One of my favorite places: The New York Botanical Garden.
One of my favorite projects there: Their thirty year project to discover and study the medicinal plants of Belize in respectful conjunction with local healers.
Here’s the whole story straight from the people who lived it.
PlantWisdom.org did an in depth interview with Rosita about her life and work and you can listen to that here.
The book they’re … Read more
Ethnobotanist and herbalist Rocio Alarcon grew up in the Andean highlands of Ecuador in a family that respected and used plants, depending on them for their daily survival.
As a young adult she received an academic training and then went to the Amazon to conduct her real studies.
In this talk from the excellent YouTube channel Herb TV, she discusses the social dimensions of ayawaska use and other shamanic practices … Read more
If you knew the story of all the leaves of the forest, you would know all there is to be known about the gods of Dahomey.
– Dahomean proverb
– Ken McCarthy
PlantWisdom.org
Monsanto has succeeded in subverting virtually every mainstream news outlet and academic plant science program in the US. Those it has not bought off, it has terrorized into silence.
Of the handful of legitimate scientists who have published research questioning the safety of GMOs, more than one has had their careers ruined by pressures imposed by the company and its agents.
Add to this a choir of high-profile “useful idiots” … Read more
One of our goals for PlantWisdom.org was to do a interview (or three) with farmer/author Gene Logsdon.
Unfortunately before we got to it, Gene passed away after 85 rich years.
Fortunately for all of us, he left us with a lot of writing including over twenty-five books and a fertile weekly blog of nine years (including a post just one week before he passed away.)
What did Gene write about?… Read more
Fascinating talk by Wade Davis on the varieties of human experience, the value of the existence of these diverse worlds views and the serious and ongoing threat to indigenous people around the world.
At the 11:23 point Davis explains how it is that forest dwellers make profound botanical discoveries that elude the most advanced western science.
– Ken McCarthy
PlantWisdom.org
In the previous post, we introduced Richard Evans Schultes though a short video and excerpts of an interview conducted with him later in his life.
In this video, his student and protege Wade Davis goes much deeper into Schultes’ story.
Absolutely fascinating and excellent preparation for seeing the new movie “Abrazo de la Serpiente” (Embrace of the Serpent) – which I’ve now seen three times.
If this account of Schultes’s … Read more
Richard Evans Schultes (1915-2001) was probably the greatest explorer of the Amazon, and regarded among anthropologists and seekers alike as the “father of ethnobotany.”
Taking what was meant to be a short leave from Harvard in 1941, he surveyed the Amazon basin almost continuously for twelve years, during which time he lived among two dozen different Indian tribes, mapped rivers, secretly sought sources of rubber for the US government during … Read more
Baba Rahsan Abdul Hakim
Baba Rahsan Abdul Hakim grew up in Jamaica where his training in plants began when he was a small child at the hands of his grandmother, aunt and mother.
His grandfather, Charles Williams, was an important horticulturist and agriculturist who introduced a number of useful plants to Jamaica. He was the uncredited developer of the Hope Garden, the largest botanical garden in the Caribbean.
As an … Read more
Do trees talk to each other?
Yes they do and their communication is mediated by fungi beneath the surface of the ground.
This communication enables trees and other plants to share resources, thereby helping the whole forest to flourish.
Here’s a quick overview of the key principles from Dr. Suzanne Simard.
She’s Professor of Forest Ecology in the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences at the University of British Columbia.… Read more
