How to balance your constitution and practice self-healing.

    The most complete reference catalog of nature's herbs ever published.

    Entries feature a description of the plant, its botanical name, its native range and its primary functions -- edible, medicinal, commercial or practical. Concise text is highlighted by elegant botanical drawings, paintings and photographs as well as insightful quotes.Many of the plants are well known, such as rice, tea, cotton, rubber, wheat, sugarcane, tobacco, wine grapes and corn. However, there are also many whose stories are less known. These history-changing plants include:Agave, used to make sisal, poison arrows, bullets, tequila and surgical threadPineapple, which influenced the construction of greenhouses and conservatoriesHemp, used for hangman's rope, sustainable plastics, the Declaration of Independence and Levi's jeansCoconut, used for coir fiber, soap, margarine, cream, sterile IV drips and coagulantsEucalyptus, used in mouthwash, diuretics, vitamins, honey, underwear and fire-resistant uniformsSweet pea, which Gregor Mendel used in his research on genetic heredityWhite mulberry, used to make silkEnglish oak, used for fire-resistant structures, dyes, leather tanning, charcoal, casks and shipsWhite willow, used in the manufacture of aspirin, cricket bats, hot-air balloon baskets and coffins This attractive reference provides an innovative perspective on both botanical and human history.

    Pharmacognosy is the study of the composition, production, use, and history of drugs of natural origin. Pendell covers these topics and more in this volume, charting a voyage around the world of plant teachers. Through poetry, chemistry, and a generous sprinkling of arcane lore, Pendell weaves and twists the many threads of tradition into a singularly bewitching brew. Pendell's voyage is a true circumnavigation. It divulges what Gary Synder called "dangerous knowledge" that is a formidable weapon against "even more dangerous ignorance."Dale Pendell is a poet, software engineer, and longtime student of ethnobotany. His poetry has appeared in many journals, and he was the founding editor of KUKSU: Journal of Backcountry Writing. He has led workshops on ethnobotany and ethnopoetics for the Naropa Institute and the Botanical Preservation Corps.

    With easy recipes ethnobotanist James Wong shows how to make simple creams, salves, teas and much, much more from the stuff growing in your window box, the local garden centre or in the hedgerows. Using the flowers, fruit, roots, trees, vegetables and herbs that are all around us James provides preparations to help relieve a whole range of common conditions, including acne, anxiety, cold sores and general aches and pains - plus great ideas for beauty treats such as bath bombs and shampoos. Inspired by his grandmother in Malaysia who taught him about the health-giving properties of plants, James uses his top class academic knowledge to show how easy - and cheap - it is to make creams, lotions, lozenges and more which can help relieve the symptoms of a variety of common complaints. He reveals how many plants contain the same active ingredients as over-the-counter drugs and chooses his Top 100 plants to grow or buy, complete with ideas for a whole range of uses.So unleash the power of plants and soothe the symptoms of everyday ailments the natural way.

    Here are entries on hundreds of plants that are extraordinarily useful in cooking, homeopathy, and more; dozens of recipes and DIY projects; and beautifully styled photographs so you know just what you're growing.With more than 900 entries, each accompanied by brand new photography and helpful growing advice, The New American Herbal takes the study of herbs to an exciting new level. Orr covers the entire spectrum of herbaceous plants, from culinary to ornamental to aromatic and medicinal, presenting them in an easy to use A to Z format packed with recipes, DIY projects, and stunning examples of garden design highlighting herbal plantings. Learn about the herbs you've always wanted to grow (chervil, chamomile, and lovage), exotic herbs (such as Artemisia, the bitter herb used in Absinthe, or the anti-inflammatory Meadowsweet), and ornamental varieties (Monkshood and Perilla). For cooks there is indispensable guidance on planting and maintaining a bountiful kitchen garden and crafters will delight in dozens of exciting new uses for fresh, dried, and distilled herbs. Here, too, are 40 delicious recipes such as Ragu Bolognese with Fennel and Lemon Semolina Cake with Lavender, as well easy steps for projects such as a hanging herb garden and instructions on how to plant, dry, and preserve your garden’s bounty. Meticulously researched and exhaustive in its scope, The New American Herbal is an irresistible invitation to explore the versatility of herbs in all their beauty and variety.

