The Herbarist Issue 87 2022

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Barbara J. Williams

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The Herbarist, No. 87

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A complete list of sponsors and underwriters may be found on page 56. Cover art from The Romance of Nature, or, the flower-seasons illustrated Louise A. Talmey, 1836.

Front cover sponsored by Maryann and Tom Readal

As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever been,

Forth from its sunny nook of shelter’d grass- innocent, golden, calm as the dawn, The spring’s first dandelion shows its trustful face.

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1891 - 1892

o one has ever chosen dandelion as Perennial of the Year or Herb of the Year. I doubt they ever will! Dandelion is a highly adaptive diverse species. It can colonize widely differing habitats, from a fertilized dense lawn to bare soil between plants in a tilled field. Most people consider dandelions “weeds.”

Taraxacum officinale (L.) Weber ex.F.H.Wigg, dandelion, is not native to the New World. Europeans brought them to the west for use as a potherb. This member of the Asteraceae family is an invasive species that has naturalized in North America quite easily (Baumgradt, 1982). Botanists have identified several distinct dandelion biotypes (plants of one species that are different genetically). To some degree these biotypes specialize in their

choice of habitats. A dandelion that is in an environment that complements its biotype produces more seed heads than it would in a less complementary environment. This is because of differences in the root hairs, which absorb water and soil nutrients (Michigan State University, 2015).

The leaves of dandelion are pinnately lobed and deeply serrated forming a “lion’s tooth” in outline. This is supposedly the origin of the “dent-de-lion.”

Carolus Linnaeus, the father of the Sandra Cunningham | Dreamstime.com

Carol Ann Harlos

Simple and fresh and fair from winter’s close emerging,

binomial system of nomenclature, gave the dandelion the name Leontodon taraxacum. Dandelion’s scientific name has changed several times. It has been called Taraxacum leontodon, T. taraxacum, and T. vulgare, the last name because it is “common” (Porter, 1967).

Dandelion use has a rich history. It was among the original bitter herbs of the Passover. The Israelites were commanded to eat the Paschal lamb “with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs” (Exodus 12:8). Bitter herbs consisted of chicory, bitter cress, dandelion, hawk weed, sow thistles, and wild lettuce. Today these plants still grow on the peninsula of Sinai, in Palestine, and in Egypt (Hourdajian, 2006).

The genus name Taraxacum may come from the Greek word “tatassein” meaning “to disturb” or from the Persian word “tarkhashqún” meaning “bitter potherb” or “bitter endive” (Engels and Brickman, 2016). The species name officinale, of course, refers to the dandelion root’s use in medicine.

It has been used through history to treat disorders of the kidney and stomach. People believed that dandelions acted as a bladder and kidney stimulant, i.e., a diuretic. The French gave it the name “pissenlit” and the English called it “pissabed.” It is also believed to stimulate the liver and to increase blood circulation (Engels and Brinckmann, 2016).

A front-page article in the April 2021 issue of SNJ Today newspaper declared the “Dandelion Capital of the World” to be Vineland, New Jersey. Well-tended dandelions go from Vineland to markets in Baltimore, New York City, and Philadelphia. At the

yearly festival celebrating dandelions, attendees can sample a variety of dandelion dishes.

Because of their aggressive colonization in disturbed soils, farmers have questioned whether they should manage dandelions in their pastures. The plants don’t seem to affect the quality of pasture forage. In fact, livestock can eat dandelions (Bergen, Mayer, and Kozub, 1990).

Dandelion juice is a milk-like latex. This is true of dandelion’s nearest relatives as well... lettuce, chicory, hawksbeard, and hawk weed.

The leaves are delicious when young and are high in vitamins A and C, as well as the minerals iron, copper, and phosphorus. Their use is unlimited in a salad, steamed, or in a stir fry, or as an addition to soup (Cleveland Clinic Health Essentials, n.d.). They are good with onions, eggs, and bacon. They can be incorporated into fritters. If you think spinach, instead think dandelion greens.

You may have noticed dandelions in full sun, but they can grow in shade. They don’t seem to mind drought; their highly developed tap root stores food and water used by the plant to overwinter and in drought. The roots usually grow from about six to eighteen inches deep but can grow to ten feet giving dandelion the name “earth nail” by the Chinese (Duke Gardens, n.d.). (Imagine digging that one out!) The roots are contractile, so the growing point of the dandelion plant is kept near the surface of the soil. The roots contract while the leaves grow in the form of a circle or rosette of leaves close to the ground. The rosette makes it difficult for the seeds of other plants to compete. Look under the snow, and you may see dandelion rosettes. In areas where soil is compacted, dandelion roots do some good as they “dig” into the soil, aerating it. If they are dug out, other plant species have an easier time getting established.

The flower buds of dandelions grow from the top of the root. There are no true stems. If you cut off the plant top, the plant will simply regenerate. (This explains why mowing the lawn does not rid you of dandelions!) Chopping up the soil is no help either, as pieces of the taproot grow into new plants. The roots are edible though, and can be boiled, fried, or dried. Dried roots can be used as a coffee substitute similar to chicory, a close relative (Cleveland Clinic Health Essentials, n.d.). A gardening tip: Be careful when purchasing dandelion seed to grow in your garden for the leaves. “Italian dandelion” seeds, for example, are actually chicory. Pay attention to the genus and species name. The leaves simply don’t taste the same as true dandelion. Keep in mind that some cities and states prohibit growing dandelions (Mahr, n.d.).

The flower stalks are hollow pseudostems (false stems) ranging from about six inches to two feet. The flower heads are compound inflorescences growing to one to two inches in diameter. The pseudostem branches over and over. Each flower head is not a single flower with many petals but one hundred to three hundred identical ray flowers. Take a flower apart and count them. “He loves me. He loves me not.” Each ray flower has a yellow petal with five notches at the top which you can see with a magnifying glass.

The flowering peaks in early summer but can recur in September and October. Take the time to observe the behavior of dandelion flower heads. You will see that the heads open up through much of the day in the early spring, but close up, sometimes quite tightly, by the middle of the day from about June through August. The flower heads also remain closed on overcast days. Do you remember picking bouquets of

dandelions as a child (or perhaps later)? The flower heads close shortly after picking. I remember thinking that my bouquets needed water, so I put them in a glass of water. Nothing changed! The flower heads also close when the seeds are maturing. Then they reopen for their release. Voila!

I keep honeybees. All pollinators are welcome including the native mason bees, the native digger bees. I love watching bees, some fly species, and occasional wasps probing dandelion flower heads. Dandelions are unique. We have been taught that nectar attracts insects to plants. In the process of gathering nectar, insects pollinate the flowers, a good exchange. BUT dandelions don’t need insects to pollinate them, as the fruit (the holders of the seeds) develop asexually, the process termed parthenogenesis. Each individual flower produces seed whether or not an insect visits. This is called apomixis. It occurs in hundreds of plant species. Examples include citrus plants, wild beets, strawberries, and some forage grasses. This means that the seeds that are produced from these plants are all identical (Schader, 2021).

The seed heads of dandelions have interesting names. Two are “blowball,” an obvious reference to a childhood activity, and “monkshead,” what the flower head looks like after the seeds blow off (a tonsure). The fruits of dandelions are achenes—simple, dry fruits with one seed inside each fruit, about an eighth of an inch long. I looked at them under my binocular microscope. The seeds looked ribbed. The achenes don’t split open. They float away in the parachute structure. They germinate on top or near the top of the soil. They don’t need a dormancy period, so they germinate soon after landing.

You can dig dandelions in the wild, cut fresh leaves, or cut the flowers for making wine. (I can tell you from experience that picking one gallon of dandelion flower heads is quite an undertaking.) Wash the flower heads. You then must remove the many thousands of individual flowers. Before harvesting the flower heads, please take care to ensure that they haven’t been sprayed with pesticides or sprayed upon by a passing creature. Or let the flowers be... for insects and for children.

If you wish to grow your own dandelions especially for greens, you can collect wild dandelion seeds. You may also purchase dandelion seeds from vendors such as Johnny’s Selected Seeds or Richter’s Herbs. Most people who intentionally grow dandelions do so for the leaves. For good tasting dandelion leaves, cast the seeds in rich well-draining soil. If you want neat rows in your garden, space the seeds about nine inches apart. Otherwise, plant

spacing is not critical. Cut the leaves when young to reduce the possibility of a bitter taste. If you aren’t interested in the flowers, cut them off so the plant’s energy goes back into leaf production. Fresh leaves can be harvested all season long.

The first time you choose to use dandelions in food, do so cautiously. Some people react to the milky sap. The greens may disagree with your digestive system (Carter, 2020). Don’t forget... there will be more dandelions for you to harvest later.

The lore of dandelions is, of course, fun. We have all held a dandelion flower head filled with seeds and blown them away. What remains are said to tell the number of remaining years of your life, or whether or not you will meet someone to love. If you catch one of the seed heads, you are lucky and may make a wish (Plant-lore, 2021). I did not know the lore of dandelions as a child. I blew the dandelion parachutes away because it was simply fun!

Literature Cited

Baumgardt, John Philip. 1982. How to identify flowering plant families. Portland, OR: Timber Press. Bergen, P., James R. Mayer, and Gerald C. Kozub. 1990. Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) use by cattle grazing on irrigated pasture. Weed Technology. 4(2): 258-263. Accessed March 13, 2022. Available from jstor.org/stable/3987070

Carter, Gary. 2020. Rethinking the dandelion. Horticulture. 117(4): 15-17.

Cleveland Clinic Health Essentials. n.d. Can you eat dandelions? Accessed January 29, 2022. Available from health.clevelandclinic.org/dandelion-health-benefits/ Duke Gardens. n.d. Meet a Plant: Dandelion. Accessed January 31, 2022. Available from https://gardens.duke.edu/sites/default/files/Duke%20Gardens%20-%20Meet%20 a%20Plant%20Dandelion.pdf

Engels, Gayle and Josef Binckmann. 2016. Dandelion. Herbalgram. 109:8-15. Accessed January 29, 2022. Available from https://www.herbalgram.org/resources/herbalgram / Issues/109/table-of-contents/hg109-herbpro-dandelion/ Hourdajian, Dara. 2006. Taraxacum officinale. Introduced Species Project, Columbia University. Accessed January 29, 2022. Available from columbia.edu/itc/cerc/danoff-burg/ invasion_bio/inv_spp_summ/Taraxacum_officinale.htm

Mahr, Susan. n.d. Dandelion, Taraxacum officinale. Extension Service, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Accessed January 29, 2022. Available from https://hort.extension.wisc. edu/articles/dandelion-taraxacum-officinale/ Michigan State University. 2015. Dandelion. Accessed January 29, 2022. Available from canr.msu.edu/resources/dandelion-taraxacum-officinale

Plant-Lore. 2021. Dandelion. Accessed January 31, 2022. Available from https://www.plant-lore.com/dandelion/ Porter, C. L. 1967. Taxonomy of flowering plants, 2nd edition. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.

Schader, Meg. 2021. How does a dandelion reproduce? Accessed January 29, 2022. Available from sciencing.com/how-does-a-dandelion-reproduce-12003581.html

Barbara J. Williams

he Herb Society of America urges members to grow native plants. Take a step back and look at your garden. It is likely that you, in fact, have plants that are native in various areas around the world! Our “native” plants may be recent arrivals in geological time. We grow them because we desire them for their use and delight.

WHERE IN THE WORLD DID PLANTS FIRST DEVELOP?

All living things originally evolved from a single common ancestor. Only those species best suited to the environment of that time, and of every time since, have survived until today.

The oldest known fossil of a vascular plant dates from 433-427 million years ago (Mya), when the location of the land masses of our planet were quite different from their locations today. Continents have drifted apart and coalesced multiple times. (Dahl and Arens, 2020).

The Gymnosperms (seed plants) (370 Mya) and Angiosperms

(conifers) (325 Mya) began to evolve during the Late Devonian (Dahl and Arens, 2020). None of those plants exist today. As newer plants evolve, they displace others. Seed plants displaced many, but not all conifers.

Flowering plants made their first appearance 130 Mya. Bees and other flying insects evolved at about the same time. Flowers needed bees to spread pollen and help them reproduce and bees needed flowers to provide food (Lloyd, 2008).

The last great extinction event, which killed the dinosaurs, also killed about 50% of all plant species. It occurred 66-65 Mya, with massive disruption of plant communities. This had a huge effect on plant distribution worldwide.

During the time between 5.33 Mya to 2.59 Mya, the continents continued to drift and move toward their present locations. The land bridge between North America and Asia formed. Much later South America became connected to North America (Tallis, 1991). Africa drifted toward Europe creating the Mediterranean

Image by anncapictures from Pixabay

Sea and the Alps. India crashed into Asia. All these movements had effects on plant distribution (Knoll, 2012; Lloyd, 2008).

The last Glacial Period began approximately 115,000 years ago and ended about 11,700 years ago. Since then, factors other than continental location have influenced plant distribution. In many cases human intervention has had an influence as well (Knoll, 2012; Lloyd, 2008).

About 10,000 years ago, humans in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East began to develop agriculture. Plant domestication began with cultivation. Agriculture began in specific locations, but as people moved across the earth, they took plants with them. Today we don’t always know where the plants we grow originated (Lloyd, 2008).

CONTINENTAL DRIFT INFLUENCED WHERE HERBAL PLANTS EVOLVED

You can see from the abbreviated timeline above, combined with the illustration showing the drift of continents across the globe (Figure 1), that 250 million years ago the entire landmass of the world was combined into what is now called the supercontinent Pangaea. Any foundational plant that evolved at that time might have successor plants scattered worldwide.

become North America next to what would become Eurasia, ancestral South America next to what would become Africa, and eventual Australia and Antarctica next to each other. At that period, what would become India was a drifting island.

C ontinental drift since that time has connected North and South America, formed the widening Atlantic Ocean between North/South America and Europe/Africa, and seen Antarctica drift south to the pole while Australia moved north. India collided with Asia, pushing up the Himalaya Mountains. The resulting ocean currents of today help to drive both climate and weather, and thus drive the ecology of plants (Raven, 1972).

HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO WHERE HERB PLANTS ARE NATIVE?

Over the last 25-50 years, scientists have explained the evolutionary theory of plants, and indeed of all living things (Brockman, 2016; Gould, 2002; Tallis, 1991). I have related that theory to the specific plants we call herbs.

Every plant today evolved from an earlier plant, which may or may not still exist. The Angiosperm Phylogeny diagram (Figure 2)shows sequential evolution of parent plants over time. The parent plants are at the level of order as indicated by the ‘ales’ ending to each name. This is the grouping above family in the hierarchy of plant taxonomy: order, family, genus, species. This means one hypothetical ancestor plant might have resulted in many of today’s herbs. You can see that the monocots evolved earlier than the dicots (Eudicots). For example, one monocot herb, garlic, is included in the order Asperagales, family Amararyllidaceae, genus Allium. A dicot herb, English lavender, is included in order Lamiales, family Lamiaceae, genus Lavandula.

