"Salal" is a unique book about a commonplace plant. Part travel narrative, part literary memoir, part “ ethnography” of a plant that usually goes unnoticed, Laurie Ricou’ s book traces the poetry and culture of salal, while letting readers in on its secrets. Salal’ s high-gloss leaves and delicate salmon-white flowers are compelling, and as a staple of the floral greens industry its impact is global. Through interviews, commentary, and well-documented research, Ricou tells the stories of salal— how it is used, what it means to writers and artists, how it is gathered by itinerant immigrant workers but also housewives, and what the vagaries of the salal industry are all about. Longtime teacher Ricou records visits to Port Townsend and Pacific Spirit Park, to Courtenay and Victoria, to Calgary and San Antonio, to London and Paris, demonstrating that an uncharismatic plant could become an icon. At once about the West Coast region where salal thrives and the global routes and economy that determine its harvesting, "Salal" exposes the artificial divide between nature and culture, ecology and the marketplace.

The first book-length commentary on twentieth-century Pacific Northwest writing, The Arbutus/Madrone Files explores the dynamics of the Pacific Northwest. Ricou's varied meditations on the region are dropped into thirteen files -- for example, the Island File, Salmon File, Woodswords File, Sasquatch File, and inevitably, the Rain File. Throughout, resonant quotations, poetry, song lyrics, and art from the region demonstrate and enhance Ricou's own readings. A long-time student of literary regions, in this work Ricou moves from an academic perspective on the narratives of bio-region toward more personal and lyrical reflections on home and the local.