In late summer, the shores of Ihepetonga—the Lenape name for Red Hook, Brooklyn—are teeming with worldly vibrance. Chornobyl Polyn zvychajny from Ukraine, (Mugwort, or Artemisia vulgaris in Latin); Chenopodium murale from Greece (Nettle-leaf goosefoot, or “a little foot of the walls” in its Latin name); and Liu Chuan Yu from Central Asia and Siberia (Toadflax, or Linaria supina) cling to ballast soil beneath ruptured pavement. Winds sweep through chain link fences guarding vacant lots, and seeds of this generation are released. Seeds hold memories in their DNA, carrying information from ancestors about when to germinate in new locations and when to lie dormant. Each generation gains traits by cross-pollinating with nearby related species while providing food for bees and butterflies who gather their pollen and nectar. Winter is a time for storing energy, when seeds gather strength to germinate quickly once exposed to the early spring rains and changing light. Some call these plants weeds, outliers or “invasive”; they are also kin, neighbors and mothers.

“Wild” plants have co-evolved with humans for millions years, providing essential amino acids in our diets while also forming symbiotic fungal and bacterial communities with other kin underground. As Chornobyl Polyn zvychajnyj emerges around industrial urban sites, its rhizomatous roots form dense mats that breaking up the asphalt above. Chornobyl is a phytoaccumulator, a plant that can absorb toxins and poisonous heavy metals from the soil and store pollutants in its biomass. In traditional Ashkenazi medicine, Chornobyl is used as a bitter stimulant for the circulatory and nervous systems and for the relief of abdominal cramping, externally as an anti-inflammatory and also an energetic cleanser when it is tucked underneath a pillow at night or dried and burned.

Brushing past Kropyva (Stinging nettle or Urtica dioica in Latin), one feels tiny hairs on its stem invite penetration of human skin. Kropyva has been used for generations in Ukraine, Poland and Greece in a practice of urtication, or beating of oneself with the plant for the circulation of blood, bringing on simultaneous pain relief and onset of burning symptoms. Kropyva grows wild on the banks of rivers in waste places, where detritus and excess nitrogen gather. It is a highly nutritive, tonic plant that has anti-histamine and anti-inflammatory properties, and can help to regulate many human body systems when consumed internally.

These “wild,” “alien” plants cling to the edges, areas full of things we’d rather ignore. Commingling with everything that collects at the shoreline—tiny shards of metal, pet excrement, and errant plastic waste—weeds are opportunists, migrants from across seas, having traveled at the behest of human captors. Chornobyl has stories to tell, if we hone our listening skills and make time to hear them. The histories of their migration are embedded in our stories, but plants have a more-than-human access to history. Their languages are of light, breeze and temperature, of abundance and lineage.

Photographs by Marisa Prefer.

Marisa Prefer works across disciplines to cultivate care among multispecies communities, serving as a horticultural consultant with artists and cultural institutions to shape exhibitions, curricula, programs and workshops that connect people within their ecosystems. Marisa stewards unceded Canarsie and Munsee Lenape lands (Brooklyn, New York) as the Manager of Sustainability and Environmental Engagement at Pioneer Works, applying skills as an educator and herbalist to projects that are centered around plants, environmental justice and empowerment. Marisa was the Horticultural Advisor for Maria Thereza Alves, Seeds of Change: New York — A Botany of Colonization.