🌿 The Roots of Magic: How Plants Shaped My Fantasy World

Monotropa uniflora - Ghost pipes

I’ve crouched beside lobelia in bloom and watched the bees. I’ve cataloged sedges in summer storms, spent hours with dirt under my nails, and marveled at the quiet brilliance of photosynthesis. So when I built a magical world, it was inevitable: the plants came with me.

Even as a little girl, I was enchanted by flowers—their colors, their scents, the way they reached for the sun. I used to ask my parents to pull over during road trips so I could sketch what I found growing wild. I still have the first flower ID book I was gifted in elementary school. It’s no surprise that years later, I became a botanist. Or that my protagonist, Ren’wyn, would share my love of all things green and growing.

Where It Began

During my graduate research, I studied a rare plant called quillwort, known in only five Illinois populations. One of my best days in the field came after a late spring rain in a dolomite prairie. The soil smelled of limestone calamint and rain, the light refracted in droplets on rushes and skullcap, and the wind kept us cool beneath a gentle sun. I was three months pregnant at the time, my hand on my belly, hoping the peace of that place would somehow settle into the child forming inside me.

I’ve touched dwarf iris in coastal fens, tracked pumpkin ash in backwater swamps, and uncovered hidden toadshade in forest seeps. And like me, when Ren’wyn is overwhelmed, she listens for the quiet language of plants.

Plants as Magic

Ren’wyn’s world is shaped by roots and remedies. The stillroom isn’t just a workplace—it’s a sanctuary. It smells of bee balm and figwort, of dried rosehip and beeswax. Her care for plants mirrors her gentle resistance to the violence around her. She knows which roots to poultice, which leaves to dry, and which stems to slice just right for tinctures. She doesn't just harvest—she honors.

I drew on real-world ethnobotany when crafting Aridryn’s herbal medicine. Ren’wyn uses analogues of amaranth for cramps, willow bark for pain, and ghost pipe (based on Monotropa uniflora) for its mythic, antidotal magic. I even gave her an oilskin bag for collecting samples on her travels, a nod to the way we field biologists carry our specimens.

In Aridryn, plants are not just backdrop—they’re lore, livelihood, and lifeline.

Why It Matters

Using real-world plants in fantasy grounds the magic in something tangible. I wanted readers to recognize the shape of a hemlock branch, to picture boreal forest orchids blooming among the roots of northern white cedar. I wanted to honor how indigenous wisdom has shaped our understanding of herbal medicine, and to pass on even a sliver of the reverence that botanists and herbalists carry for the green world.

For Ren’wyn, plants symbolize resilience. They grow in harsh places, survive droughts, and stretch toward light even when buried in shade. She is the same. Her healing arc mirrors the tenacity of wild things—battered but not broken. And when she finally finds the safety she needs, she blossoms.

A Final Invitation

The world is a magical place. Take a walk—down a forest trail or just your neighborhood sidewalk. Notice what’s growing in the cracks. Do you know its name? Do you know if it’s native? Next time you pass a flower, stop. Touch the leaf. Smell the air. Magic may not live in spells or monsters, but in the quiet rustle of a stem that dares to rise.

That’s the world I wanted to build. And maybe—just maybe—it’s the world that’s already here.

Would you like a preview of the world where plants and power intertwine?

Check out The Dark Mage here: Amazon Link

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