark Fork River. In the winter we gathered the dry burgundy stems. I showed my mom how to twist dogbane string and I thought of all of the generations of people who have gathered this plant and thanked it for its gifts. Taking online college classes during the covid pandemic, I twisted dogbane during my writing and anthropology classes and used it to sew bundles of ponderosa pine needles into concentric spirals. Before the pandemic ended, the dogbane and ponderosa pine had become a gathering basket.

Emergence

Last year's dead dogbane stems under the cottonwood canopy. — Last year’s dead dogbane stems under the cottonwood canopy.

And that brings me back to April 2024. As red-winged blackbirds and starlings sing their songs of spring along the Clark Fork River, last year’s dead dogbane stalks whisper to me in the breeze. Under the canopy of cottonwoods, no new growth is yet visible, just the delicate silken tufts of dogbane seeds spilling out of their capsules, suspended from last year’s stems, singing with the wind.

On the gravel bar at the edge of the river, though, the sun has heated the rocky earth. At the base of the dead stalks, new dogbane shoots are just beginning to emerge. I make a goal to pay more attention to these plants this year, to write about them. If I stop to notice them, what will they teach me?

The first new dogbane shoots begin to emerge, April.

May growth

A May rain drenches the dogbane on the gravel bar.

The next time I’m able to visit, it’s an afternoon in late May. A rain shower is pummeling the gravel bar, pattering on the quackgrass (Agropyron repens) and forming glistening beads on new dogbane leaves. The plants have grown swiftly in the last month. On these warm, sun-exposed gravels, the new red shoots are more than a foot tall. Last year’s dead stems, bleached to whitish tan, are still standing next to the young growth.

New dogbane shoots next to last year's growth on the gravel bar. — New dogbane shoots next to last year’s growth on the gravel bar.

By now the yellow warblers (Setophaga petechia) have completed their migratory journey and returned to the cottonwoods. Spotted sandpipers (Actitis macularis) call frequently at the river’s edge. For the dogbane, it’s the season of rapid skyward growth, tender sprouts springing upwards with a supply of carefully-stored underground energy. As I walk under the cottonwoods, where the microclimate is cooler and shadier, I can see that the new stalks are still far behind, only a few inches tall. Here I find the wild licorice (Glycyrrhiza lepidota), too, the young shoots just emerging and launching their own race towards the sky.

A young dogbane shoot in the cottonwood understory.

The hummingbird

A red-naped sapsucker perches in a red-osier dogwood.

The rain shower ends. The birds around the dogbane become active again and resume their singing. I’m watching two red-naped sapsuckers (Sphyrapicus nuchalis) in a red-osier dogwood (Cornus sericea), gleaning aphids from the leaves, when a hummingbird suddenly appears 15 yards in front of me. She’s a female with buffy flanks, a calliope hummingbird (Selasphorus calliope), and she’s hovering at the tips of last year’s dogbane stems. What could she possibly be doing?

Suddenly, I connect the dots: is she harvesting the little bits of seed fluff that remain, in the process of constructing her nest? I scramble for my camera, but I have trouble focusing it and then she’s gone. I’m left wondering if I really saw what I think I did. A few minutes later she returns and perches on a red-osier dogwood branch. I keep hoping she’ll visit the dogbane again, but instead she flies away. I’m left with a mystery.

A spider among the stems

The next time I visit, it’s mid-June. A cicada is singing from the cottonwoods above the dogbane patch. Western wood-pewees (Contopus sordidulus) whistle repetitively, and a blackish spider the size of a mustard seed waits in its multilayered web. The web is suspended from the scaffolding of one of last year’s white-bleached dogbane stems. It’s dotted with the remnants of tiny moths that the spider has trapped. A few yards away, a common whitetail dragonfly (Plathemis lydia) finds a perch on another weathered dogbane stalk.

June dogbane growth beneath the cottonwoods.