One hypothetical plant may have evolved into members of multiple families. A member of Order Gentianales might have resulted in Rubia and Coffea in the family Rubiacaea and Asclepias and Catharanthus in the family Apocynaceae.

This visualization of evolution implies that plants that evolved earlier in time evolved when continents were together and those that evolved later did so when continents had drifted apart.

The categories below do not represent discrete areas on earth with hard margins. There are overlaps and plants might fit more than one category. I have listed only a few examples in each category. Readers will find more extensive, but not exhaustive, lists in the tables at the end of the article. A section preceding the literature citations delineates the sources consulted.

COSMOPOLITAN HERB PLANTS

By 200 Mya, Pangaea began to break up into a northern continent, today called Laurasia, and a southern continent, Gondwana (Raven, 1972). About 145 Mya, the earth consisted of a continent that would

The foundational plant of all herbs likely evolved when all future land masses were together in one continent, Pangaea. Cosmopolitan plants are in a genus which contains plants native to all continents. Currently scientists cannot identify on which continent these cosmopolitan plants originally evolved, so we say they are native on all, excluding Antarctica. Fossil evidence might be available in the future, and in most cases, would exclude

Australia which separated from Antarctica relatively recently. Antarctica had a climate conducive to plant growth in extreme ancient times. Each cosmopolitan plant genus had eons to evolve into many species with possible worldwide distribution.

Herbal genera native on all major continents include Artemisia, Berberis, Chenopodium, Eleocharis, Geranium, Heliotropium, Hypericum, Ilex, Mentha, Prunella, Salvia, Solanum, and Stachys.

CIRCUMBOREAL HERB PLANTS

Circumboreal plants are native in the north temperate area on all continents around the world and in a few cases in both the north and south temperate zones. What conditions in earth’s past would have made this possible? When you look at the map of the continents at 200 Mya as they began to break up, you can see the area of Laurasia, which later broke apart to form North America and Eurasia, is apparent. Gondwana would eventually, and much

later, form South America and Africa, as well as Australia and Antarctica. The plants that evolved into the genera that we now call herbs evolved that many years ago. Some genera in this category include the so-called alpine plants.

Circumboreal herb plants include such well known genera as Aconitum, Achillea, Allium, Angelica, Genista, Iris, Juniperus, Lilium, Paeonia, Pulmonaria, Ranunculus, Rosa, Salix, Taxus, Valeriana. (See Table 1 on page 14 for a more extensive list.)

EASTERN HEMISPHERE HERB PLANTS

Mediterranean Native Herbs

These plants are native in areas surrounding the Mediterranean Sea: the southern tier of European countries, western Asia, and northern Africa. This section contains many of the plants we think of as culinary mainstays.

Climate and weather are influential factors in the plant populations circling the Mediterranean. About 65 Mya, Africa and Europe began to drift closer together and the Mediterranean Sea began to form. This drift pushed up the Alps, a great influence on weather. Mediterranean climate is characterized by dry summers and mild, wet winters.

Human influence also became a factor. People who traveled around the perimeter of the Mediterranean Sea, particularly after agriculture was developed around 8,000 BCE, could have established the plants in the areas they settled. This means we can’t tell today exactly where in this area a genus first originated.

Some of the plants listed below reflect these assumptions of native origins. Some are placed in more restricted Mediterranean regions such as in western Asia and north Africa, or from Italy to Greece, or from southern Europe to Iran.

Plants in this category include some of the most studied groups. Just a few of them include Anethum, Borago, Brassica, Coriandrum, Digitalis, Foeniculum, Laurus, Melissa, Origanum, Papaver, Petroselinum, Rosmarinus, Satureja, Thymus. (Refer to Table 2 on page 14 for a broader listing.)

Figure 2. 2003 update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification for the orders and families of flowering plants

Source: APG IV by K. Bremer, M. Chase, J.L. Reveal, D. Soltis, P. Soltis, and P. Stevens.

Northern European Native Herbs

These plants evolved first in northern Europe and thus have a more specific area of origin than those included with Mediterranean plants listed above. This implies fairly recent evolution. Genera include Aesculus, Arnica, Atropa, Filipendula, Gentiana, Humulus, Lavandula, Oenothera, Pimpinella, Taracum, Urginea, Urtica, Vinca.

Sub-Saharan African Native Herbs

The Sahara Desert extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. It separates herbs native along the Mediterranean from southern plants, which have had extended periods to evolve in separate ways. Nearly the entire area, except for southern Africa, lies in the Tropics. Much of this area is relatively flat, apart from the northeastern portion and the Rift Valley.

A few of the herbal genera of the area include Aloe, Aspalathus, Boswellia, Catharanthus, Cynara, Euphorbia, Hoodia, Pelargonium, Rauvolfia, Ricinus (Mahomoodally, 2013).

Asian Native Herbs

Plants described here are native over a wide area including Central Asia, China, Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. This encompasses the gamut of climates and a wide range of native herbal plants. The following partial list demonstrates some of this vast number of native Asian genera: Astragalus, Camellia, Cinnamomum, Cymbopogon, Ephedra, Ginkgo, Glycyrrhiza, Indigofera, Jasminum, Ocimum, Patchouli, Perilla, Piper, Ramie, Zingiber. (See Table 3 on page 14.)

Australasian Native Herbs

From 56-34 Mya, Australia, Antarctica, and South America were still joined. The Australian portion had a wet, warm climate. By 16.3 Mya, the climate had begun to get drier, and by 30,000 –40,000 years ago, it was substantially drier. This has restricted the numbers of original genera that still exist today (Australian Museum, 2021).

A few herbal genera of Australia include Acacia, Alpinia, Backhousia, Callistris, Capparis, Colocassia, Duboisia, Eucalyptus, Grevillea, Melaleuca, Nymphaea, Prosthanthera, Santalum, Solanum, Tasmannia (Brayshaw, 2016).

Aloe, an African native Photo credit: Barbara J. Williams

WESTERN HEMISPHERE HERB PLANTS

By 65 Mya, North America and Eurasia were drifting apart, and North American species began to evolve. South America also moved away from Africa. This resulted in some genera that are exclusively American and others containing species that are European, African, and/or American. They diverged after the original parent evolved in Laurasia or in Gondwana. Much more recently, about 2.8 Mya, North and South America became connected and plant distributions spread between them. Some genera appear on more than one list because the original plant evolved when land masses were still together.

North American Native Herbs

The bioregion of North America is considered to extend through northern Mexico. This includes habitats from arctic to semitropical and a vast area where plants of great diversity evolved before the northern and southern continents were joined at the Isthmus of Panama (O’Dea, et al., 2016). Some plants migrated from Asia to North America when the land bridge formed. Thuja is a genus that evolved in North America and migrated to Asia. Some other North American herbal plants are Agave, Baptisia, Coreopsis, Echinacea, Eupatorium, Hamamelis, Lobelia, Monarda, Rhus, Salix, Solidago, Tagetes, Viola, Yucca, Zinnia (See Table 4 on page 15).

South American Native Herbs

South America’s climate is dominated by the effects of the Andes Mountains which run nearly the entire length of the continent and by the huge tropical Amazon River basin. You might expect to see more duplication of genera in Africa and South America because of their shared origins as part of the ancient landmass of Gondwana. Environmental differences since the separation, especially the development of the Sahara Desert in Africa, have not favored survival of foundational plants that evolved before the separation. Some exceptions to this are the genera Annona, Ceiba, Drimys, and Manilkara. A few other South American herbal genera are Aloysia, Amaranthus, Asclepias, Capsicum, Datura, Glycyrrhiza, Hevea, Ipomoea, Lobelia, Nicotiana, Stevia, Tagetes, Theobroma, Tropaeolum, Vanilla (Table 5 on page 15 contains a more extensive list).

HERBS WITH DISJUNCT POPULATIONS

Disjunct plant populations result when plants are separated geographically from others of their kind for various reasons. Recently, researchers have determined that global events as far

back as 145 Mya have influenced some of these plant separations. Populations may have been isolated when their particular habitat was disconnected or fragmented such as occurred when the Americas drifted away from Europe and Africa, or where India joined with Asia. Disjunction might also have been the result of climate change, glaciation, or mountain (Raven, 1972).

Further disjunctions might also stem from long range dispersal (by wind or animals, including humans) or even parallel evolution. Human-introduced species may have outcompeted native plants. Fragmentation of native herb populations results when movement between one suitable habitat to the next is disrupted. This could have led to either the expansion or contraction of a species’ original range (Pimm, 2014; Tallis, 1991).

These distinct plant populations may have first evolved under many differing circumstances and original distribution does not necessarily relate to any specific time in the past or any specific location on the planet. It is not possible today to identify where these plants originated. Herbs with demonstrated disjunct native populations include Acer, Asarum, Amaranthus, Buxus, Hamamelis, Hypericum, Magnolia, Panax, Sambucus, Teucrium.

THE HUMAN ROLE IN PLANT DISTRIBUTION

Aside from the occasional earthquake or volcanic eruption to indicate that the continents continue to move across the surface of the earth, little has happened to change where plants have evolved in the last 10,000 years. The planet has slowly (until recently) warmed following the end of the last ice age.

Ancient hominids appeared on earth 2.5 Mya. Homo sapiens evolved between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago, began moving out of Africa, and then around the globe. By 45,000 years ago, humans had reached Australia and by 16,000 years ago they had traveled the land bridge and settled the Americas (Harari, 2015). During all those years they depended on the plants and animals

in their environment, and they discovered many uses for wild plants through trial and error.

There are cave paintings depicting herbs in France that date between 25,000 BCE and 13,000 BCE. People began making healing ointments by combining fragrant plants with sesame oil and olive oil as early as 7,000 BCE (Robbelen, 1988).

Prehistory is defined as the time before writing was developed, between 3,400 BCE and 3,100 BCE in Egypt and Samaria. Egyptians were writing about herbs by 2,800 BCE and Sumerians produced a written herbal record around the 25th century BCE. Greek merchants traded in sage, thyme, and marjoram and kept written records of their activities in the markets of Athens by 700 BCE (Pan, 2014). Hippocrates wrote about as many as four hundred plants that he used to treat disease (Herbal Academy, 2021).

Trade always has included trade in plants. The Silk Road refers to a network of routes used by traders for more than 1,500 years, from when the Han dynasty of China opened trade in 130 BCE until 1453 CE, when the Ottoman Empire closed trade with the West (National Geographic, 2019). The period of European history extending from about 400 to 1400 CE is traditionally known as the Middle Ages. Far from being the Dark Ages, the period was marked by economic and trade expansion and demographic and urban growth. The Crusades between 1096 – 1204 CE took people from Europe to the Middle East and back (Britannica/Crusades). The great cultures of Native Peoples in the Americas involved travel and trade over long distances and included the sharing of plants as well as obsidian, quartz, and copper (American Indian History Timeline, n.d.).

Colonists from Europe who settled in North America in the 1600s and 1700s brought seeds of their most useful plants to the New World. The fact that they did this when they had little room on shipboard shows how important herbs were to them. People

transported plants from their native habitats to a new continent, where they became introduced genera. Some of them include Plantago (plantain), Mentha (mint), Lavandula (lavender), Petroselinum (parsley), Calendula (pot marigold), Rosa (roses), Taraxacum (dandelion), Matricaria (chamomile), Thymus (thyme), and Achillea (yarrow) (Peak House Heritage Center, 2021).

THE PLANTS IN YOUR GARDEN

Even if you grow North American native herb plants, intermingled with them may be introduced plants brought here by early settlers, plus many more plants native to other parts of the world. Those plants may have even longer evolutionary histories then North American natives. Look around your garden. You may well be growing herbs from some of the cosmopolitan genera, dating all the way back to Pangaea.

Barbara J. Williams 1937 – 2022

I read of a man who stood to speak at the funeral of a friend... He said what mattered most of all was the dash between the years... The Dash Poem, Linda Ellis

Barbara filled that dash for all of her fellow HSA members and friends by sharing her extensive horticultural knowledge and copy editing skills. Celebrate her life each time you open The Herbarist to one of her articles.

Pot marigold (Calendula officinalis), a garden herb introduced to the New World Photo credit: Fanghong

Sources of information about area of plant origin: Bown, Deni. 2001. The Herb Society of America new encyclopedia of herbs and their uses. New York: DK Publishing. https://britannica.com/ https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/ https://gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org

https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/ https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/ https://www.kew.org/plants/ https://www.livescience.com/ https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info

https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/plantfinder/plantfindersearch.aspx https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ https://www.wildflower.org/plants/ http://www.worldfloraonline.org/

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Australian Museum. 2021. Accessed December 30, 2021. Available from: https://australian.museum/learn/australia-over-time/evolving-landscape/

Brayshaw, Helen. 2016. Traditional aboriginal cuisine in the Herbert/Burdekin district of north Queensland. Journal of James Cook University. Accessed December 17, 2021. Available from: https://journals.jcu.edu.au/linq/article/view/475/303

Brockman, John ed. 2016. Life: the leading edge of evolutionary biology, genetics, anthropology, and environmental science. New York: Harper Perennial.

Dahl, Tais and Susanne Arens. 2020. The impacts of land plant evolution on Earth’s climate and oxygenation rate – an interdisciplinary review. Chemical Geology 547:119665. Accessed November 14, 2021. Available from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0009254120302047

Gould, Stephen Jay. 2002. The structure of evolutionary theory. Cambridge, MA: Belnap Press of Harvard University.

Harari, Yuval Noah. 2015. Sapiens: a brief history of humankind. New York: Harper Perennial.

Herbal Academy. 2021. Accessed December 19, 2021. Available from: https://theherbalacademy.com/herbal-history/

Knoll, Andrew H. 2012. A Brief History of Earth. New York: Harper Collins.

Lloyd, Christopher. 2008. What on earth happened? New York: Bloomsbury USA.

McCormick Science Institute. 2021. Accessed December 20, 2021. Available from: https://www.mccormickscienceinstitute.com/resources/history-of-spices

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Pan, Si-Yuan, Gerhard Litscher, Si-Hua Gao, Shu-Feng Zhou, Zhi-Ling Yu et al. 2014. Historical perspective of traditional indigenous medical practices: the current renaissance and conservation of herbal resources. Accessed December 20, 2021. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4020364/

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Pimm, S.L., C.N. Jenkins, R. Abell, T.M. Brooks, J.L. Gittleman, et al. 2014. The biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection. Science, 344:987– 997. Accessed November 16, 2021. Available from: https://senate.ucsd.edu/media/206192/science-2014-pimm-extinction-review.pdf

Raven, Peter H. 1972. Plant species disjunctions. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden Vol. 59, No. 2, pp. 235-239. Accessed December 22, 2021. Available from: https://doi. org/10.2307/2394756

Robbelen, Gerhard, R. Keith Downey, Amram Ashri, and Paulden Ford Knowles. 1989. Oil crops of the world: their breeding and utilization. New York: McGraw Hill. Seed Leaves. 2021. Accessed December 20, 2021. Available from: https://www.seedleaves.com/herbs

Tallis, J. H. 1991. Plant Community History. London: Chapman and Hall.

