Magic and Medicine of Plants

DescriptionCombines a field guide to finding and preserving medicinal plants with a detailed home advisor to their uses in cooking, cosmetics and health. This book is full of interesting facts that connects medicine back to its origin and to the manner in which early people used these plants as cures or aids for their ailments. The modern equivalent of Grieve’s Modern Herbal (Dover, 1971). The editors have done an amazing job of compiling information about medicinal plants from scientific pharmacognosy, folklore, botany, and myth. The core of the book is a “Gallery of Medicinal Plants,” organized in alphabetical order by the plant’s common name. Each entry includes a photograph of the plant in a field setting, a beautifully rendered color illustration, the history of the plant’s medicinal uses, identification techniques, habitat, and scientific name. There are also chapters on plants in myth and magic, growing herbs, recipes for cooking with herbs, making herbal cosmetics, dyes, and various medicinal preparations (digestive aids, gargles, liniments, etc.). Included are a good index and useful charts. The best book available on herbs and medicinal plants. Jennifer John Reavis, Episcopal High School, BellaireVintage 1996