Sweetgrass
Hierochloe odorata
Also called Holy grass, Vanilla grass
- Blackfoot
- siputsimo
- Cree
- wi-kahsk
Know another name for this plant, or a different spelling? Tell us.
A soft grass that smells of vanilla as it dries, braided in three and burned as a smudge. It has been picked hard across the prairies and is thin on the ground in many places.
Speak with someone who knows this plant before you harvest it.
Take care
- Sweetgrass has been over-picked in much of southern Alberta. If you find only a small patch, leave it be.
What it is confused with
Easily confusedOther meadow grasses
The smell settles it. Pick one blade, bruise it, and let it wilt in your hand for a minute. If there is no vanilla, it is not sweetgrass.
How to know it
- Smell
- Sweet and vanilla-like, faint on the living plant and strong as it dries. Nothing else in a wet meadow smells like it.
- Leaves
- Flat, smooth and shiny, brighter and glossier than the grasses around it.
- Base
- The base of the shoots is often purplish or reddish where it meets the ground.
- Habit
- Spreads by runners, so it comes up in loose patches rather than tight clumps.
- Season
- Greens up early and flowers early, well before most prairie grasses.
The country it grows in
- Sloughs and wet meadows
- Riverbanks and willow flats
- Open prairie
- Aspen parkland
Landscape types only. We do not publish where a patch is, and we are not going to.
When it is ready
- Leaves June to AugustBest once the blades are long, before they brown off.
Right now it is July. Something on this plant is in season.
What it is used for
- Smudge and ceremony
- Teaching with youth
Blades are gathered, kept flat, and braided in three while still supple, then dried.
One of the plants most consistently named across the plains nations as a smudge and an offering.
How it is prepared
- Dried and stored
Braid while green and flexible, then dry flat out of the sun. A finished braid keeps its smell for years.
- Smudge
The end of a braid is lit and blown out so it smoulders and gives off sweet smoke.
Protocol
Ask the plant first, and offer something before you take anything. Tobacco is what is most often offered here. Say who you are, and say what the medicine is for.
Harvest the mature plants and leave the small ones to grow. Never take the first plant you find, and never take all of them.
Take only what you will actually use. Medicine picked and then left to rot in a bag was taken for nothing.
Leave the ground as you found it. Put back any dirt you dug up, and return any plant material you do not use to the earth.
Do not gather beside roads, highways or trails, where the plants take up whatever has been sprayed or spilled there.
If you are not certain what a plant is, do not pick it and do not put it in your mouth. Ask someone. Being wrong in the field is how people get hurt.
Cut or pull blades one at a time and leave the roots. Pulling up the root mat is how a sweetgrass patch is lost for good.
Where a patch is small, the right answer is often to leave it entirely and go somewhere else.