Table 1. Circumboreal Herb Genera

Aconitum

Achillea

Allium

Alnus

Anemone

Angelica

Aquilegia

Arctostaphylos

Artemisia

Asarum

Astragalus

Astrantia

Asarum

Astrantia

Betula

Castilleja

Cerastium

Chrysosplenium

Colchicum

Convallaria

Corydalis

Daphne

Delphinium

Dianthus

Echinops

Epimedium

Equisetum

Eranthis

Table 2. Mediterranean Herb Genera

Alchemilla

Althaea

Amoracia

Anchusa

Anethum

Anthriscus

Armoracia

Borago

Brassica

Calendula

Carum

Chamaemelum

Coriandrum

Crocus

Cynara

Digitalis

Foeniculum

Galium

Table 3. Asian Herb Genera

Aconitum

Alpinia

Andrographis

Angelica

Aquilaria

Areca

Astragalus

Atractylodes

Bambusa

Berberis

Broussonetia

Callicarpa

Camellia

Cananga

Caryota

Centelia

Chrysanthmum

Erodium

Euphorbia

Galium

Genista

Gypsophila

Hedysarium

Hypericum

Inula

Iris

Juniperus

Lathyrus

Lilium

Limaria

Linum

Narcissus

Ornithogalum

Osmanthus

Paeonia

Paris

Picea

Pimus

Poa

Pulmonaria

Prunus

Ranunculus

Rhamnus

Pheum

Rhodiola

Rhododendron

Rosa

Salix

Sambucus

Saussurea

Saxifraga

Scrophulara

Silene

Stellaria

Taxus

Tilia

Trifolium

Vaccinium

Veronica

Vicia

Genista Iris

Jasminum

Laurus

Lawsonia

Levisticum

Linum

Marrubium

Matricaria

Melissa

Nepeta

Nigella

Origanum

Papaver

Petroselinum

Poterium

Pulmonaria

Reseda

Rosmarinus

Rubia

Ruta

Sanguisorba

Santolina

Saponaria

Satureja

Silybum

Sinapis

Symphytum

Tanacetum

Teucrium

Thymus

Trigonella

Valeriana

Verbascum

Verbena

Cinnamomum

Cocinium

Commiphora

Coptis

Copyis

Curcuma

Cymbopogon

Dioscorea

Eletteria

Eleutherococcus

Elsholtzia

Epimedium

Fargesia

Ephedra

Garcinia

Ginkgo

Glorisa

Glycyrrhiza

Hydnocarpus

Indigofera

Isatis

Jasminum

Kadsura

Lawsonia

Litchi

Lonicera

Lycoris

Malus

Melaleuca

Mentha

Myristica

Nelumbo

Nordostachys

Ocimum

Oenanthe

Paeonia

Panax

Patchouli

Perilla

Phyllanthus

Phyllostachys

Picrorhiza

Piper

Plantago

Podophyllum

Prunus

Ramie

Rauvolfia

Rehmannia

Reynoutria

Rheum

Rosa

Rubus

Saccharum

Santolum

Sesbania

Styrax

Suzygium

Swertia

Tabernaemontana

Terminalia

Trachelospermum

Vitex

Withonia

Woodfordia

Zingiber

Ziziphus

Table 4. North American Herb Genera

Achillea

Actaea

Adiantum

Agastache

Agave

Aloysia

Amelanchier

Anaphalis

Andorpogon

Anemone

Antennaria

Aralia

Arctostaphylos

Arisaema

Aristolochia

Arnica

Aronia

Asclepias

Asimina

Baptisia

Callicarpa

Calycanthus

Campanula

Campsis

Carpinus

Ceanothus

Cephalanthus

Claytonia

Clinopodium

Comptonia

Coreopsis

Cunila

Desmodium

Echinacea

Elymus

Ephedra

Epilobium

Erigeron

Eriogonum

Erythronium

Eschscholzia

Eupatorium

Fagus

Fallugia

Filipendula

Fouquieria

Fragaria

Gaillardia

Gaultheria

Gillenia

Glandularia

Gleditsia

Gutierrezia

Hamamelis

Helianthus

Hepatica

Table 5. South American Herb Genera

Abutilon

Aloysia

Amaranthus

Anacardium

Ananas

Annona

Aristolochia

Asclepias

Bertholletia

Brugmansia

Capsicum

Carica

Ceiba

Chrysobalanus

Chusquea

Cucurbita

Datura

Drimys

Fragaria

Furcraea

Gevuina

Glycyrrhiza

Heuchera

Hydrastis

Hypericum

Hyptis

Ilex

Iris

Juniperus

Larix

Ledum

Lepidium

Liatris

Lindera

Linum

Lippia

Lobelia

Lonicera

Lycium

Mahonia

Maianthemum

Malpighia

Mirabilis

Mitchella

Monarda

Morella

Muhlenbergia

Oenothera

Opuntia

Osmorhiza

Ostrya

Parthenocissus

Passiflora

Pectis

Penstemon

Persea

Phlox

Physalis

Physocarpus

Phytolocca

Pinus

Podophyllum

Poliomintha

Prosopis

Prunella

Prunus

Pulsatilla

Pycnanthemum

Quercus

Ratibida

Rhus

Ribes

Rubus

Rudbeckia

Salix

Sambucus

Sanguinaria

Sanguisorba

Scutellaria

Senecio

Simmondsia

Solidago

Stellaria, Stylophorum

Symphyotrichum

Tagetes

Thuja

Tiarella

Tilia

Tsuga

Typha

Ulmus

Urtica

Vaccinium

Veratrum

Verbena

Viburnum

Viola

Vitis

Xanthorrhiza

Yucca

Zanthoxylum

Zinnia

Zizia

Gomphrena, Hevea

Hippeastrum

Iochroma

Ipomoea

Jubaea

Lantana

Lapageria

Lobelia

Lupinus

Manihot

Manilkara

Maytenus

Nicotiana

Ocotea

Onothera

Papaya

Passiflora

Plumeria

Psidium

Puya

Roystonea

Schinus

Solanum

Stevia

Tagetes

Theobroma

Tropaeolum

Vanilla

Verbena

Zea

Zinnia

n economic analysis of the production of herbs in the United States can be challenging. Services and goods produced for personal consumption, such as herbs grown in a backyard garden, escape the notice of government statisticians—unless, of course, the gardener is also a government statistician! Those herbs which do not enter into a commercial transaction do not, therefore, contribute to a nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). This statistical shortcoming of GDP was, rather famously, conveyed by the British economist, Arthur Cecil Pigou, who wrote that ‘if a man marries his housekeeper or his cook, [GDP] is diminished’ (Pigou, 1932).1

Inevitably, official statistics will understate the actual production of herbs since a portion of the production will be consumed within the household of the producer. The extent of this understatement may be quite large, given the minimal barriers to the smallscale production of herbs, for which the capital requirements can be as simplistic as a shovel and several pots.

While recognizing that official statistics exclude a perhaps considerable portion of herb production, this article nevertheless attempts an economic assessment of herb production, i.e., commercial herb production, in the United States over the past two decades. The earliest source of official data on herb production in the United States is the 1998 Census of Horticultural Specialties (CHS), and the year 1998 therefore serves as the starting point of the analysis. We can appreciate that the agricultural production data available for the United States, unlike for many other developed countries, are so crop specific that data are actually reported for herbs. This herbal data renders the United States an opportune country for

Brian D. Varian, PhD

1

In The Economics of Welfare, Pigou used the now antiquated term ‘national dividend,’ of which a modern equivalent would be GDP.

evaluating the place of herbs in a national economy. Therefore, the scope for cross-country comparisons is limited indeed.

The subject of herbs in the American economy has not exactly enjoyed a surfeit of scholarship, and this should not come as a surprise. In 2019, the value of American herb production amounted to a meager $0.41 per capita (population data from Bureau of the Census; herb production data from National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2019 Census of Horticultural Specialties; n.b. Unless otherwise stated, all statistics in this article have been at least partly derived from the Censuses of Horticultural Specialties). While the American herb ‘industry’ may be described as small, its economic dimension deserves examination, not least because such an examination will find— the author hopes—a receptive and interested audience among readers of The Herbarist.

Census of Horticultural Specialties

The first Census of Horticultural Specialties was conducted in 1889, and censuses have been conducted at irregular intervals ever since. During its first century, the census was administered by the Bureau of the Census. However, beginning with the 1998 census, the National Agricultural Statistics Service of the Department of Agriculture took over responsibility for its administration. This transfer of responsibility coincided with a more detailed reporting of horticultural data, including data for herbs, which continued to be reported in the 2009, 2014, and 2019 censuses. The CHS divides herbs into two categories: 1) cut fresh herbs and 2) annual bedding/garden plants (hereafter ‘garden herbs’). Garden herbs are further broken into three sub-categories: flats, pots, and hanging baskets. And within the sub-category of pots, a distinction is made between pots that are less than five inches and pots that are more than five inches. It is important to observe that the Census of Horticultural Specialties only extends to fresh herbs, not to dried and crushed herbs; thus, the scope of this study is confined to fresh herbs. For each category and sub-category of

herbs covered in the census, data are reported at the national and state levels, subject to certain exceptions described shortly. The reported data include the value of production and the number of ‘operations.’

What constitutes an operation? For the Census of Horticultural Specialties, an operation is defined as an entity that produces $10,000 or more of horticultural specialty products within the census year. Thus, a farm producing $1 of herbs is an operation, provided its production and sales exceed the $10,000 threshold on account of non-herb horticultural specialty products, e.g., broccoli. Yet, a farm producing $9,000 of herbs but no non-herb horticultural specialty products would not be considered an operation; $10,000 is the magic number. To account for the production of horticultural specialty products by (commercial) non-operations, the National Agricultural Statistics Service follows a complex statistical reweighting procedure not particularly worth explaining here. 2 Still, the definition of an operation is important. We must note that respondents to the CHS are legally entitled to confidentiality. While the mere existence of an operation is not considered confidential data, the value of its production is considered confidential data. Thus, any data that might permit the public to infer the dollar value of a firm’s production is not included in the CHS. The CHS will often suppress data at the state level, especially for those states with a small number of operations. 3 Uniquely, in the 2009 census, the entire national value had to be suppressed for the category of cut fresh herbs; for that year, the value of herb production is only available for the category of garden herbs.

National Trends

The value of herb production has not followed a consistent course since 1998. As indicated in Table 1, the value of herb production increased from 1998-2014, but thereafter declined between the census years of 2014 and 2019. In terms of current (i.e., non-price-adjusted) values, the decline in production between 2014 and 2019 was 20 percent. However, herbs, like so many other commodities, tend to have increasing prices. Since the CHS reports only current values, it is necessary to price-adjust these current values to determine the real decline in herb production between 2014 and 2019. For this study, we can convert current values to real values using the average prices of small potted herbs. The CHS consistently reports the values and quantities of (small and large) potted herbs produced, thus enabling the calculation of

2 To put it briefly, the National Agricultural Statistics Service samples one-third of those entities with horticultural production falling beneath the $10,000 threshold and then reweights the reported data. There is a further reweighting to account for operations that do not respond to the census.

3 Consider, for example, a state with two operations: one very large and one very small. Since the value of herb production for the very large producer would closely approximate the value of production for the state, the public would be easily able to surmise the former. Hence, the confidentiality of the respondent would be undermined.

Fresh cut herbs

Photo credit: Arnaud25

United States, Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States (2011). Available from https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2010/compendia/statab/130ed.html

United States, Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis. Available from https://www.bea.gov/data

United States, Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Available from https://www.bls.gov/data/tools.htm

United States, International Trade Commission, Dataweb database. Available from https://dataweb.usitc.gov/(account required to access)

the average prices of potted herbs.4 Here, the assumption is that the price fluctuations of small potted herbs are representative of the price fluctuations of herbs more generally. In terms of real (i.e., price-adjusted) values, the decline in production between 2014 and 2019 was 23 percent, although the real value remains above its 1998 level.

Table 1. Value of herb production in the United States, 1998-2019 ($ million)

accounts for such a small share of the United States’ GDP that it is convenient to express the share on a dollars-per-million basis, rather than as percentages. The share of the herb industry in GDP rose from $5.67 per million in 1998 to $9.56 per million in 2014, before declining to $6.30 per million in 2019—not very much greater than the initial share in 1998 (GDP data from Bureau of Economic Analysis).

Sources: National Agricultural Statistics Service, 1998-2019 Censuses of Horticultural Specialties.

Notes: Current values are converted to real values using the average price of a small potted herb, which is calculable from the Census of Horticultural Specialties. The values of cut fresh herb and total herb production are unavailable for 2009 because the production value of cut fresh herbs was suppressed for this year, in the interest of reporter confidentiality.

Of course, the population of the United States has grown since 1998, and therefore we might question whether growth in herb production has kept pace with growth in the population. From 1998-2014, real herb production per capita, expressed in constant 2019 prices, increased from $0.33 to $0.55, before falling to $0.41 in 2019 (population data from Bureau of the Census, including 2011 Statistical Abstract). As with the real value of production, the per capita real value of production peaked with the 2014 census. Another way to evaluate the development of the herb industry is in relation to total economic output, or GDP. The herb industry

W hile the herb industry comprises a very small share of the United States’ total economic output, it comprises a greater, though still very modest, share of the United States’ farm output.5 Indeed, the share of the herb industry in farm output may be a more relevant statistic to consider, since it is ultimately the farmer/gardener who decides upon the composition of agricultural production and whether or not to substitute toward (or away from) herbs. In other words, the share of the herb industry in farm output will be more suggestive of the decisions that producers and potential producers make. This share has increased from $650.13 per million in 1998 to $1,010.40 per million in 2014, followed by an even further increase to $1,094.69 per million in 2019 (farm output data from Bureau of Economic Analysis). Unlike the herbal share of GDP, the herbal share of farm output did not peak in 2014 but has continued to increase. In the most recent intercensal interval of 2014-19, the herb industry has been a better-than-average performing industry within a worse-than-average performing sector, i.e., the farm sector.

