About Me

My name is Lindsey Shemwell and I'm a 21 year old Botany major currently living in Massachusetts, about 1000 miles from where I was born and raised in Alabama. Growing up in the lush green hills and valleys of Alabama taught me not only a love for nature but in particular a love of plants and plant life which runs rampant all over the states. The warm Springs and Summers of Alabama always produced a wide variety of beautiful flora, spanning from gorgeous flowers to large expanses of trees and forest. Just in my backyard there were so many different types of oak trees and grasses I was never able to identify them all.

I started out as an artist, primarily a photographer, I wanted to be a nature photographer for National Geographic, I loved the vivid images of wild life and took pictures consistently, winning school competitions and just overall enjoying what I was doing until I drifted into wanting to paint and draw where I began to paint a draw the wildlife I had taken pictures of, from there I just fell in love with the anatomy of plants.

My mother was always a great supporter of nutrition and all natural healing and she was (and still is) always supporting a bottle of ginseng or ginko. So it was no surprise when I began taking it upon myself to learn the ins and outs of Medicinal Herbalism. It was so incredibly interesting how these little green organisms could be so powerful, capable of healing as well as endangering the human body.

I moved up to Massachusetts February of 2015 in a record breaking winter, there was virtually no plant life to be seen other then barely surviving trees. At first I was devastated, there was nothing to collect or study, and with the harshness of winter I worried there would be nothing once Spring arrived. All the anticipation of finding new plants to study and observe flew out into the cold harsh winter into the 5 feet of snow. After obtaining a job that allowed me to travel, I figured perhaps I'd see something of intrigue, some sign of life. As fate would have it I was able to witness a glorious sight. Looking boredly out the window headed to my next location for work I saw the very first Paper Birch I'd ever seen. If you've never seen a Paper Birch surrounded in snow you haven't lived.

The beauty of this black 'striped' white tree gave such a sense of beauty and excitement, for many years I had wanted to see this tree, and I had some idea of their overall location but either had not been paying enough attention or had not been in the right location. Had I come during Spring or Summer I might have missed it entirely. Finally I felt more open to the flora of the north, and as soon as the sun arose on the first real day of spring I set out to identify everything that dared to grow, shivering after the snow had cleared.