Correct plant identification has always been of primary importance for quality control in herbal medicine. The introduction to this interactive session will cover the different ways in which this has been approached over the centuries. From the recommendation of Dioscorides to observe the herb from its first shoot to maturity, through consulting paintings, hortus siccus, [pressed herbarium specimens], botanic gardens, Latin and common names, botanical descriptions, the evolving methods of illustration in herbals, lists of constituents and actions, chromatography and personal sensory exploration of the fresh or dried plant material.
The interactive session aims to offer personal answers to how participants relate most effectively to knowledge of individual herbs they prescribe. Experience will be given in using the different historical routes to identification and understanding of herbs provided in the introduction. As different facets of information are revealed we may find some surprises as we search for which is the most helpful.
Participants will learn about:
- Gathering and pressing herbarium specimens and how these can be useful for comparisons and future reference.
- How useful information on membership of a herb family and the appearance of a herb can reveal hints of their chemistry.
- The place of descriptive common names, familiarity with other uses of the plant and folklore in teaching about gathering and use.
- Whether botanical descriptions, colour photographs, or black and white sketches actually can provide more useful information.
- Whether a list of constituents or a dried sample of the chopped herb is most useful in identifying any herb.
Hopefully at the end of the day we may be able to put forward which combination might be the ideal for training herbalists.
About Christina
Christina Stapley has been working with herbs for over 45 years and has grown more than 300. She has written a number of books on growing and using herbs including Herb Sufficient, Herbwise Naturally, Herbcraft Naturally, The Tree Dispensary, The Receipt Book of Lady Anne Blencow, The Lemonade Tree and A History of Plant Medicine. She also teaches pharmacognosy, materia medica and the history of western herbal medicine and has appeared on a number of television programmes including Autumn Watch and the Antiques Road Trip.
She is a member of the Herbal History Research Network and has carried out extensive practical research on medieval and Tudor medicine. She uses original recipes for many of the historical herb workshops she delivers at various locations around the country.