By Katherine Ziff Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world – John Muir Where I grow plant spirits may safely play – Asimina triloba What inspires care for Earth’s medicinal plants? How can we encourage a relational connection with nature that might lead to plant conservation? The plants themselves offer this …
by Scott Kloos It’s a clear, somewhat chilly September morning in the high desert mountains of southeastern Oregon. I am here with a small group of people facilitating a plant teacher immersion trip. The day previous we came to this same place to commune with Aspen (Populus tremuloides); today we will ceremonially connect with Yellow …
by Paul Corbit Brown Imagine visiting a museum of art. Now imagine the curator invites you to peer through a microscope to examine the intricacies of an ancient tapestry. You quickly discover that the scene depicted in this artifact is actually composed of thousands upon thousands of threads. As you examine it more closely, you …
Have you ever heard the expression, “Stop and smell the roses?” Do you know that sensation when the fragrance hits your nostrils and suddenly everything else in the world fades away? Now approaching my middle age, I can say I have stopped, and how sweet the roses smell. At this time last year, I began …
By Rustin A. Rohani, MA, BSc Despite the arrival of pharmaceutical drugs, humans have historically used plants to treat illnesses (Ganie et al., 2015). Even today, there are about 30 essential drugs directly sourced from plants (Veeresham, 2012). There are almost 18,000 documented medicinal plants in the world with many of them threatened from climate …
Read moreIT’S ALL ABOUT TECHNIQUE: IN VITRO METHODS FOR STORING MEDICINAL PLANT GERMPLASM
The Threat of Climate Change, Drought, and Hydropower Dams on the Mekong River’s Traditional Medicinal Plants and HealersAdd New by Dr. Michele Devlin The Mekong is the world’s 12th largest river and the longest in Southeast Asia. Its headwaters begin in China, and it then meanders for 2,700 miles through Tibet, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, …
by Luke Manget, PhD By the turn of the twentieth century, the imminent extinction of ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) was one of the common topics of conversation around the country stores. Ginseng had been a lucrative commodity in the United States since the 1730s when European and colonial traders realized the value of a common woodland …
Read moreGINSENG AND THE FATE OF THE COMMONS: A LESSON FROM HISTORY
by Abdullah Aloshoush Abstract This study was conducted to identify the uses of plant species in traditional medicine in the Fifa village and to collect this information and save it from loss. Some of this information is not scientifi cally documented but is personally tested by some local communities. The questionnaire was taken with key …
Read moreMEDICINAL PLANTS USED IN TRADITIONAL HERBAL MEDICINE IN THE FIFA VILLAGE/SOUTHERN JORDAN
By Fidensio Kinyamu Ndegwa In the Rift valley of Kenya, near Nakuru town is Mau forest. Mau forest is an important water tower, a source of numerous important rivers, including the Southern Ewaso Ng’iro, Sondu, Mara, and and Njoro. The Mara River is particularly important because the story of the wildebeest migration in Maasai Mara …
Read moreA STORY OF MEDICINAL PLANTS FROM THE OGIEK OF KENYA
by Josef A. Brinckmann Licorice, the roots, rhizomes, and stolons of Glycyrrhiza glabra, G. uralensis, and more rarely G. inflata,1 is among the most widely used medicinal plants globally, in terms of annual quantities harvested and exported but also in terms of the number of formulations that contain it, especially in the traditional Chinese,2 Japanese …