A s already discussed, the consistent reporting of data on the values and quantities of potted herbs permits the calculation of the average prices of potted herbs. Figure 1 depicts the average prices of small potted herbs and the consumer price index (CPI), which is the conventional index used to measure inflation. In the figure, both series reference a value of 100 for 1998. From 19982019, the average price of a small potted herb has increased at a rate of 2.7 percent per annum, which was greater than rate of inflation of 2.2 percent per annum (CPI data from Bureau of Labor Statistics). The rate was greater than the inflation rate for the 19982009 and 2009-14 intercensal intervals but not for the most recent intercensal interval. From 2014-19, the average price of a small potted herb increased at a rate of 0.8 percent per annum, compared to an inflation rate of 1.6 percent per annum (CPI data from Bureau of Labor Statistics). This beneath-inflation price increase, alongside declining real production of herbs, would ordinarily suggest a slackening of demand for herbs. However, it would be

4 It is preferable to rely upon the average price of a most disaggregated category of herbs, such as small potted herbs, rather than rely upon the average price of a more highly aggregated category of herbs, such as (all) potted herbs. The more general the grouping, the more likely that movements in the average price will be influenced by compositional changes within the category. The average price of small potted herbs is used, instead of the price of large potted herbs, because small potted herbs comprise most of the value of potted herb production.

5 Farm output consists of agricultural output less the output of forestry, fishing, and related activities.

Potted herbs for sale

Photo credit: Lois Sutton

imprudent to draw such a conclusion in this instance, since not only domestic but also foreign producers supply the American market for fresh herbs, and herb imports will partly determine price movements in the American market.

diversification toward herb production would have the effect of reducing the per-operation average.

19982000200220042006200820102012201420162018

Small potted herb Consumer price index

Sources: National Agricultural Statistics Service, 1998-2019 Censuses of Horticultural Specialties for the average price of a small potted herb; Bureau of Labor Statistics for the consumer price index.

Notes: A small potted herb refers to the category of ‘pots less than five inches,’ which are separately distinguished in the Census of Horticultural Specialties.

Table 2 shows the numbers of operations producing garden herbs and cut fresh herbs. The trends are quite different, with the number of operations declining for garden herbs and rising for cut fresh herbs. While the number of firms producing cut fresh herbs is ever increasing, the average real value of cut fresh herb production per operation has diminished, by more than twothirds, since 1998. This development should not alarm proponents of the herb industry, since, as already mentioned, the real value of cut fresh herbs is higher in 2019 than in 1998. Additionally, it is worth remembering that the operations producing cut fresh herbs may also be involved in other branches of horticultural production. If an operation traditionally engaged in non-herbal horticulture commences a small-scale cultivation of herbs, such a

I n determining the number of operations involved in herb production, we have a limited opportunity for international comparison. Dumville’s (1988, p. 84) study of the herb industry in the United Kingdom estimated that, in 1986, there were between 90 and 120 producers of containerized herb plants, which would be closest to the American category of garden herbs. Standardizing by population, these figures equate to 1 producer of garden herbs for every 470-630 thousand of the UK population in 1986 (UK population data from Office for National Statistics).6 Considering the number of operations producing garden herbs in the United States in 2009, the first year for which this figure is reported, there was 1 producer of garden herbs for every 130 thousand of the American population (American population data from Bureau of the Census, 2011 Statistical Abstract). While cross-country differences between the definition of an ‘operation’ and a ‘grower,’ as well as the two-decade difference between the data, make for a rather rough-and-ready comparison, the ratios nevertheless suggest that the incidence of commercial herb production in the United States is not low, at least in relation to another advanced economy.

State Variation

In 2019, the states with the largest number of operations producing garden herbs were Michigan (162), Pennsylvania (147), Ohio (128), New York (122), and Wisconsin (113). The only state lacking a single such operation was Nevada! The leading states, in terms of the number of operations producing cut fresh herbs, were Michigan (50), Florida (47), Pennsylvania (43), Ohio (34), and Oregon (32). Of course, the average value of herb production per operation will vary across states, and the number of operations alone does not reveal very much about the significance of herb production to each state’s economy or to its farm sector. Regrettably, given the smaller number of operations producing cut fresh herbs, the CHS often must suppress state-level data on the value of cut fresh herb production to maintain the confidentiality of the small number of respondents— occasionally just a single respondent. Thus, the ensuing analysis in this section will pertain to just garden herbs.

Sources: National Agricultural Statistics Service, 1998-2019 Censuses of Horticultural Specialties.

Notes: Data are not available for garden herbs in 1998 because the Census of Horticultural Specialties did not report aggregate data for this category. Rather, data are only reported for the individual sub-categories of flats, pots, and hanging baskets. Since some operations would have produced garden herbs across multiple sub-categories, the total number of operations producing garden herbs cannot be calculated as the sum of the operations in each sub-category, lest some operations be double (or triple) counted. The average real value of cut fresh herbs per operation is unavailable for 2009 because the production value of cut fresh herbs was suppressed for this year, in the interest of reporter confidentiality.

As for the value of garden herbs produced in 2019, the five leading states were Connecticut (14.3 percent of national production), Alabama (13.1 percent), California (8.7 percent), Texas (7.4 percent), and Michigan (6.2 percent).7 Collectively, these five states accounted for 49.8

6 It is not possible to standardize by the value of herb production because the United Kingdom does not collect data on herb production specifically (author’s personal correspondence with United Kingdom Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, 16 December 2021).

Figure 1. Herb prices and the consumer price index, 1998-2019

Table 2. Herb operations in the United States, 1998-2019

percent of national garden herb production, by value, in 2019. Their combined share has changed little since previous censuses, with these five states accounting for 45.8 percent in 2014 and 50.5 percent in 2009. 8 The tremendous variation in the sizes (economic and geographic) of the fifty states makes it important to standardize the state-level values of garden herbs in terms of state-level GDP or farm output. Due to data suppression, we cannot determine the states with the highest shares of garden herb production in their GDPs with absolute certainty. Still, in 2019, the shares for Alabama ($39.43 per million) and Connecticut ($34.60 per million) were extremely high, compared to a national figure of $3.25 per million for garden herbs (GDP data from Bureau of Economic Analysis).

As for the share of garden herbs in farm production, the very highest shares are claimed by the New England states: Connecticut ($35,148.10 per million, or 3.5 percent), New Hampshire ($8,036.93 per million), and Massachusetts ($7,721.24 per million), compared to a national figure of $564.97 per million for garden herbs (farm output data from Bureau of Economic Analysis). Alabama and Alaska also performed well according to this measure. In terms of the share of garden herbs in farm production, we can question whether those states with lower shares have been ‘catching up’ or, to borrow an economist’s term, converging upon those states with the highest shares, principally in New England.9 In other words, have those states with initially lower shares of garden herbs in farm output experienced faster rates of

7 While some of the state-level data for garden herbs was suppressed, it is impossible for any of the ‘suppressed’ states to be among the top five, since only 5.7 percent of the national total was suppressed, i.e., unattributed to individual states.

8 Although, the composition of the five largest states has changed somewhat over time.

growth in their shares, so that their shares converge upon the shares in the leading states? In Figure 2, the horizontal axis measures the share of garden herbs in farm output in 2009, while the vertical axis measures the annual growth rate of the share of garden herbs in farm output from 2009-19. Due to data suppression, we can only plot points for a sample of thirty-nine states—the thirty-nine states for which the production value of garden herbs was available in both 2009 and 2019. For the 39-state sample, there is a statistically significant positive correlation (p=0.065) between the initial share in 2009 and the growth rate of the share from 2009-19, which would be evidence against the presence of convergence. However, removing the ‘Connecticut outlier’ from the sample renders the correlation statistically insignificant (p=0.344), although the correlation remains positive. Regardless, this statistical analysis yields no evidence in favor of convergence.

Foreign Trade

The Census of Horticultural Specialties (CHS) is not compatible with the United States’ foreign trade statistics; the commodities are classified according to different systems. The United States’ foreign trade statistics record herbs under various commodity classifications, sometimes within the same commodity classification as non-herbs. Thus, our attempt to identify herbs within the foreign trade statistics is imperfect.

Three common herbs (basil, mint, and sage) carry assigned Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) codes. Their unique numbers clearly identify them within the foreign trade statistics. However, these commodity classifications include both fresh and dried varieties of the herbs, whereas only fresh herbs

9 To be more precise, what is being considered here is the existence of an unconditional β-convergence in the shares of garden herbs in farm output.

Commercial mint farm

Photo credit: Lois Sutton

Figure 2. State shares of garden herb production in farm output (and growth thereof), 2009-19

Sources: National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2009 and 2019 Censuses of Horticultural Specialties for values of garden herb production; Bureau of Economic Analysis for values of farm output.

Share of garden herbs in farm output, 2009 ($ per million)

are included in the CHS. For each of these three herbs, data are available for the quantities imported, and therefore no price adjustment is necessary. Figure 3 presents the quantities imported, which reference a value of 100 for 2004. Over the period from 2004-2019, imports of basil increased by 149 percent, mint by 626 percent, and sage by 44 percent (International Trade Commission, Dataweb database).

cut fresh herbs produced in the United States. While the data do not permit exact comparisons between imports and domestic production of fresh herbs, it can nevertheless be concluded that the importation of herbs is a big business, with imports constituting a substantial, if not dominant, share of the United States’ consumption of fresh herbs. Undoubtedly, the United States’ tariff-free treatment of these imports enhances the value each year (International Trade Commission, Dataweb database).

Conclusion

This article has identified several trends that have emerged within the American herb industry. First, herbs comprise an increasing share of the United States’ farm output. Second, there has been a pronounced and sustained increase in the number of operations producing cut fresh herbs, coinciding with a decline in the peroperation average real value of cut fresh herbs produced. Third, in the American market, domestic production of herbs is supplemented, to an increasing extent, by the importation of herbs. As might be expected, there is considerable variation among the states, with respect to the number of herbal operations and the significance of the herb industry to GDP and farm output.

The United States imports these three herbs from an array of countries; again, bear in mind that a portion of these imports are of the dried variety. In 2019, the leading sources were Mexico for basil (35.9 percent of basil imports), Colombia for mint (56.8 percent of imports), and Albania for sage (63.9 percent of imports) (International Trade Commission, Dataweb database). In that year, imports of just these three herbs alone amounted to a combined $61.7 million, or nearly as much as the entire value of

Literature Cited

Dumville, Caroline. 1988. The herb industry. Professional Horticulture. 2:82-85. Pigou, A. C. 1932. The economics of welfare. London: Macmillan.

T his brief study has focused on the output of the American herb industry. Yet, there remains much to explore regarding the inputs of the industry: the labor, land, raw materials, capital, and human capital, which combine to produce commercial herbs. The availability of data is an obstacle, but not an insuperable one; data collected directly from firms would make such a study feasible. The effects of government policies on the herb industry are another area deserving of scholarly pursuit. Although very much a start, I hope that this article has piqued your interest in the economic dimension of herbs.

United Kingdom, Office for National Statistics. Available from https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates

United States, Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service, Census of Horticultural Specialties (1998, 2009, 2014, 2019). Available from https://www. nass.usda.gov/Surveys/Guide_to_NASS_Surveys/Census_of_Horticultural_Specialties/index.php

United States, Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Available from https://www.census.gov/data.html

United States, Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States (2011). Available from https://www.census.gov/library/ publications/2010/compendia/statab/130ed.html

United States, Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis. Available from https://www.bea.gov/data

United States, Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Available from https://www.bls.gov/data/tools.htm

United States, International Trade Commission, Dataweb database. Available from https://dataweb.usitc.gov/ (account required to access)

Figure 3. Import quantities of basil, mint, and sage, 2004-2019

Source: International Trade Commission, Dataweb database. Notes: All quantities have been expressed relative to their 2004 levels, which were 5,521,520 kilograms for basil, 176,374 kilograms for mint, and 2,709,464 kilograms for sage.

These Plants (Probably) Won’t Kill You

Erin Holden

The nightshade (Solanaceae) family has fascinated me for a long time. Just the word “nightshade” conjures up images of witches dancing around a bubbling cauldron in the dark of night, brewing up nefarious concoctions, and making pacts with the devil. Indeed, the flying ointments made by witches of the Middle Ages relied on deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna L.), mandrake (Mandragora officinarum L.), and henbane (Hyoscyamus niger L.).These are all nightshades that can cause hallucinations, delirium, and (in the case of deadly nightshade), a sensation of flying (Lee, 2007). They could also kill you in the right (or in this case, wrong) dosage. I later learned that when used correctly, even plants as dangerous as deadly nightshade can be medicinally beneficial.

Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay

Imagine my surprise when I discovered my beloved potato belonged in this family, as well as other garden favorites, like tomatoes and eggplants. The more I investigated the Solanaceae, the more I saw that humanity’s relationship with this family is long and complex. Throughout history people have employed plants in this family not only for food, but as medicine and poison; for magic, ritual/spiritual use, and recreation; and ornamentation in our gardens—even petunias are nightshades!

Often there is no definitive line between these uses. What we might consider as “magical” use today in the West, was, and in some cultures still is, tied to medicine. Medicine and ritual use are likewise closely linked. So, what makes Solanaceae so special?

Many solanaceous plants contain a unique set of alkaloids, naturally occurring compounds that contain at least one nitrogen atom and often taste bitter. Nightshades’ main alkaloids are hyoscyamine, scopolamine, and solanine, as well as the familiar nicotine. Some members of this family, like deadly nightshade and jimsonweed (Datura stramonium L.), contain dangerous levels of alkaloids, while others, like potato (Solanum tuberosum L.), contain lower, safer levels. The important thing to understand about these alkaloids is they can pass the blood-brain barrier and cause dose-dependent hallucinations and psychoactive effects—the higher the dose, the greater the effect. This accounts for many of the uses for which people have employed non-food nightshades for thousands of years.

The Solanaceae family comprises about one hundred genera containing around 2,400 species (Davenport, 2004; Olmstead et al., 2008). The plants are herbaceous, with some vines and a few shrubs and small trees. Leaves are alternate and usually simple, but they can be pinnate. The flowers have five sepals and five petals, which are partially or fully fused into a tubular corolla, five stamens, and a superior ovary with two fused carpels. The fruits can be either a berry (like the tomato) or a capsule (like jimsonweed). They’re found worldwide, with about forty genera endemic to tropical Latin America but only fifty species native in the United States and Canada (Morris and Taylor, 2017; The Plant List Database, 2013).