The new dogbane has grown incredibly in the last month, as have its neighbors the grasses and the wild licorice. The stems are still supple and green, the leaves full-grown but tender, their pale veins and midribs strongly contrasting. Intent on the spider, I brush past too hastily, injuring a leaf, and it beads up with milky white sap. The sap tastes very bitter, a powerful hint to would-be herbivores: I’m strong medicine! Don’t eat me!

Dogbane on the gravel bar

Back at the sunny gravel bar, spring field crickets (Gryllus veletis) sing among waist-high dogbane shoots. Predictably, this patch continues to be well ahead of the shady dogbane. The upper stems are branching and the flower buds are already emerging. Spotted sandpipers call from the other side of the river as I run my hands through the wild mint (Mentha arvensis) growing under the dogbane and breathe in its rich, pungent scent.

Wild mint on the gravel bar, shaded by dogbane.

I plan to visit the dogbane again in July, to spend a day or more watching the insects that come to its flowers. But the summer slips past, the fall too, and I migrate with the yellow warblers to my partner’s natal earth in Oaxaca, Mexico, the environmental costs of air travel nagging at the back of my mind. The dogbane stays behind, rooted in the river gravels. A part of me stays with it.

Slow steps towards the plants

There’s no tall dogbane here in Oaxaca; its range ends in northern Mexico, mountains and deserts away. I miss this familiar friend. Little by little, I’m finding a place here, making new acquaintances and friendships. Including with the plants. On my morning and evening walks, I take photos of those that call my attention, attempt to learn about them. People tell me the local names and I try to remember them. I learn and forget and learn again, little bits and pieces of the incredible living richness of traditional plant knowledge, uses, and relationships.

In our house, too, the plants are helping me put down roots. There’s no space for a garden, but I’m making compost with our food scraps and fallen leaves, mixing it with dirt that washes down the street, filling pots and wooden crates with homegrown soil. I’ve planted the ginger that grandfather Teo gave us, radishes, basil, tomatoes, hierbabuena, a passionfruit vine that my friend Joel gifted me. I scooped the tomato seeds out of the fruits and fermented them before I planted them: three varieties, a commercial roma, and two small local tomates criollos. The first ones are starting to flower now. Maybe there will be tomatoes before I return to Montana in mid-March.

Little by little is okay with the plants: they’re right here, patient, waiting for us to learn. As my friends Cat Raan and Syd Morical, herbalists and founders of Wild Wanders in Missoula, Montana like to say, every slow step towards the plants is a step of healing, for us and for the earth.

Dogbane beetles

Winter dogbane pods and stems along the Clark Fork River, November 2022.

As I keep reading more about dogbane, I find an article by Mary Ann Borge, a New Jersey-based naturalist who has done the sort of patient insect-watching that I didn’t get around to in 2024. She shares photos of a variety of bees, butterflies, beetles, and flies visiting dogbane flowers. Her story also introduces me to the dogbane beetle (Chrysochus auratus), an iridescent-green herbivore that specializes on dogbanes and related plants. I make a note to keep my eyes open for dogbane beetles this summer.

Dogbane’s strong stem fibers give us cord and rope and can connect us to this plant, to the earth where it lives, to thousands of generations of indigenous traditions. For me, dogbane is woven into my life in the memories of my childhood, the fibers of my pine needle basket, the threads of this story, in my gratitude for all that this plant teaches me, all that it gives. Dogbane invites me to become rooted in my local soil.

Becoming rooted

My appreciation for this plant has grown with every encounter, and a whole world has begun to show itself. Dead stalks singing in the April breeze. The silk of a hummingbird nest, the scaffolding of a spider web. The perch of a dragonfly, the strong fibers that connect me to the earth. For me, dogbane has become part of the heartbeat of the cottonwood forest—and are there dogbane beetles in this Missoula patch, too?

The plants wait for us, patiently—wherever we are—inviting us to slow down, to become rooted, to breathe and shift with the round rhythms of the seasons. Their invitation is a song, soft but steady. Dogbane stalks rustling in the April breeze. Can you hear it?

Wild With Nature