    Written by well-respected urban herbalist Robin Rose Bennett with over 180 easy-to-follow recipes, this book offers readers who want to take charge of their health an immersion into a myriad ways to use plant-based remedies to care for themselves and others on physical, emotional, and spiritual levels. Informed by the wisdom that physical and spiritual healing are inextricably intertwined, The Gift of Healing Herbs explores herbology as the "people's medicine", freely available to all, and as a powerful yet gentle way to heal body, mind, heart, and soul. The book is divided into three parts: the first part examines health and the causes of illness; the second part comprises a reference of all the physical systems of the body and the common and not-so-common herbs for tonifying them; and the third part contains recipes for teas, brews, and instructions for incorporating herbs into our daily lives. The hundreds of recipes for herbal preparations in this book—accompanied by prayers, meditations, and rituals—offer spiritual and physical insights into the relationship between our body systems and the elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water, thus helping the reader explore and experience the interconnection of all things in the web of life.With personal stories, case histories, and elements of personal memoir, The Gift of Healing Herbs is equal parts inspiration and instruction drawn from the author's life and decades spent teaching and practicing herbal medicine in a spiritual, earth-based, nondogmatic style. focused as keenly on the spiritual aspects of healing as revealed through personal story. The author explores how one's personal story turns into one's embodied physicality, specific health challenges, and ultimately reveals one's unique path of healing.

    The author provides an eloquent and engaging account of the use of herbal medicine from prehistoric times to the present, reaffirming the incalculable value of medicinal plants in the healing arts. She presents a strong case for the cyclical emergence of alternative medicine at times (such as our own) when allopathic methods of treatment have lost their safety and efficacy.

    This unique book is written by Dr. Nicole Apelian, an herbalist with over 20 years of experience working with plants and Claude Davis, a wild west expert passionate about the lost remedies and wild edibles that kept previous generations alive. The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies has color pictures of over 181 healing plants, lichens, and mushrooms of North America (2-4 pictures/plant for easy identification). Inside, you'll also discover over 550+ powerful natural remedies made from them for every one of your daily needs. Many of these remedies were used by our forefathers for hundreds of years while others come from Dr. Nicole’s extensive natural practice. This book was made for people with no prior plant knowledge who are looking for alternative ways to help themselves or their families. This lost knowledge goes against the grain of mainstream medicine and avoids just dealing with symptoms. Instead, it targets the underlying root cause and strengthens your body's natural ability to repair itself. With the medicinal herbal reference guide included, it’s very easy to look up your own condition and see exactly which herbs and remedies can help. Let me just offer you a small glimpse of what you’ll find inside:On page 145 learn how to make a powerful “relieving” extract using a common backyard weed. This plant acts directly on the central nervous system to help with all kinds of pain and discomfort.You'll also discover the most effective natural antibiotic that still grows in most American backyards. (page 150)Turn to page 275 for the natural protocol Dr. Nicole is recommending for a wide range of auto-immune conditions, after falling prey to MS herself at age 29.I could go on and on because this book contains no less than 800+ other medicinal plants and natural remedies.

    Ideal for first-time foragers, this book features 70 edible weeds, flowers, mushrooms, and ornamental plants typically found in urban and suburban neighborhoods. Full-color photographs make identification easy, while tips on common plant locations, pesticides, pollution, and dangerous flora make foraging as safe and simple as stepping into your own backyard.

     "The genius of Hanson's fascinating, inspiring, and entertaining book stems from the fact that it is not about how all kinds of things grow from seeds; it is about the seeds themselves." -- Mark Kurlansky, New York Times Book Review We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff and staff of life: supporting diets, economies, and civilizations around the globe. Just as the search for nutmeg and pepper drove the Age of Discovery, coffee beans fueled the Enlightenment and cottonseed sparked the Industrial Revolution. Seeds are fundamental objects of beauty, evolutionary wonders, and simple fascinations. Yet, despite their importance, seeds are often seen as commonplace, their extraordinary natural and human histories overlooked. Thanks to this stunning new book, they can be overlooked no more. This is a book of knowledge, adventure, and wonder, spun by an award-winning writer with both the charm of a fireside story-teller and the hard-won expertise of a field biologist. A fascinating scientific adventure, it is essential reading for anyone who loves to see a plant grow.