Botanical literature often refers to nightshades as Old World (those native to Europe, Asia, and Africa) and New World (those native to the Americas). Europeans tended to fear Old World plants like deadly nightshade, henbane, and mandrake, as many of them could be deadly if used incorrectly. On the other hand, people in the New World revered and respected their nightshades as many of them were staple foods, such as chili peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes, or were considered sacred, like

Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal (Ashwagandha)

Ashwagandha is an Old World nightshade that seems to have escaped the veil of superstition and suspicion that surrounds its more notorious cousins. Its native range extends from the Mediterranean to South and East Africa, over to the Middle East, and into India and Sri Lanka. It’s a small branching shrub, growing two to three feet tall, and producing small red fruits surrounded by a lantern-like calyx (like a tiny Chinese lantern or tomatillo). The common name translates from Sanskrit to mean “smells like a horse,” referring to the strong odor of the root. It could also suggest the effects of taking ashwagandha, which may give one “the power of a horse” (Singh, Bhalla, de Jager, and Gilca, 2011). The specific epithet, somnifera, alludes to the herb’s sleep-promoting properties. This plant has a long history of use in Ayurvedic medicine, going back 6,000 years. There is evidence dating to at least 1000 BCE of the scholar Punarvasu Atreya teaching medical students how to use it (Singh and Kuma, 1998). A plant that scholars commonly accept as ashwagandha appears in the oldest surviving copy of Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica from the 6th century, and then again

Potato flowers showing fused petals

Photo credit: Ezhuttukari

Withania somnifera, ashwagandha, fruit

Photo credit: Wowbobwow12

in texts from the 1550s under names like Solanum somniferum verticilliatum, Solanum soporiferum, and Thrychnos hypnoticos, names again referring to its sleep-inducing properties, as well as its relationship to other nightshades (Daunay, Laterrot, and Janick, 2008). In Ayurveda, ashwagandha is considered a Rasayana, a “therapeutic measure which promotes the [sic] longevity, prevents aging, provides positive health and mental faculties, increases memory, and impart[s] resistance and immunity against diseases” (National Health Portal, 2016). The root is used for malnutrition, insomnia, and anxiety, and as an aphrodisiac, diuretic, general tonic, and adaptogen (which helps one cope with physical, chemical, and emotional stressors). In Africa, various peoples use the root to improve uterine tone, as a nervine, and for asthma; leaves are applied to boils, eye sores, and open wounds (Singh, Bhalla, de Jager, and Gilca, 2011; Singh and Kuma, 1998).

emotional stressors). In Africa, various peoples use the root to improve uterine tone, as a nervine, and for asthma; leaves are applied to boils, eye sores, and open wounds (Singh, Bhalla, de Jager, and Gilca, 2011; Singh and Kuma, 1998).

emotional stressors). In Africa, various peoples use the root to improve uterine tone, as a nervine, and for asthma; leaves are applied to boils, eye sores, and open wounds (Singh, Bhalla, de Jager, and Gilca, 2011; Singh and Kuma, 1998).

Unlike many other solanaceous plants with therapeutic properties attributedtoalkaloids, the main active constituents in ashwagandha are a group of steroidal lactones called withanolides. These are responsible for the antimicrobial and adaptogenic actions of ashwagandha anddemonstrate anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory activities (Dar, Hamid, and Ahmad, 2015).Discovery ofthese compounds and their therapeutic actions supports this plant’s traditional uses.

Unlike many other solanaceous plants with therapeutic properties attributedtoalkaloids, the main active constituents in ashwagandha are a group of steroidal lactones called withanolides. These are responsible for the antimicrobial and adaptogenic actions of ashwagandha anddemonstrate anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory activities (Dar, Hamid, and Ahmad, 2015).Discovery ofthese compounds and their therapeutic actions supports this plant’s traditional uses.

Unlike many other solanaceous plants with therapeutic properties attributed to alkaloids, the main active constituents in ashwagandha are a group of steroidal lactones called withanolides. These are responsible for the antimicrobial and adaptogenic actions of ashwagandha and demonstrate anti-cancer and antiinflammatory activities (Dar, Hamid, and Ahmad, 2015). Discovery of these compounds and their therapeutic actions supports this plant’s traditional uses.

Fruit and flower of Lycium barbarum, wolfberry Photo credit: Lazaregagnidze

Lycium barbarum L. (Wolfberry)

Lycium barbarum L. (Wolfberry)

Lycium barbarum (L.) (Wolfberry)

Wolfberry, or lycium, is a deciduous shrub with arching branches that can reach ten feet in height. Its small, oval red fruits are harvested for food and medicine. Wolfberry is native to China; most of the world’s supply grows in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (Engels and Brinckmann, 2017). In Chinese, the name of the plant is gouqi

and improve vision. Modern research supports wolfberry consumption for aiding vision. The fruits contain high levels of zeaxanthin and lutein, carotenoids that are absorbed into the retinal macula lutea. The antioxidant activity of these compounds can help protect against macular degeneration (Dharmananda, 2007; Engels and Brinckmann, 2017). Wolfberry applications include treatment of diabetes, episodes of dizziness, and as a “longevity aid” (Dharmananda, 2007; Yao, Heinrich, and Weckerle, 2018).

. The character for gou is related to the one that means “dog” or “wolf,” hence the common name wolfberry. Lycium first appears in the written record in a book of poems from the Zhou Dynasty (1100s - 300s BCE), called the Book of Songs, which describes harvesting the fruits.

Wolfberry, or lycium, is a deciduous shrub with arching branches that can reach tenfeet in height. Itssmall, oval red fruits are harvested for food and medicine. Wolfberry is native to China; most of the world’s supply growsin the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (Engels and Brinckmann, 2017). In Chinese, the name of the plant is gouqi (枸杞) and the fruit is gouqizi (枸杞子). The character for gou is related to the one that means “dog” or “wolf,”hence the common name wolfberry. Lycium first appears in the written record in a book of poems from the Zhou Dynasty (1100s -300s BCE), called the Book of Songs, which describes harvesting the fruits. Illustration 3 (can be within paragraph)

and the fruit is gouqizi

Wolfberry, or lycium, is a deciduous shrub with arching branches that can reach tenfeet in height. Itssmall, oval red fruits are harvested for food and medicine. Wolfberry is native to China; most of the world’s supply growsin the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (Engels and Brinckmann, 2017). In Chinese, the name of the plant is gouqi (枸杞) and the fruit is gouqizi (枸杞子). The character for gou is related to the one that means “dog” or “wolf,”hence the common name wolfberry. Lycium first appears in the written record in a book of poems from the Zhou Dynasty (1100s -300s BCE), called the Book of Songs, which describes harvesting the fruits. Illustration 3 (can be within paragraph)

In the US, the fruit is commonly called goji berry, from the Americanized pronunciation of gouqi (Dharmananda, 2007; Engels and Brinckmann, 2017). In the early 2000s, a product branded as “Himalayan Goji Juice'' became popular in the United States as a “superfood.” However, “the term ‘Himalayan goji’ is only for marketing purposes and is not an actual geographical indication” for the source of the fruit (Engels and Brinckmann, 2017).

The use as a longevity aid generated folk tales about lycium. In one, a traveling scholar comes upon a girl/young woman beating an elderly man. The scholar thought it terrible that the girl was disrespecting her elder in such a way and confronted her. The girl replied that the man was her great-great-grandson, and she was punishing him for not eating his wolfberries to stay young. Another tale tells of a town—or a group of monks—full of

In the US,the fruit is commonly called goji berry, from the Americanized pronunciation of gouqi (Dharmananda, 2007; Engels and Brinckmann, 2017). In the earl branded as “Himalayan Goji Juice'' became popular in the United States as a “superfood.” However, “the term ‘Himalayan goji’ is only for marketing purpos geographical indication” for the source of the fruit (Engels a

The first recorded medicinal use was in the Shannon Bencao Jing, an herbal from the 1st century CE. Traditional Chinese medicine recommends wolfberry to nourish the kidney and liver, moisten the lungs, enrich the blood,

Ceremonial picking of wolfberries near Ningxia, China Photo credit: Paul144

centenarians. The story explains that all the citizens drank from a common well around which wolfberry plants grew, dropping their fruits into the water, and thereby infusing the water with healthful, life-extending properties.

In China wolfberries serve as a food. They’re cooked into rice congee and soups, brewed into tea, and blended with grapes into wine (Wolfberry, 1997-2021). Despite the long history of wolfberries as a safe food, their position in the Solanaceae family prompted researchers to investigate their chemical constituents. Might this plant contain such dangerous alkaloids as atropine, hyoscyamine, and scopolamine, like its deadly cousins? Although an initial study suggested the fruit contained low levels of atropine, these results were later questioned, as the fruits assessed may have come from species other than L. barbarum (Qian, Zhao, Yang, and Huan, 2017). Further investigation with properly identified cultivars of L. barbarum concluded that no toxic alkaloids are present, and wolfberries are safe to eat (Kokotkiewicz et al., 2017).

Solanum tuberosum (L.) (Potato)

Potato plants are herbaceous perennials that grow from one to four feet tall, producing starchy underground tubers that are an important food crop around the world. They are endemic at high altitudes and in dry climates. The high starch content of the tuber helps the plant survive drought and other extreme environmental conditions. Potatoes originated in southern Peru, perhaps northern Bolivia as well, and have been cultivated for about 7,000 years. Archaeologists have found many potato-shaped ceramics from the Nazca (400 BCE–600 CE), Mochica (1 CE –600 CE), Chimu (900 CE –1450 CE), and Chimu-Inca (1100 CE –1400 CE) cultures. Pre-Incan people worshiped Pachamama, the earth mother, as well as her daughter Axomama, the mother of potato (Daunay, Laterrot, and Janick, 2008). The deification of this plant emphasizes the importance of the potato for these people.

An acre of potatoes could feed ten people for a year, making it a very valuable crop. To preserve the potato harvest, Andean people froze them overnight, then squeezed out the moisture. One source said this method could preserve potatoes for up to ten years in a sealed room (Lee, 2006). Currently, over 3,500 types of potatoes grow in Peru. They come in a wide range of colors and shapes, from the familiar brown lumps to purple, pine-cone shaped tubers (Quiroz, 2019).

Americans also love potatoes. In 2016, potatoes were the third most sold vegetable product in the US (tomatoes, another nightshade, were second). In 2019, the US crop brought to market 49.4 pounds of potatoes per person (Economic Research Service, 2020). PotatoesUSA states that US potato growers cultivate a broad selection of more than one hundred table-stock varieties.

Each falls into one of seven potato categories: russet, red, white, yellow, blue-purple, fingerling, and petite (PotatoesUSA, 2017).

W hen the Spanish arrived in the New World, they considered the potato fit only for the conquered Incans. Eventually though, the potato made its way to Europe in the mid- to late-1500s, where it proved controversial. Some herbalists of the time considered it a tasty food and recorded recipes of how best to prepare it, while others thought it caused leprosy. Some were afraid of it since the potato grew underground, which they associated with hell and evil things. But despite some comparisons of the plant’s fruit (though not the part eaten) with mandrake (a dangerous plant shrouded with superstition), it wasn’t viewed with the same suspicion as Old World nightshades, such as deadly nightshade and henbane, and it eventually became a food staple.

Unknown until fairly recently, potatoes contain Vitamin C. When they were included in the diet of children in a London orphanage in the 1770s, the incidence of scurvy dropped dramatically—a fortunate, albeit unintentional, result. A doctor associated with the orphanage at that time wondered if potatoes contained a similar antiscorbutic (anti-scurvy) compound as citrus fruits, a hypothesis that researchers confirmed in the 1930s when they first isolated ascorbic acid and then discovered it in potatoes (Daunay, Laterrot and Janick, 2008; Lee, 2006).

We can’t talk potatoes without mentioning the Irish potato famine. Even though native to dry, high elevations, potatoes grew well in wet Ireland, and they became a staple crop by the late 1700s. Potatoes provided a stable food source, contributing to the doubling of the Irish population in forty years (from four million to eight million people). Unfortunately, a fungal infection (Phytopthera infestans), thought to originate in Philadelphia in 1843, caused multiple potato crop failures, and then outright collapse, between 1845-1848. Massive malnutrition, starvation, and evictions from family farms followed this agricultural calamity. British economic policy of the time exacerbated the devastation. Over two million people either died or emigrated due to An Gorta Mór, The Great Hunger (Lee, 2006). Powerful memorials to this event exist throughout Ireland.

Despite the many virtues of the potato, like other members of the Solanaceae it does have a shady side. It contains the glycoalkaloids alpha-solanine and alpha-chaconine, which are usually present at low, non-toxic levels. However, if potatoes are exposed to light for extended periods, they start to turn green, the “eyes” begin to grow, and alkaloid increases, especially concentrated just under the skin and in the eyes. Eating these “green” potatoes can cause what’s termed solanine poisoning (although alpha-chaconine also contributes), the symptoms of

which are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of consciousness, and breathing problems, or death in severe cases (Kuiper-Goodman and Nawrot, n.d.). Storing potatoes out of the light and peeling older potatoes before consumption are good safety practices. Cooking does little to break down the toxins, so it’s not an effective way to decrease elevated levels of these substances (The British Medical Journal, 1979; World Food Regulation Review, 2018).

Nicotiana spp. (L.) (Tobacco)

There are about seventy-six Nicotiana species recognized today, with over half of them endemic to South America. Several are native to Australia, and one is native to Africa. Small trees, shrubs, annuals, and perennials are all represented in this genus. The word “tobacco” can refer to any of the nicotine-containing Nicotiana species, although not all Nicotiana contain this alkaloid (OyuelaCaycedo and Kawa, 2020). A bit of debate surrounds the origin of the word “tobacco.” Some suggest it’s derived from the word tabaco, which could be a reference to the Spanish word for the roll

of leaves, the cigars of Carib Indians, or the Y-shaped tube through which the plant’s smoke is traditionally inhaled. Tabaco could also be the name of an island or province of Yucatán where Hernándo Cortés first encountered the plant in 1519 (Hedrick, 1919; Daunay, Laterrot, and Janick, 2008).

People have been cultivating tobacco for a long time, possibly as long as 8,000 years in South America (Binorker and Jani, 2012; Wilbert, 1991). Historically, South Americans grew and utilized about twelve species, with an apparent preference for N. rustica L. and N. tabacum L. South American shamans favored N. rustica during ritualistic practices since its higher nicotine content is more useful for “inducing altered states of consciousness” (Oyuela-Caycedo and Kawa, 2020). When European conquerors arrived and discovered the native peoples cultivating tobacco, they developed a taste for the more “pleasant” smoke of N. tabacum and began exporting it back home (Oyuela-Caycedo and Kawa, 2020). From then on, N. tabacum became the main species used in cigarettes and other tobacco products. It now dominates the modern commercial tobacco market, although N. rustica is still cultivated in some areas around the world (Binorker and Jani, 2012; Brandt, 2007; Oyuela-Caycedo and Kawa, 2020).

South American peoples, both historically and currently, consume tobacco in a variety of ways. Those in northwestern Amazonia consume ambil, which can refer either to tobacco juice or paste. It’s made by boiling the leaves and then adding either shell lime or potassium salts obtained from plant ash, which increases the paste’s pH. This allows for more rapid uptake of higher

Left, Nicotiana tabacum, now dominant in commercial tobacco products. Right, Nicotiana rustica, historically favored for ritualistic practices

Photo credit : Magnus Manske

concentrations of nicotine. The resulting ambil is stored in a small gourd, or sometimes in a hollow Theobroma bicolor Humb. & Bonpl. fruit. This fruit is related to the cacao plant. Some simply lick this paste, and others, like the Kaggaba or Kogui, spread it on their teeth. A type of tobacco snuff, combined with Theobroma subincanum Mart. ash, is sniffed into the nose through a pipe (Oyuela-Caycedo and Kawa, 2020). The Maya also make what the literature calls a snuff, but people use it orally as a quid, holding it in the mouth and swallowing the juice (Groark, 2010).

traveling at night. In Central and South America, as well as in Australia, the sharing of tobacco even plays a role in establishing and maintaining social bonds. If anyone asks for some tobacco mixture, one must give it freely, with no expectation of compensation (Groark, 2010; Ratsch et al., 2017). “It holds a central role in the connectiveness of Aboriginal Peoples to each other, their earthly place, and their place in the cosmos; it secures for them individual and community happiness and contentment” (Ratsch et al., 2017).

