Author: Ingrid Bauer. Five Flavors Herbs was founded with a vision to improve the health of people, the planet, and our communities by trusting the wisdom of nature. When we first began making herbal extracts 20 years ago, our audience was small, and we grew or wildcrafted many of the plants we used. We traveled …
Read moreMaking Plant Medicine Sustainable: From Wildcrafting to Organic Cultivation
For the benefit of the plant communities, wild animals, harvesters, farmers, consumers, manufacturers, retailers and practitioners, we offer this list of wild medicinal plants which we feel are currently most sensitive to the impact of human activities. Our intent is to assure the increasing abundance of the medicinal plants which are currently in decline due …
Overall At-Risk Score:47 Latin Name: Allium tricoccum Allium tricoccum var. Burdickii, previously Allium burdickii ⁶ Common Name: Ramps; wild leek, Ramsons var. Burdickii if often referred to as Narrowleaf Ramps, Narrowleaf Wild Leek Family: Amaryllidaceae; Subfamily: Allioideae Geographic Region: Minnesota to Illinois to Maine – CT, DE, IL, IN, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, …
The ramp (Allium tricoccum) has been favored for generations for its tasty garlic and onion flavor and as a spring tonic to cleanse the blood. Each year the emergence of the ramp signals harvesters to flock to the woods to gather the bulbs for their own table or to sell into the growing ramp retail …
Read moreThe Ramp – Tanner Filyaw of Rural Action in SE Ohio
By Richo Cech This is an excerpt from Richo’s book,Growing At-Risk Medicinal Herbs. Notes on American Ginseng (Panax quinquefolius L.)…As long as the minimum requirements of appropriate temperature, soil and shade are met, some success in cultivating ginseng outside its native range is a reasonable expectation. For example, west of the Rockies the states of …
By H. Zell (Own work) [GFDL or CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons Historical Background Lobelia is a beautiful name for a beautiful plant with a notorious reputation and a rich historical past. There are more than 350 species of lobelia found worldwide. As a beautiful native plant, lobelia has work to do outside the …
By Richo Cech The root of gentian stimulates the salivary glands and the digestion, while the flowers of this fantastic plant have long excited the gardener and the alpine hiker. The genus Gentiana is extremely diverse, represented by over 200 distinct species worldwide. The plants are distributed globally, mainly occurring in alpine regions. In North …
By Richo Cech American wild yam (Dioscorea villosa or D. quaternata) is native to the Central and Eastern United States, from Minnesota south to Texas and across to the Atlantic States, excluding the states of northern New England. In northern areas, it can be grown very successfully in a greenhouse, as the plants prefer filtered …
by Chip Carroll False Unicorn (Chamaelirium luteum) is a very unique perennial herb native to western Massachusetts to Michigan and eastern Canada, south to Florida and Mississippi (Newcomb 1977, USDA-NRCS 2005). Although the range is extensive, the occurrence of this elusive herb is rather limited and is most commonly found in the south. A member …
By Michael Pilarski Most of us are familiar with the smell of burning white sage smudge sticks – a Native American tradition which has spread far and wide. What percentage of the smudge sticks are wild crafted and what percentage are from cultivated sources? How many people are growing white sage to relieve pressure on …
Read moreSustainable Smudge – Growing White Sage on the Canadian Border