a new field guide to the south Coast Salish camas prairie plants

I have some good news. Since its publication in 2016, roughly 1,000 copies of Vascular Plants of the South Sound Prairies have sold, a remarkably large number for a book printed by a very small press. In 2026, a new field guide to the south Coast Salish camas prairie plants will be launched on the tenth anniversary of The Evergreen State College Press publishing the first edition. The revised field guide will include illustrations and descriptions of roughly 200 plants found in the south Coast Salish glacial outwash prairies and associated oak woodlands. Our collaborative, community-based research has been generously supported by the Evergreen Foundation and the Washington Native Plant Society. For a period of over twenty years, more than fifty students from The Evergreen State College have collected herbarium specimens, illustrated and described plants, and wrote about the natural and cultural history of these remarkable ecosystems to make this field guide possible. In our work to foster greater awareness of these cultural ecosystems and support ecological restoration efforts, we are cultivating new partnerships with local Tribes committed to increasing access to first foods from camas prairies. We acknowledge the inherent value of traditional Indigenous ecological knowledge. The field guide created by Evergreen students, along with a linked website, contributes to ongoing efforts to tend to Coast Salish prairie plants and the important human relations with them.