These Mayan and South American snuff preparations are remarkably similar to how Aboriginal Australians use their native Nicotiana species. They also make quids, which they call pituri, containing various wild tobacco species and other plants added to the preparation. This has led to much confusion in the historical literature as to whether pituri has always been made from Nicotiana spp. or from another solanaceous plant, Duboisia hopwoodii F.Muell.

D.hopwoodii is native to Australia and does contain psychoactive alkaloids, among them nicotine, and since plant voucher specimens are not available for these historical references, it is practically impossible to determine which of these plants was used historically. Present-day Australian Aboriginal people do seem to exclusively use Nicotiana spp. for this purpose (Moghbel, 2016; Ratsch, Steadman, and Bogossian, 2010). To make pituri, people collect and process Nicotiana plants (again, with the addition of wood ash to increase the pH) into a quid that is either placed in the mouth for oral absorption, or behind the ear for transdermal absorption. Unlike Central and South Americans, though, the Australians do not swallow the resulting quid juice (Ratsch et al., 2017).

Like other Solanaceae plants, tobacco has thousands of years of historical use in rituals, as medicine, and as an intoxicant. In Central and South America, it’s such a respected, potent protective agent that it occupies an “intermediate position between deity and amulet” (Groark, 2010). It guards against demons, witches, storms, and other dangerous forces. Tobacco powder, rubbed all over the body, will protect a person who is

Medicinally, a poultice of the leaves is a treatment for broken bones and strained muscles, as well as ringworm, scabies, skin sores, and insect bites. For people who work outdoors, the nicotine in tobacco “reduces fatigue and pain, eases hunger, reduces the skin’s surface temperature, and produces marked central nervous system stimulation, memory enhancement, elevation of mood, and an increase in attentional focus” (Groark, 2010). In Australia, it helps achieve feelings of relaxation, calmness, and improved concentration, and a quid is often held in the mouth while sleeping (Ratsch et al., 2017).

Tobacco plays broad and important roles among the cultures living in areas where the plants are native. This is quite different from the contemporary Western view of tobacco and cigarettes as addictive and dangerous, although they certainly can be. Removing a plant from the ritualized and social context that has developed around it for thousands of years creates a distorted view of it. A quote from M. R. Lee (2007) sums it up perfectly: “Finally, we can also remember the ancient Latin epigram attributed to Roman law ‘Abusus non tollit usum’, which being translated, would be given as ‘The abuse of a substance (or thing) should not weigh against its good and proper use,’ ” which applies not just to tobacco, but other nightshades as well. In other words, plants are not inherently good or evil, it’s their use that determines their effects.

As you can see from this brief introduction to just four

nightshades, members of the Solanaceae family serve not only as food and medicine, but also to connect people spiritually with land and community. Humanity has formed a deep connection

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Oyuela-Caycedo, A. and N.C. Kawa. 2020. A deep history of tobacco in lowland South America, p. 27-44. In: A. Russell and E. Rahman (eds.). The master plant: Tobacco in lowland South America. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NW: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

The Plant List Database (Internet). 2013. Profile for Solanaceae. Accessed December 27, 2021. Available from: http://www.theplantlist.org/1.1/browse/A/Solanaceae/ PotatoesUSA. 2017. U.S. potato reference guide. Accessed February 22, 2022. Available from potatogoodness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/potato-types-referenceguide.pdf

Qian, D., Y. Zhao, G. Yang, and L. Huang. 2017. Systematic review of chemical constituents in the genus Lycium (Solanaceae). Molecules 22(6): 911.

Quiroz, F.A.P. (ed.). 2019. National potato day: Peru has over 3.500 varieties of this Andean tuber. Adina Agencia Peruana de Noticias. Accessed on December 29, 2021. Available from https://andina.pe/ingles/noticia-national-potato-day-peru-has-over-3500-varieties-of-this-andean-tuber-753949.aspx

Ratsch, A.M., A. Mason, L. Rive, F.E. Bogossian, and K.J. Steadman. 2017. The pituri learning circle: Central Australian Aboriginal women’s knowledge and practices around the use of Nicotiana spp. as a chewing tobacco. Rural and Remote Health. 17(3), 4044.

Ratsch, A., K.J. Steadman, and F. Bogossian. 2010. The pituri story: a review of the historical literature surrounding traditional Australian Aboriginal use of nicotine in Central Australia.

Singh, N., M. Bhalla, P. de Jager, and M. Gilca. 2011. An overview of ashwagandha: A rasayana (rejuvenator) of Ayurveda. Afr J Tradit Complement Altern Med. 8(5 Suppl): 208-213.

Singh, S. and S. Kuma. 1998. Withania somnifera: The Indian ginseng, ashwagandha. Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants: Lucknow, India. Wolfberry. 1997-2021. Accessed on December 21, 2021. Available from https://www.bionity.com/en/encyclopedia/Wolfberry.html#_ref-names_0/

Wilbert, J. 1991. Does pharmacology corroborate the nicotine therapy and practices of South American shamanism? Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 32: 179-186. World Food Regulation Review. 2018. Solanine in potatoes: green and strongly germinating potato tubers should be rejected. 27(11): 7-8.

Yao, R., M. Heinrich, and C.S. Weckerle. 2018. The genus Lycium as food and medicine: A botanical, ethnobotanical and historical review. J Ethnopharmacol. 212:50-66.

ecently I have found myself wondering which herbs we use from top to bottom, from flowers to roots. Deni Bown, in her well-known herb encyclopedia, explains which plant parts are useful and for what general purpose, whether medicinal, culinary, and/or economic. I created a list of herbs with the notation “Parts used: whole plant.” (Bown, 2001). Well... 119 plants made that list.

I hadn’t wanted to study quite that many herbs and knew I needed to cull. I scanned Bown’s descriptions and gathered additional materials. To remain on the list plants had to have medicinal, culinary, and economic uses. My list decreased to twenty six plants. Then I eliminated herbs in genera with several familiar species, e.g., Ocimum (basil), Mentha (mint), Thymus (thyme), as well as herbs we frequently study, e.g., Taraxacum officinale (dandelion), Urtica dioica (stinging nettle), and Melissa officinalis (lemon balm). I chose the following six herbs as my readings revealed they offered interesting combinations of traditional uses and current research evaluating those uses, or a relevant story, or a twist I would not have expected.

Abelmoschus moschatus Medik., (ambrette, musk mallow)

Musk is what identifies Abelmoschus moschatus—its name means father or pills of musk in Arabic and old Latin. Its seeds emit a floral, musky aroma, and its commercial value derives from the musky essential oil, ambrette. Historically ambrette became a substitute for the limited, and expensive, natural musks obtained from musk ox and musk deer.

The plant is a bushy annual or biennial, native to tropical Africa, Asia, and northern Australia. It has large leaves, yellow hibiscus-like flowers, and a hairy seed pod. It can become weedy in open, disturbed ground. It has become invasive in some south Pacific islands (Fern, 2022a). Other familiar plants in this family are okra (A. esculentus), cotton (Gossypium sp.), and even cacao (Theobroma cacao). If researching musk mallow in older books, look also for its old synonym, Hibiscus moschatus. European musk mallow is Malva moschata, a different plant, not simply another synonym (Petruzzello, 2019).

Hibiscus-type flower typical of Abelmoschus sp., near Rio Tena, Ecuador

Photo credit: Alexey Yakovlev

Lois Sutton, PhD

The medicinal uses of roots, leaves, seeds, flowers, or a combination of plant parts range from breath freshening (seeds) to relief of stomachache and cramping (seeds), to alleviating symptoms of sexually transmitted disease (root or root and leaf combination) (Widodo, 1999). An anecdotal, but often repeated report is that musk mallow can be used as a snakebite remedy. This is based on an entry in the Transactions of Medical Botany dating 1834: “Dr. Wm. Hamilton quotes an instance of its powerful effects in counteracting the fatal influence of the bite of venomous reptiles. The bruised seeds were rubbed on the wound, and a considerable quantity forced down the throat of the animal in question.” (Lindley, 1838). The presumption is that the animal recovered, and the repetition of the anecdotal report began.

A recent study evaluating the scientific basis for traditional uses of A. moschatus examined plant extracts for antimicrobial, antioxidant, and antiproliferative actions (reduction in production of, for example, cancer cells). The study demonstrated that seed and leaf extracts exhibited free radical scavenging, provided moderate antibacterial activity (against the tested bacterial strains), and inhibited proliferation in two human cancer cell lines. While the researchers noted that it was unclear which extract components, or combination of components, contributed to the positive outcomes, these results support the continuation of research into medicinal applications of A. moschatus (Gul et al., 2011).

The plant’s seeds, flowers, and essential oils have broad cosmetic use in skin conditioners, perfumes, after shave lotions, and as scented hair oils. While the current European Union Regulation Annex 11 prohibits use of three synthetic musks, particularly musk ambrette, in cosmetics because they are carcinogenic and may cause dermatitis (Chisvert et al., 2018; Wojnarowska & Calnan, 1986), Widodo notes that the natural essential oil carries a US Food and Drug Administration’s label as GRAS (generally recognized as safe, GRAS No 2015) and suggests that natural ambrette seed oil continues to be a resource for the cosmetic industry (Widodo, 1999). Seeds are exported from India to France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, and Spain for oil extraction (Oudhia, 2001).

Culinary uses for the plant are traditional but also appear on the internet. The young leaves, shoots, and unripe seed pods (like okra) serve as vegetables. Ras-el-hanout, a Middle Eastern spice blend, may contain the ground seeds while whole seeds can be used to flavor coffee (Bown, 2001). The seeds appear in baked goods; Fern characterizes the taste of roasted or toasted seeds as like sesame seeds (Fern, 2022a). The Celtnet Recipe blog offers recipes varying from musk apple cake to a ginger, cinnamon, and musk tea (Celtnet, 2013).

Less consequential, but intriguing uses of musk mallow include using the seeds as an insect repellent by scattering seeds between layers of stored clothing (Widodo, 1999) and using the bark (bast fibers) in production of ropes and sails (Bown 2001; Fern, 2022a). [This use may better be attributed to jute or jute mallow (Corochorus capsularis) grown in Africa, known in making burlap and twine (Petruzzello, 2018).] The seeds from the plant are a source for dyes, stains, and inks (for tattoos) (Burkhill, 1985).

Centella asiatica (L) Urb., (gotu-kola, Indian pennywort)

Another plant from the Asian tropics and subtropics is gotukola. It is a low growing plant found in damp grasslands and along the edges of water. Bown describes the leaves as kidney-shaped with indented margins. The plant spreads by the adventitious roots from the leaf nodes.

Gotu-kola has a long history of use in folk medicine, having served as a ‘panacea’ drug for three thousand years. It appears in the pharmacopoeias of India, China, France, Italy, and Britain (Bylka et al., 2013). Historical uses include management of leprosy, hypertension, fever, pulmonary diseases, lesion healing and scar reduction, and vascular circulation (Bown, 2001). Other uses include as a nerve tonic to increase memory and reduce mental fatigue (Bremness, 1994).

Three research studies involving gotu-kola sought to clarify the scientific basis of its traditional medicinal uses. The first study used a systematic review of the literature to address the efficacy of C.asiatica for improving the signs and symptoms of chronic venous insufficiency (CVI: the obstruction or reflux of venous blood flow, causing swelling, especially in the lower limbs). Their conclusion offered the cautious impression that gotu-kola may be beneficial for management of CVI (Chong & Aziz, 2013).

Another research group asked how C. asiatica worked in small wound healing, and how efficacious was that action (Bylka et al., 2013)? They determined that gotu-kola promoted fibroblast proliferation, the production of collagen and intracellular fibronectin (i.e., it promoted healing and lessened scarring). Additionally, its use improved the tensile strength of new skin. The authors did note that preparations containing gotu-kola may cause local allergic reactions and a burning sensation.

The third group (Lokanathan et al., 2016) also conducted a systematic literature review looking for recent discoveries that

delineated gotu-kola’s effects in neural cell protection and regeneration of injured nerves. The studies reviewed suggest some neuroprotective value in Parkinson’s disease as well as learning and memory enhancement. The authors found little research on neuroregeneration (nerve injury repair or new cell growth). While they recommended future research, standardizing compounds used in treatment, and clarifying the biochemical profile of the plant, they welcomed this research “to greatly enhance the economic value of this traditional herb.”

The culinary uses of gotu-kola often are linked to its medicinal and health applications. Gotu-kola lore tells the story of Professor Li Chung Yon who drank gotu-kola tea regularly. It is said he lived to the age of 265 years, marrying twenty-four times (Bown, 2001). Its magical properties extend to the opening of one’s mind and development of spiritual powers. To achieve this, burn a small amount in the room in which you will meditate shortly before you begin (Cunningham, 1988).

The leaves also add to the flavor and colorful appeal of salads as well as curries and soups. Dried plant material as well as juice may be used in teas and tonic drinks (Bown, 2001).

Filipendula ulmaria (L.) Maxim. (queen of the meadow, meadowsweet)

Meadowsweet is a large clump-forming perennial with dense corymbs of creamy white, sweetly scented flowers. It is a robust plant, native to Europe and western Asia, which has spread to North America and become invasive (Bown, 2001: Missouri Botanical Garden, n.d.). The etymology of the common name is not based on the plants filling meadows, but from its use in flavoring mead. Linnaeus placed meadowsweet in the Spirea genus because its achenes twist together in spiral form (Malcolm, 1979).

An article available through ScienceDirect asserts that Gerard’s

Herball not only takes its place in history because of the description of medicinal and cultural uses of plants, but also because of the suggestion that each plant has novel components and uses. This concept led to the discovery of salicin “and the eventual synthesis of ‘A Spirea n’ or aspirin” (Cox, 2013). It may be meadowsweet’s antioxidant or analgesic properties which led Culpeper to write that the flowers, boiled in wine or port, would make for a merry heart and cure for colic (Culpeper, 1985).

F.ulmaria did not have a significant role in aspirin’s development, but the presence of salicylates in the plant’s flowers later suggested to German chemists in WWII that it could provide a botanical substitute for unavailable North American willows (Sumner, 2019). More recent medical research has continued to explore medicinal uses of F. ulmaria and other Filipendula species, as well as to compare the numerous biologically active components of plants grown in different habitats (Olennikov, Kashchenko and Chirikova, 2016; Stawarczyk et al., 2021).

