Organized by body system and ailment makes it easy to locate appropriate therapies. Includes background on the physiology of major systems and ailments so readers can understand how and why a pharmaceutical, botanical, or dietary supplement works. Broad coverage includes green plants, fungi, and microorganisms. Includes extensive references and citations from both conventional and complimentary-alternative medical systems when natural products or their derivatives are involved.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Medicinal herbs are rich in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, and are able to synthesize secondary metabolites with disease preventive properties. It is due to these qualities that herbs have been used throughout history for flavouring and in food, medicine and perfumery preparations. They are also often considered to be safe alternatives to modern medicines because of their healing properties. Though interest in medicinal and aromatic crops is growing worldwide, there is still little focus on the area of leafy medicinal herbs. This book compiles the literature for 23 globally relevant leafy medicinal herbs. Beginning with a general overview and discussion of the importance of these plants, it then handles each herb by chapter. Chapters discuss the botany of the crop, including its history and origin, geographical distribution and morphology, before focusing on the chemical composition and phytochemical attributes. They then review postharvest technology aspects such as processing and value addition, before concluding with the general and pharmacological uses for each crop. A complete compilation of the subject, this book forms a vital resource for researchers, students, farmers and industrialists in the area of leafy medicinal herbs.

This book opens readers' eyes to the enormous resources of the Earth's rain forests and the potential impact of their destruction in terms of human health.

This book begins with a lesson on the nature of botany and the process of classifying plants. It then discusses the development of plants from seeds, the reproduction processes in plants, the way plants make their food, and how plants get their water and nutrients and distribute them throughout the body of the plant. As students study these topics, they also learn about many different kinds of plants in creation and where they belong in the plant classification system. The activities and projects use easy-to-find household items and truly make the lessons come alive! They include making a "light hut" in which to grow plants, dissection of a bean seed, growing seeds in plastic bags to watch the germination process, making a leaf skeleton, observing how plants grow towards light, measuring transpiration, forcing bulbs to grow out of season, and forcing pine cones to open and close. We recommend that you spend the entire school year covering this book.

Plants have cultural histories, as their applications change over time and with place. Some plant species have affected human cultures in profound ways, such as the stimulants tea and coffee from the Old World, or coca and quinine from South America. Even though medicinal plants have always attracted considerable attention, there is surprisingly little research on the interface of ethnobotany and medical anthropology. This volume, which brings together (ethno-)botanists, medical anthropologists and a clinician, makes an important contribution towards filling this gap. It emphasises that plant knowledge arises situationally as an intrinsic part of social relationships, that herbs need to be enticed if not seduced by the healers who work with them, that herbal remedies are cultural artefacts, and that bioprospecting and medicinal plant discovery can be viewed as the epitome of a long history of borrowing, stealing and exchanging plants.