When visitors come to the new National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., they will see the work of Donna House, a member of the Navajo Nation.

Not in any of the exhibits, though. House, an ethnobotanist, designed the natural landscape for the museum, complete with plants and animals native to the Washington region. Visitors will see cattails, wild rice, waterlilies, buttercups, panic grass, corn, tobacco, squash and other crops.

House, who was born in Washington and now lives in New Mexico, notes that plants have been around much longer than humans. "They know you, have a relationship with you," she tells The New York Times.

The museum opens on September 21.

Get the Story:
A Native Spirit, Inside the Beltway (The New York Times 9/9)
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Relevant Links:
National Museum of the American Indian - http://www.nmai.si.edu

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