    And while mastery of the classical language may not be a prerequisite for pruning perennials, all gardeners stand to benefit from learning a bit of Latin and its conventions in the field. Without it, they might buy a Hellebores foetidus and be unprepared for its fetid smell, or a Potentilla reptans with the expectation that it will stand straight as a sentinel rather than creep along the ground.An essential addition to the gardener’s library, this colorful, fully illustrated book details the history of naming plants, provides an overview of Latin naming conventions, and offers guidelines for pronunciation. Readers will learn to identify Latin terms that indicate the provenance of a given plant and provide clues to its color, shape, fragrance, taste, behavior, functions, and more.  Full of expert instruction and practical guidance, Latin for Gardeners will allow novices and green thumbs alike to better appreciate the seemingly esoteric names behind the plants they work with, and to expertly converse with fellow enthusiasts. Soon they will realize that having a basic understanding of Latin before trips to the nursery or botanic garden is like possessing some knowledge of French before traveling to Paris; it enriches the whole experience.

    Her work has influenced filmmakers (the Tree of Souls of James Cameron's Avatar) and her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide.Now, in her first book, Simard brings us into her world, the intimate world of the trees, in which she brilliantly illuminates the fascinating and vital truths--that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp, but are a complex, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own.Simard writes--in inspiring, illuminating, and accessible ways--how trees, living side by side for hundreds of years, have evolved, how they perceive one another, learn and adapt their behaviors, recognize neighbors, and remember the past; how they have agency about the future; elicit warnings and mount defenses, compete and cooperate with one another with sophistication, characteristics ascribed to human intelligence, traits that are the essence of civil societies--and at the center of it all, the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain the others that surround them.Simard writes of her own life, born and raised into a logging world in the rainforests of British Columbia, of her days as a child spent cataloging the trees from the forest and how she came to love and respect them--embarking on a journey of discovery, and struggle. And as she writes of her scientific quest, she writes of her own journey--of love and loss, of observation and change, of risk and reward, making us understand how deeply human scientific inquiry exists beyond data and technology, that it is about understanding who we are and our place in the world, and, in writing of her own life, we come to see the true connectedness of the Mother Tree that nurtures the forest in the profound ways that families and human societies do, and how these inseparable bonds enable all our survival.

    As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.

    More than just a field guide to wild edibles, it is a global plan for human survival. When Katrina Blair was eleven she had a life-changing experience where wild plants spoke to her, beckoning her to become a champion of their cause. Since then she has spent months on end taking walkabouts in the wild, eating nothing but what she forages, and has become a wild-foods advocate, community activist, gardener, and chef, teaching and presenting internationally about foraging and the healthful lifestyle it promotes. Katrina Blair's philosophy in The Wild Wisdom of Weeds is sobering, realistic, and ultimately optimistic. If we can open our eyes to see the wisdom found in these weeds right under our noses, instead of trying to eradicate an "invasive," we will achieve true food security. The Wild Wisdom of Weeds is about healing ourselves both in body and in spirit, in an age where technology, commodity agriculture, and processed foods dictate the terms of our intelligence. But if we can become familiar with these thirteen edible survival weeds found all over the world, we will never go hungry, and we will become closer to our own wild human instincts--all the while enjoying the freshest, wildest, and most nutritious food there is. For free! The thirteen plants found growing in every region across the world are: dandelion, mallow, purslane, plantain, thistle, amaranth, dock, mustard, grass, chickweed, clover, lambsquarter, and knotweed. These special plants contribute to the regeneration of the earth while supporting the survival of our human species; they grow everywhere where human civilization exists, from the hottest deserts to the Arctic Circle, following the path of human disturbance. Indeed, the more humans disturb the earth and put our food supply at risk, the more these thirteen plants proliferate. It's a survival plan for the ages. Including over one hundred unique recipes, Katrina Blair's book teaches us how to prepare these wild plants from root to seed in soups, salads, slaws, crackers, pestos, seed breads, and seed butters; cereals, green powders, sauerkrauts, smoothies, and milks; first-aid concoctions such as tinctures, teas, salves, and soothers; self-care/beauty products including shampoo, mouthwash, toothpaste (and brush), face masks; and a lot more. Whether readers are based at home or traveling, this book aims to empower individuals to maintain a state of optimal health with minimal cost and effort.