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
This is a beginning list. We will add to it as we learn of new reliable sources.
Green Terrestrial
(802) 375-8087
– Ken McCarthy
PlantWisdom.org
In our last post, we talked about the importance of being well informed when you source herbs and herbal products.
In case you think we were overstating the need for this, we just discovered the results of an investigation published by the Office of the Attorney General of the State of New York.
They took at at look at the actual contents of “herbal supplements” sold in Wal-Mart, Target … Read more
Many sources advocate herbs for healing and cooking, and they’re right – but only half right. There’s another very important part of the equation.
Where you get your herbs and how you store them are of maximum importance.
Where should you buy your herbs?
Because the effectiveness of herbs degrades significantly after one year, supermarkets – including most health food stores – are not a … Read more
Photographer Robert Llewellyn is the author of three books: “Seeing Trees”, “Seeing Flowers”, and “Seeing Seeds.”
“When I first looked at trees — really looked at them — it was like meeting another civilization,”
“Picking up a camera changes how I see things. The plant world, previously hiding in plain sight, now reveals itself as another civilization living among us. They have a plan. I’ll never see them the same … 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
If you don’t know Jeremy Narby, you should.
He’s a “diplomat between two systems of knowledge.”
Narby as born in Montreal in 1959 and grew up in Canada and Switzerland.
He studied history at the University of Canterbury and received a doctorate in anthropology from Stanford University.
Narby spent several years living with the Ashaninca in the Peruvian Amazon cataloging their understanding and use of the plants in their forest … Read more
Jim Duke – “Better Living Through Phytochemistry” – with Potentilla recta, Cinquefoil – The Green Farmacy Garden’s legal representative of Cannabis sativa as displayed in the Glaucoma plot of his garden.
If this is your first exposure to Dr. Duke, we strongly recommend you take some time to dig deeper into his work and career.
More more information:
The Internet is full of wonders.
Here’s another one: A database of all the world’s plants.
It’s called, what else? The Plant List.
The Plant List a working list of all known plant species. It’s goal is to be comprehensive for species of Vascular plant (flowering plants, conifers, ferns and their allies) and of Bryophytes (mosses and liverworts).
It’s a collaboration between the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical … Read more
A first draft of the “tree of life” for the roughly 2.3 million named species of animals, plants, fungi and microbes — from platypuses to puffballs — has been released.
A collaborative effort among eleven institutions, the tree depicts the relationships among living things as they diverged from one another over time, tracing back to the beginning of life on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago.
Tens of thousands … Read more
