Green Medicine
- Diana Pierce
- Apr 8
- 6 min read
Plants That Hold a People Together
By Diana Pierce | April 8, 2026
The first time Zongxee Lee lost a plant teacher, she realized too late that the knowledge had never been written down.
It was 2016, and two grandmothers had passed away in the same period, each of them carrying decades of accumulated knowledge about the 44 medicinal herbs central to Hmong culture, health, and daily life. At markets, some of those plants were labeled only in Hmong, with no English equivalent. Lee, a registered nurse and farmer’s daughter who grew up tending those very plants, understood the loss as something more than grief.
It felt like a warning.
Her mother was still here. That meant there was still time.
The result is Tshuaj Ntsuab - A Compendium of Hmong Medicinal Plants. Zongxee tells me title translates to “Green Medicine.”
It’s a beautifully documented record of the herbs Lee’s family has grown, cooked with, healed from, and sold at farmer’s markets for generations. But getting there required solving a problem that had quietly plagued the community for decades.
The herbs had always had two sets of names- Hmong names passed down through generations of oral tradition, and English botanical names used by the wider scientific world. The trouble was that no one had reliably connected the two.
A plant known intimately by its Hmong name might be sold at a market without anyone knowing its English equivalent, or vice versa. Identification apps were no help. Photograph the same plant and you might get three different answers. The knowledge existed, but it was scattered, unverified, and vulnerable to being lost or misidentified as the elders who held it passed on.
The breakthrough came through a partnership with the University of Minnesota, where DNA sequencing finally allowed the two worlds of knowledge, Hmong plant names and English botanical names, to be matched with scientific certainty and unified on the page.
The work is equal parts family memoir, cultural archive, and scientific record, and for anyone who has ever stood at a Hmong market wondering what they were looking at, a long-overdue answer.
I sat down with Lee to talk about what compelled her to write it, what it means to capture oral knowledge on the page, and which plant she’d press into the hands of a complete beginner.
Diana: Why did you want to write this book, and why now?
Zongxee: I felt a sense of responsibility. For the last 50 years of the Hmong settlement in America, we have never really stopped to document and preserve these herbs. They’ve been sold at markets. The elders who hold this knowledge are the baby boomers. Some of them are already gone.
I started the book back in 2016 when I lost two grandmothers in the same period. I never got to capture the depth of what they knew. But my mother is still with us. So in many ways, this book is about my mom.
As an Asian woman, I was encouraged to become a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher. But people keep bypassing what truly sustains us which is agriculture, plants, the earth. I’m a nurse by background, and I felt I needed to preserve this. This is something to hold my mother’s knowledge, my grandmothers’ knowledge, the Hmong community’s knowledge.
When we’re selling plants at the farmer’s market, people from every background come up and ask: what is this? And we either know the English name but not the Hmong name, or the Hmong name but not the English. Plant identification apps give you three different answers. We wanted something better. That’s why we partnered with the University of Minnesota for DNA sequencing.
Books are home and this book is a home for the next generation.
Diana: So much Hmong botanical knowledge is passed down through oral tradition. How does putting it on the page change it?
Zongxee: Everything has been passed from one generation to the next through voice and memory. We had to imagine it, hold it in our minds. Having it on print feels like it carries a different kind of value. It becomes something that can be treasured, reopened, returned to.
Diana: Minnesota has one of the largest urban Hmong populations in the world. How did this community shape the book?
Zongxee: When you walk through the Hmong community here, you see these plants in people’s gardens, at the markets, even on restaurant menus. Minnesota gave me easy access to everything. The plants are here, the vendors, and most importantly, the elders who still hold the knowledge are here. If I’d lived somewhere else, it would have been a struggle. However, here I was surrounded by information. I’m deeply grateful for that.
Diana: For readers who want to start growing some of these herbs—where do you suggest they begin?
