A FEW MILES OUTSIDE Pullman, Washington, a remnant of the Palouse Prairie lies on a small hill, surrounded by undulating wheat fields and studded with cracked and weathered headstones from the late 1800s. More than 100 plant species bloom here at Whelan Cemetery, including pink prairie smoke, purple lupine and yellow arrowleaf balsamroot.
Two centuries ago, before settlers came to the Palouse, these plants were part of what Melodi Wynne, a citizen of the Spokane Tribe, describes as a “million-acre grocery store.” The fertile, well-drained soils of the Palouse, which stretches from the forests of northern Idaho south to the Snake River, were carpeted with grasses and wildflowers, many with roots that have long been used for food and medicine by the Nez Perce, Palouse, Coeur d’Alene, Spokane and other Indigenous…