With a long presence in medicinal history, it is of little surprise that meadowsweet has many cultural uses as well. How could a plant offering sweetly scented flowers, a note of fresh hay from the leaves, and a wintergreen smell from the roots not be a strewing herb (Garland, 1979; Leyel, 1986)? Gerard adds yet another use for meadowsweet when he notes “neither does it cause headache or lothsomenesse to meat, as some other sweet smelling herbes do” (Woodward, 1969). Weddings would have been less festive without meadowsweet in bridal garlands, scattered throughout the church, and in the cordials served after the ceremony (Leyel, 1986).

Medicago sativa (L.) (alfalfa, lucerne, buffalo herb)

Nikolai Vavilov, a Russian botanist, collected plants from 1916 to 1936 with the goal of determining where the plants had originated. He proposed that when plants in a particular area demonstrated a great genetic diversity within the species, this was where the plant had originated. He reasoned those plants that had spread, naturally or with the help of man, would not have had enough time to show genetic variation. He collected alfalfa from around the world and set its site of origin as the western Levant (Levetin and McMahon, 2007). Those plants showed greater genetic diversity than the alfalfa known to have arrived in China 2000 years ago and the plants grown in Greece from the fifth century BCE (Bown, 2001). Linnaeus chose the genus name Medicago as a reference to the invading Medes who transported alfalfa from Persia to Greece, as food for their horses. The Spanish brought alfalfa to the New Worlds (along with their horses) for the same purpose (Levetin and McMahon, 2007).

Alfalfa’s best-known use continues to be as a highly nutritional hay for animals, but more recently also for its value as a nutritional supplement for humans. Alfalfa contains calcium and B group vitamins as well as vitamins C, D, E, and K. Commercially the leaves provide chlorophyll, vitamin C, and vitamin K for food supplements (Bown, 2001). Adding alfalfa leaves or sprouts to salads or smoothie drinks will deliver a nutritional lift as well. Note: Duke and Bown caution that alfalfa may trigger a flare of symptoms in those with systemic lupus erythematosus (an autoimmune disorder) (Duke, 1997; Bown, 2001).

It is alfalfa’s commercial use as animal fodder that took this herbal plant into the ecological-political realm. Not only is alfalfa a fodder plant, but it is also a legume. It is a nitrogen fixing plant and is valuable for improving soil. Weed control is critical in alfalfa fields for ensuring soil nutrients and water are available to the plant rather than to weedy competitors. An ideal approach is to use a herbicide early in the growing season which would kill undesirable plants but not affect the desired crop. Levetin and McMahon noted that over 40% of field trials utilizing genetically modified plants examined this idea of herbicide resistance (Levetin and McMahon, 2007). Alfalfa was one of the first crop plants to be genetically modified and since has served as a biogenetic tool in studying novel gene incorporation into plants (Levetin and McMahon, 2007).

The USDA granted approval for the commercial sale of GMO alfalfa in 2005. Quickly following that approval was a 2006 lawsuit asserting that the USDA had not adequately evaluated environmental effects. As of May 2007, GMO alfalfa seed could no longer be sold (Levetin and McMahon, 2007). The world turned, research continued, and planting of a deregulated herbicideresistant form of alfalfa began in 2014 (Economic Research Service, 2017). Note: this was not an insignificant issue as the USDA states that alfalfa covers eighteen million acres at a production value of $10.7 billion per year (ERS, 2017).

Alfalfa also is rich in its lore. Cunningham notes that it embodies the magical power of prosperity. Alfalfa kept in the home will protect the household from poverty and hunger— working best if it is placed in a small jar in the pantry. Burning alfalfa and scattering the ashes around your property will provide

the same benefits (Cunningham, 1988).

The common name lucerna, or lamp, came from the observation of the bright shiny appearance of the leaves after a rain. The Okanagan-Colville peoples (a group now primarily living in the Canadian province of British Columbia) used alfalfa as a spice plant. Placed under and on top of black tree lichen and camas (Indian hyacinth) in a cooking pit, it adds a yield a sweet flavor (Moerman, 1988).

Melilotus officinalis (L.) Pall. (sweet clover, yellow clover, hart’s clover)

Sweet clover is a plant that is familiar on our roadsides during summertime country drives, surprisingly so as this plant is native to Eurasia and Northern Africa. A straggly, upright biennial with ribbed stems, trifoliate leaves, and summertime racemes of yellow flowers, it grows in open, disturbed land. It spreads by reseeding itself and is an aggressive spreader.

It is a useful plant for wildlife, a “whole plant” contributor to humans and animals. The honey-scented flowers are a draw for long- and short-tongued bees, wasps, flies, and less commonly, butterflies, skippers, and beetles. The leaves, buds, and flowers feed various butterfly caterpillars, and the stems and roots provide food to the sweet clover borer moth. Common herbivores such as rabbits, deer, and groundhogs eat the leaves. Gamebirds wait patiently for the remaining seed (Hilty, 2019). Perhaps the greatest benefit to humans is that the flowers are a preferred nectar plant for honeybees. The National Resource Conservation Service quoted the 1937 Range Plant Handbook to say, “Honey yields of up to 200 pounds per colony have been obtained” (USDA, 2008).

Sweet clover has a long-written history. Melilotus stems from the Greek meli (honey) and lotos (clover). Dioscorides and Pliny, in the first century CE, wrote of its use as a vermifuge in “pharaonic Egypt” (Manniche, 1989). Pliny noted that he preferred the “saffron-colored variety but that in Italy the white is the most pleasant smelling” (Heilmeyer, 2007).

Moving forward in history, Native American populations used clover in many ways. The Iroquois included the flowers in an infusion, which was applied to the face for acne and sunburn. Navajo groups brewed an infusion both to drink and to use in a

Mowing alfalfa hay in southeastern Idaho

Photo credit: Andy MacPhillimy

lotion for colds resulting from being chilled (Moerman, 1998).

As a medicine, it was used as a sedative herb and as a treatment for tension headaches, muscle spasms, pain relief, and congestion (Bown, 2001). It was used externally to treat inflamed eyes and skin as well as rheumatic symptoms of painful swollen joints (Stuart, 1979).

Mammalian herbivores graze sweet clover. Because of its growth patterns on the edge of fields or in disturbed lands, it has limited impact on natural grazing lands (iNaturalist, n.d.). The chemical components are of greater concern.

Coumarin is the chemical component that results in the plant’s sweet aroma as it dries. Dicoumarol may be present in improperly dried plant materials cut for hay (Stuart, 1979; South Dakota State University, 2022). Dicoumarol is a vitamin K antagonist, that is it inhibits natural blood clotting. As newborn calves are often deficient in vitamin K, the use of poorly dried hay may be a significant issue. There are low coumarin- content sweet clovers that are recommended for cattle ranchers (Schipper, 2014).

Culinary uses for sweet clover include using the leaves to flavor

beers, marinades, sausages, stuffings, and stews—rabbit is a frequently mentioned pairing (Garland, 1979; Stuart, 1979; Bown, 2001).

The work of the dried leaves really begins when they leave the kitchen. The Native American Dakotas and Iroquois hung branches and gathered floral bouquets to scent the house. The Havasupai ground the dried leaves and placed them in small sachet bags for women to wear as perfume (Moerman, 1988). This was long after Pliny mentioned sweet clover branches being woven into wreaths and garlands, decorating the home during banquets (Heilmeyer, 2007). Ancient Egyptians used the leaves as strewing herbs and as a moth repellant (Manniche, 1989).

Trachyspermum ammi (L.) Sprague (ajowan, ajwain)

A constituent of T. ammi is thymol (the volatile oil also in Thymus species) which contributed to its traditional medicinal use as well as its commercial value. This tropical plant grows along stream and ditch banks, preferring damp soil. It is a tender annual, propagated by seed, native to Asia but also growing in North Africa. It reaches one to three feet in height with stems branching from the base. Harvesting begins when the plant begins to flower; the whole plant is cut and processed for the essential oils (Bown, 2001).

The plant (and seed) aromas are reminiscent of thyme, anise, oregano, and a touch of black pepper. Fruits and seeds are used in remedies for upper respiratory disorders, influenza, colic and indigestion, edema (through its diuretic action), and rheumatism. The oil may be used as a vermifuge for hookworm (Bown, 2001). Researchers have investigated thymol’s usefulness against Gram-negative and -positive bacteria (Fern, 2022b). Two retrospective reviews of the pharmacologic actions of ajowan (by different authors, at different universities, published the same year, each assessing the same research studies) draw the same

Red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius) on yellow sweet clover (Estonia)

Photo credit: Ivar Leidus

Sweet clover in a disturbance prone setting near Bozeman, MT

Photo credit: Matt Lavin

Brief Notes on One More …

Conyza canadensis (L.) Cronquist, (Canadian fleabane, Canadian horseweed) is a North American plant. After early settlers learned that various indigenous peoples used it for a variety of medical ailments, they sent it to Europe, where it spread quickly. By 1653 records from the Botanical Garden in Blois, in central France, identified the plant there. English records mention the plant in 1690 (Bown, 2001).

In contrast to alfalfa’s lab developed resistance to herbicides, Canadian fleabane is the “first broadleaf weed to evolve glyphosate resistance in agriculture and is also the most widely distributed glyphosate-resistant weed in the United States and the world” (Peng et al., 2010). Peng and his fellow researchers have used the plant to design a gene sequencing tool, the first step in tracing such a genetic evolutionary step by a weedy herb.

Peng, Yanhui et al. 2010. Pest Management Science. 66(10: 1053-62. Accessed January 19, 2022. Available from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20715018/

Canadian fleabane growing near Saabrücken, Germany

Photo credit: AnRo0002

conclusion; the plant does have the chemical components, i.e., thymol, to support its success in its various traditional medicinal uses. The authors of each review recommend further studies and clinical trials to determine appropriate dosing and to compare outcomes with available medications (Jeet et al., 2012; Bairwa et al., 2012)

Another research protocol compared a topical cream (T. ammi 10%) and a placebo for efficacy in controlling neuropathic foot pain and burning. The authors reported a significant decrease in the sensation of pain, burning, tingling, and numbness for the patients using the T. ammi cream as compared to the placebo users (Petramfar et al., 2016).

In the kitchen, ajowan seeds flavor curries, breads (naan), and snacks (Fern, 2022b). Seeds may be used whole or ground, and added, with a light touch, to spice blends or at the end of cooking a dish. As commonly recommended in Indian cooking, warming the seeds in ghee or a dry pan will enhance the depth of flavor.

Bown notes the use of seed extracts in soaps and cough medicines (Bown, 2001), thus completing the required triad of medicinal, culinary, and economic uses.

The Herb Society of America has long used John Parkinson’s words “for use and for delight” to envision our use and study of herbs. These six plants, pulled from a list of over one hundred, represent herbs that have delighted us with their roots, leaves, flowers, and seed and that have proven useful for ourselves, our livestock, and other visitors to our gardens and meadows.

Literature Cited

Abelmoschus moschatus Medik. 2017. World flora online. Accessed January 14, 2022. Available from www.worldfloraonline.org/taxon/wfo-0000510888

Bairwa, Ranjan, R.S. Sodha, and B.S. Rajawat. 2012. Trachyspermum ammi. Pharmacognosy Reviews. 6(11) 56-60. Accessed January 15, 2022. Available from ncbi.nlm.nih. gov/pmc/articles/PMC3358968/

Bown, Deni. 2001. The Herb Society of America new encyclopedia of herbs and their uses. London: Dorling Kindersley Limited.

Bremness, Leslie. 1994. Eyewitness handbook herbs. London: Dorling Kindersley.

Burkhill, H.M. 1985. The useful plants of west tropical Africa, Vol. 4. Accessed January 24, 2022. Available from https://plants.jstor.org/compilation/abelmoschus. moschatus?searchUri=

Bylka, Wieslawa, Paulina Znajdek-Awiżeń, Elżbieta Studzińska-Sroka, and Malgorzata Brezezińska. 2013. Centella asiatica in cosmetology. Postepy Dermatol Algerol. 30(1): 46-49. Accessed January 19, 2022. Available from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3834700/

Celtnet Spice Guide. 2013. Musk mallow. Accessed January 9, 2022. Available from https://web.archive.org.web/20130319052541/http:??celtnet.org.uk/recipes/spice-entry. php?term=Musk%20Mallow%20Seeds (OR use the link available in the bibliography at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abelmoschus_moschatus)

Chisvert, Alberto et al. 2018. Perfumes in cosmetics. In Analysis of cosmetic products (second edition). Accessed January 24, 2022. Available from https://www.sciencedirect. com/topics/chemistry/musk-ambrette

Chong, Nyuk Jet and Zoriah Aziz. 2013. A systematic review of the efficacy of Centella asiatica for improvement of the signs and symptoms of chronic venous insufficiency. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2013: 627182. Accessed January 19, 2022. Available from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3594936/

Literature Cited (continued)

Cox, Paul A. 2013. Herbals and medicinal plants. In Encyclopedia of biodiversity (Second edition). Accessed January 29, 2022. Available from https://sciencedirect.com/topics/ phamacology-toxicology-and-pharmaceutical-science/filipendula

Culpeper, Nicholas. 1985. Culpeper’s complete herbal. Ware, UK: Omega Books Ltd.

Cunningham, Scott. 1988. Cunningham’s encyclopedia of magical herbs. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications.

Duke, James A. 1997. The green pharmacy. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press.

Economic Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture. 2017. Genetically modified alfalfa production in the United States. Accessed January 14, 2022. Available from https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2017/may/genetically-modified-alfalfa-production-in-the-united-states/

Fern, Ken. 2022a. Abelmoschus moschatus. Tropical Plants Database. Accessed January 20, 2022. Available from https://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.

php?id=Abelmoschus+mochatus

Fern, Ken. 2022b. Trachyspermum ammi. Tropical Plants Database. Accessed January 26, 2022. Available from tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.

php?id=Trachyspermum+ammi

Garland, Sarah. 1979. The complete book of herbs and spices. New York: The Viking Press.

Gul, Mir Z. et al. 2001. Evaluation of Abelmoschus moschatus extracts for antioxidant, free radical scavenging, antimicrobial and antiproliferative activities using in vitro assays. BMC Complement Alternative Medicine. Pp. 11-64. Accessed January 19, 2022. Available from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3201038/

Heilmeyer, Marina. 2007. Ancient herbs. Los Angeles: Getty Publications.

Hilty, John. 2019. Yellow sweet clover. Illinois Wildflowers. Accessed January 10, 2022. Available from www.illinoiswildflowers.info/weeds/plants/yl_swclover.htm

Jeet, Kamal et al. 2012. Trachyspermum ammi: a comprehensive review. International Research Journal of Pharmacy. 3:133-138. Accessed January 25, 2022. Available from researchgate.net/publication/237168900_Trachyspermum_ammi_A_comprehensive_review/

Levetin, Estelle and Karen McMahon. 2007. Plants & society 5th edition. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Leyel, Mrs. C.F. 1986. Herbal delights. New York: Gramercy Publishing Company.

