Joshua Wayne

Meet the Hawthorns: Befriending and Protecting Endangered Trees

Learn about the remarkable diversity of plants, mushrooms, and animals living on Bhakti Mountain while journeying into the forest to meet some of its rarest inhabitants.

Joshua Wayne is a nature-based therapist, naturalist, and foraging educator who has spent more than 15 years helping people deepen their relationship with the natural world. He has taught plant and mushroom identification and foraging to more than 1,000 people and helped rediscover Crataegus austromontana, the Southern Valleyhead Hawthorn, an endangered species once thought to be extinct.

Together we’ll journey through the forest and up Bhakti Mountain to meet endangered native hawthorns growing at Just Love Forest. Along the way, Josh will invite us to slow down and begin recognizing trees not simply as species to identify, but as individual living beings with whom relationship is possible.

Depending on what the trees are offering, we may gather ripe fruits and seeds that can be shared with botanical gardens and conservation partners working to protect these rare species.

Part plant walk, part conservation project, and part invitation into a deeper relationship with the living world around us.