Zongxee: Visit a garden. Come visit mine. Or visit your grandmother’s garden, whatever her background. I’m not only trying to preserve Hmong herbs. I’m hoping this book nudges all of us to look back at our own ancestors’ plants, and I would tell readers just dig a hole and plant one. You start at the garden. You feel it, taste it, smell it. If you don’t like one, try the next. And use the book to identify what you’re working with, especially here in the Midwest, where we need to know which plants go dormant, which ones need to come indoors before frost, which ones are perennial and which aren’t.
Diana: Is there one plant you’d recommend for a true beginner—one that’s hard to kill?
Zongxee: If I had to choose one, it’s the plant we call Raw Low in Hmong, listed on page 112 of the book under its botanical name Callisia spp. This is a trailing, cascading plant that looks beautiful in a hanging basket and is almost impossible to discourage. The roots are incredibly sturdy. It propagates itself. Just add a little soil and it starts stemming out everywhere.
And it’s not just decorative. It’s medicinal, something we use in traditional recipes and chicken soups. I keep three baskets of it on a shelf right now, cascading down the side. If you want something that looks lush and houseplant-beautiful, doesn’t demand constant attention, and is actually edible? Start there.
One note: She shares that it’s a tropical plant, so it won’t survive a Minnesota winter outdoors. Keep it inside near a window and water it regularly because our indoor heating pulls moisture from the soil faster than you’d expect.
Diana: Many of your readers don’t have traditional garden spaces—they have balconies, decks, patios. Does this book work for them?
Zongxee: Absolutely. Many of these plants can thrive in pots. The key for Midwest gardeners is timing. Bring them indoors by early September before temperatures drop. Some will go dormant over winter and look like they’ve given up entirely. Don’t throw them out. Take them back outside in spring and watch them come alive again. Lemongrass is another good example. It can flourish indoors in a pot all winter if you have a decent window.
I note in the book which plants go dormant and which don’t. Consider it your guide to not giving up on a plant that just needs a little patience.
Diana: Do these herbs require anything special in terms of soil, light, or watering?
Zongxee: Good soil is the foundation for all 44. I use a quality compost blend, loose, well-draining, and rich. That tends to work universally. They all love sunlight so aim for a good eight hours a day, and south-facing windows are ideal indoors. Water regularly, especially in winter when indoor heating dries soil out faster. But don’t overwater; soggy roots will rot.
Pay attention to them. You’re almost asking each plant, ‘How do you want to be loved?’ They’ll tell you. If they start rotting, that’s an answer. If they’re thriving, that’s an answer too. I learned most of it the hard way.
Diana: Where can Minnesota readers find these plants?
Zongxee: A few places to look:
• Mhonpaj’s Garden at Mill City Farmer’s Market (750 S 2nd St, Minneapolis): Lee’s mother sells transplants here, including 12 of the book’s 44 varieties—the popular “chicken herbs” used in traditional recipes. Summer hours run Saturdays, May–September (8 a.m.–1 p.m.); winter hours move inside Mill City Museum on the first and third Saturdays (10 a.m.–1 p.m.).
• Hmong Village (Johnson Parkway, East Side St. Paul): hmongvillagemn.com
• Hmong Town Marketplace (near the State Capitol, St. Paul): hmongtownmarketplace.com
If you’re not ready to plant, bundles of cut herbs are also available at the markets and Hmong Village locations.
Diana: What’s the one thing you want readers to take away from this book?
Zongxee: This book isn’t just for the Hmong community. It’s for everyone.
I want to spark conversations, across generations, between grandparents and grandchildren, between gardeners and scholars, between memory and future possibility. The practice of using plant medicine is what’s going to save humanity. The skills these plants are teaching us are telling us something.
That’s the purpose behind all of this.
To preorder, head to -https://shop.mnhs.org/products/tshuaj-ntsuab-a-compendium-of-hmong-medicinal-plants
Diana
© 2026 Diana Pierce