“Do you know that woman?” I asked John Mathews while in his front garden in Madison, Wisconsin, last year. We had been deep in conversation about a ginkgo when a…

As a budding horticulturist, my first encounter with prairie dock (Silphium terebinthinaceum) was intriguing and puzzling. The sheer size and verticality of the spade-like leaves slicing through grasses and forbs…