About Rich in Nature

I’m Rich, a naturalist specializing in woody plants.

I started Rich in Nature to slow down, look closely, and keep a record of what the field keeps teaching me. Trees and other woody plants are my strongest specialty, but they continually lead me into larger questions about habitat, climate, elevation, geology, water, wildlife, ecological relationships, and why one landscape looks and functions differently from another.

I’m interested in confident identifications when the evidence supports them—and in living honestly with uncertainty when it doesn’t. I would rather leave a plant at genus or family than manufacture certainty simply because a species name would make the story tidier.

The work now ranges from Cascade conifer forests and Eastern woodlands to the Sonoran Desert, Southwestern riparian corridors, pinyon-juniper country, coasts, and wherever curiosity leads next.

Geography changes; the method does not.

Observe closely. Ask questions. Follow the evidence. Return with better eyes.

Rich in Nature is not about collecting the largest possible species list or pretending every walk produces definitive answers. It is about something I have experienced repeatedly as a naturalist:

the more you learn about the living world, the more the landscape stops being scenery and starts becoming readable.

And if that sounds interesting, come along.