Sweetgrass grows in the plains area of the US and in Alberta, Canada. It smells sweet when dried. Many Native American tribes used sweetgrass in prayer, smudging or purifying ceremonies and consider it a sacred plant. It is usually braided, dried and burned. Sweetgrass braids smolder and don't produce an open flame when burned. Just as the sweet scent of this natural grass is attractive and pleasing to people, so is it attractive to good spirits. Sweetgrass is often burned at the beginning of a prayer or ceremony to attract positive energies. Bad spirits also enjoy the smoke so sage must be burned first to make them sick. Sweetgrass clippings are placed on hot rocks during a sweat in sweat lodges.