Lindley, John. 1838. Flora medica: a botanical account of all the most important plants used in medicine. London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman. Accessed January 14, 2022. Available from https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/17801619 OR www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/59337/#page/164/2up

Lokanathan, Yogeswarab, Norazzila Omar, Nur Nabilah Ahmad Puzi, Aminuddin Saim, and Ruszymah Hj Idrus. 2016. Recent updates in neuroprotective and neurogenerative potential of Centella asiatica. Malaysian Journal of Medical Science. 23(1): 4-14. Accessed January 19, 2022. Available from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC4975583/

Missouri Botanical Garden. n.d. Filipendula ulmaria. Accessed January 14, 2022. Available from https://www.missourbotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails. aspx?taxonid=286386

Moerman, Daniel L. 1998. Native American ethnobotany. Portland OR: Timber Press. Oudhia, Pankaj. 2001. Muskdana or ambrette (Abelmoschus moschatus): aromatic and medicinal. Accessed January 14, 2022. Available from https://hort.purdue.edu/ newcrop/CropFactSheets/muskdana.html

Petramfar, Peyman, M. Moein, S.M. Samani, S.H. Tabatabaei, and M.M. Zarshenas. 2016. Trachyspermum ammi 10% topical cream versus a placebo on neuropathic pain, a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Neurological Science. 37(9): 1449-55. Accessed January 20, 2022. Available from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih. gov/27166709/

Petruzzello, Melisa. 2018. tossa jute. London: Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed January 22, 2022. Available from https://www.britannica.com/plant/tossa-jute

Petruzzello, Melisa. 2019. Musk mallow. London: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. Accessed January 22, 2022. Available from https://www.britannica.com/plant/musk-mallow Stuart, Malcolm (ed). 1979. The encyclopedia of herbs and herbalism. New York: Crescent Books.

Sumner, Judith. 2019. Plants go to war: A botanical history of World War II. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc.

United States Department of Agriculture National Resources Conservation Service. 2008. Yellow sweetclover & white sweetclover. Accessed January 25, 2022. Available from https://nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs144p2_043029.pdf

Widodo, Sri Hajati. 1999. Abelmoschus moschatus Medikus. In: L.P.A. Oyen and Nguyen Xuan Dung (eds.): Plant Resources of South-East Asia No 19: essential-oil plants. PROSEA Foundation, Bogor, Indonesia. Database record: prota4u.org/prosea. Accessed January 20, 2022. Available from https://www.prota4u.org/prosea/view.aspx?id=76

Wojnarowska, F. and C.D. Calnan. 1986. Contact and photocontact allergy to musk ambrette. British Journal of Dermatology. 114(6): 667-75). Accessed January 19, 2022. Available from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3718861/

Woodward, Marcus, ed. 1969. Leaves from Gerard’s Herball. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.

Bibliography

Mandandbur, NP. Plants and People of Nepal. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press. 2002.

The Research Institute for Fragrance Materials. The RIFM data base is a comprehensive, worldwide source of toxicology data, literature and general information on fragrance and flavor raw materials. Available at https://www.rifm.org (Note: The connection for this site is not secure.)

United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service. Range Plant Handbook. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. 1937.

The Herb Society of America has a modest but enviable collection of rare herbals and titles of botany and natural history. The collection speaks to the inspirational nature of learning, as well as the studious and inquisitive nature of members who have donated these rare titles or funded their purchase.

Beginning in late 2019, I began cataloging forty of the rare books that The Herb Society of America has stored in the Special Collections locked vault at the Holden Forests & Gardens Warren H.Corning Library, Kirtland, Ohio. While these titles had

appeared in The Society’s online catalog, their brief records often didn’t have full physical descriptions or notes about provenance. The project included editing item records, the addition of an ownership statement, the addition of the physical description including bindings, inscription, etc., and the addition of a link to a digitized copy of the same or similar edition of the book where possible. The project included collation to verify that the plates in the volumes were complete and intact. The Holden Forests & Gardens online catalog now includes these forty titles, insuring their availability to researchers with similar interests to our members.

Rare books in the collection have a date range from 1601 to 1892, some with original bindings and some with modern rebinding made possible through donations by members. These diverse volumes often include lush, colorful illustrations created as woodcuts, hand-colored or color-printed plates. These valuable rare books have come to the library through generous gifts of members and other donors including Elizabeth Wade White, Walter and Sally Thwing, Mr. and Mrs. Roland Remmel, Christopher Friedrichs, Helen Darrah, the New England Unit, and Leola Tiedt. Additionally, restoration of the beautiful Botanologia The English herbal: or, History of plants of 1710 by William Salmon was contributed by the gift of Ruth Remmel of the Arkansas Unit. Restoration included rebinding the book in blind stamped leather with raised bands and a red gilt spine label.

The Society completed restoration of several other books in the 1980s, including An history of plants and trees, natives Britain, cultivated for use, or raised for beauty, by John Hill, MD, printed

Full page plate of butterflies, from

Amy Dawson

Anna Kucherova | Dreamstime.com

in 1756. Harcourt Bindery provided conservation and preservation treatment in 1982, involving having the pages washed, deacidified, and rebinding the book in leather. Harcourt Bindery also treated Medicina Britannica: or, a treatise on such physical plants, as are generally found in the fields and gardens in Great Britain by Thomas Short, published in 1746.

The oldest book in this rare book collection is The historie of the world : commonly called the natural historie of C. Plinius Secundus, translated into English by Philemon Holland and published in London by Adam Islip in 1601. Originally written in Latin, this translation features interesting descriptions of the natural world and beautiful, intricate illustrations. Its use for researchers of herbs and herb lore come as the “encyclopaedist Pliny the Elder... mentions a number of writers of herbals who provided pictures of the plants above descriptions of their medicinal effects.”

(Leith and The Recipes Project, 2015).

The titles in the collection fall into categories such as herbals, guides for dying and brewing, and several florilegia. Two titles in The Society’s Rare Book Collection have women authors: The romance of nature, or, the flower-seasons illustrated, by Louisa Anne Twamley (Mrs. Charles Meredith) from 1836, and The spirit of the woods, illustrated by coloured engravings by the author of "The moral of flowers” by Rebecca Hey (Mrs. William Hey), 1837.

As the Special Collections Department at the University of

Glasgow notes in their online exhibit of female illustrators, Twamley (or Mrs. Meredith) was “an author, artist and botanist, was born in Birmingham but lived for much of her life in Tasmania. As a conservationist, Meredith wrote several volumes on the flora and fauna of Tasmania and lobbied the parliament to have acts passed in order to protect the wildlife of Tasmania. Meredith both wrote and illustrated of The romance of nature, which was intended as an elegant gift book and was dedicated to William Wordsworth. The illustrations are hand coloured lithographs.” (Greenaway and Cardon, n.d.).

The Marginalian, a long-running blog written by Maria Popova, says of Rebecca Hey, and other women authors of her time, “... the very few female authors published in the nineteenth century, many appeared under male pseudonyms or ungendered initials.” Thus, Mrs. William Hey is Rebecca Hey— a poet, painter, and amateur naturalist (Popova, 2020). Hey did publish Sylvan Musings, or, The Spirit of the Woods in 1849, under her own name. The Society’s book only offers the writer’s name as “author of The moral of flowers.” (Lest we forget, all women of scientific bent were viewed as amateurs by virtue of being excluded from both formal higher education and the scientific societies of the time.)

The floral keepsake: with thirty engravings elegantly colored from nature, edited by John Keese and published in 1850 also falls into the category of florilegia. This book contains delightful illustrations and full descriptions of floral specimens.

British Herbals and Guides

The majority of the HSA rare book holdings were published in London and include the field’s most famous authors such as John Gerarde, William Salmon, and John Parkinson. Gerarde’s texts were well known and popular during his lifetime with his Herball, or General Historie of Plantes, valuable for plant identification and corrections to earlier names. The text includes over 2,500 botanical woodcuts.

The two works by William Salmon owned by HSA are The family dictionary; or, Houshold companion of 1696 and Botanologia The English herbal: or, History of plants of 1710, both printed in London. These works include information on cooking, seasoning, making wine, and ciders, and the “virtues and uses of the most usual herbs and plants, their roots, barks, leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds” (Salmon, 1696).

John Parkinson’s famous Paradisi In Sole, printed in London in 1656, includes over 1,000 entries on plants which grow in England and is illustrated with wood engravings. The work (Parkinson, 1656) includes, “all manner of herbs, roots, and fruits, for meat or sawce used with us; With the art of planting an orchard of all sorts of fruitbearing trees and shrubs ...; Together with the right ordering, planting and preserving of them, with their select vertues.”

American Herbals and Guides

The Society’s rare book collection has fourteen titles printed in the United States, most in Boston, Philadelphia, or New York. These titles may prove to be the most interesting to readers today as they contain illustrations and early descriptions of plants from our own neighborhoods, backyards, parks, and gardens. Authors of note are Jacob Bigelow, Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, and Charles Frederick Millspauge.

Both the American medical botany, published in three volumes between 1817-1820 and A treatise on the materia medica, intended as a sequel to the Pharmacopoeia of the United States of 1822 by Jacob Bigelow were significant contributions to medical botany (McManus and Countway, n.d.).

Moreover, Bigelow innovated printing technology to create the vibrant plates included in his works. As Steven Foster details, “Bigelow’s American Medical Botany represents not only a milestone in the history of North American medicinal plant literature, but also an important landmark in printing technology, as the first American book with printed color plates produced by a method of Bigelow’s own ingenuity.” (Foster, 2004).

The Medical flora; or, Manual of the medical botany of the United States of North America by Constantine Rafinesque provides a wealth of information on the plants we may find locally (Rafinesque, 1828-1830). It features, as the title indicates, “a selection of above 100 figures and descriptions of medical plants, with their names, qualities, properties, history,& c: and notes or remarks on nearly 500 equivalent substitutes.”

Rafinesque traveled widely and revolutionized the classification of plants in the United States (Hanson 2021).

Charles Millspaugh’s American medicinal plants of 1887 contains a significant description of cannabis. His early description of Cannabis sativa, or Indian hemp, details the history and use of the herb worldwide. His description includes names held in other countries such as in India, where Cannabis sativa was called, “Leaf of Delusion,” “Increaser of Pleasure,”

“Laughter Mover,” and “Cementer of Friendships” (Millspaugh, 1887).

Another book printed in America, The English physician enlarged: containing three hundred and sixty-nine receipts for medicines made from herbs by Nicholas Culpeper, printed in Taunton, MA, in 1826 is a very significant copy. An earlier edition of his The London Dispensatory was one of the first works of its nature printed in the colonies (Tennent, n.d.).

Less well known, perhaps, is botanist Peter Good’s Family Flora of 1845 which reveals interesting facts about indigenous and nonnative plants and flowers with their natural history and medical properties (Good, 1845). This book makes use of lovely handcolored plates. His description of the thorn apple, Datura stramonium, or Jamestown weed, indicates it is considered a nightshade. He writes that it was originally believed to be indigenous to the Americas but was in fact first introduced to England from Constantinople. Good states it “was probably a native of Persia or India, and has spread to Europe, Africa, and America. It has been supposed to be a native of North America, but it has appeared only since its colonization. The Indians call it the White Man’s plant” (Good, 1845). Additionally, he notes that it is common in fields, around buildings, and farms. He records that it is both a narcotic and a stimulant and has been used to treat both mania and epilepsy. It is said here to cure inflammatory ulcers and is recommended in “nymphomania to cure venereal disease.”

The collection includes a rare book on natural history, a very scarce early edition owned only by three other libraries—all in Europe. This is Naturgeschichte des Thierreichs... by C. F. A. Kolb., published in Stuttgart in 1868. It is the most beautiful book in the collection, in my opinion. Donated by HSA member Leola Tiedt, it includes eighty full-page color plates of all varieties of classifications of mammals and insects. The handcolored copper plate engravings are vibrant and breathtaking. Created by artist Friedrich Specht, a German painter and natural history illustrator born in 1839, the illustrations depict animals and insects, including assorted pollinators.

Most distinct perhaps is The American Practical Dyer’s Companion by Henry Clay Bird, published in 1882. This book describes, and provides recipes for, over eight hundred dyes to be used on silks, wools, flannel, and more. The text includes varied colorful samples of thread and fabrics which are adhered directly on the pages of the book. The use of plants for dyes makes this handbook unique.

Detail of Plate 154. Cannabis sativa, Medicinal plants... Vol. 2, by Charles F. Millspaugh, 1892

The old root and herb doctor, or, The Indian method of healing, by Dr. John Goodale Briante provides unique content because, as the title page of this 1870 publication reveals, the book has “directions for preparing and using their most valuable remedies, as used by him, in his extensive practice throughout the eastern and middle states.” Furthermore, Briante describes his long association with indigenous healers and practitioners on the title page of the work stating, “Dr. John Goodale Briante, for many years with the Saint Francis Tribe of Indians; also, for several years with the Pottawattamies and other

The Value of Provenance

Provenance, or the source and history of ownership, is an important part of rare book collecting and appraisal (Ostdick, 2017). Oftentimes documentation exists about previous owners of a book and the source of a donation or purchase. At other times clues about a book's previous owner(s) can be discerned from annotations, marginal notes, or additions to a particular title. The Herb Society of America’s rare book collection has one title with copious handwritten holographic additions that include poems and recipes—including one for poison. This Nicholas Culpeper 1794 edition of the English Physician features a dedication dated "In the Year of Masonry 5798" (i.e., 1794) and

The Herb Society of America

Book Collector, Donor, and Dealer:

Elizabeth Wade White, one of the earliest members of The Herb Society of America, (Herb Society of America 2015) is noted to have donated seven books to the HSA Library, including four of the valuable rare books now stored at the Warren H. Corning Library at the Holden Arboretum. Several of these items carry her bookplate, “Ex libris Elizabeth Wade White,” and include the notes about the donation or the name of her home, “The Patch,” the name referring to a “vegetable patch” (Jordan, n.d.).

Elizabeth Wade White, born in 1906 was an author of The Life of Anne Bradstreet: The Tenth Muse, published in 1971. Her extensive correspondence about herbs and gardening, including letters to Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, show her enthusiasm and commitment to the new Herb Society and its initiatives. Her biographical description included with her papers held at the New York Public Library (Jordan, n.d.) indicates that, “in the fall of 1945, she moved to her grandmother's house in Middlebury, ‘The Patch,’ with the woman who would become her life partner, Evelyn Holahan.”

Holograph recipe. Rear free endpapers, English physician, and complete herbal, Nicholas Culpeper, 1794

Moreover, this biography notes that “at the close of the 1940s White and Holahan started White & Holahan, Books, a used and rare book business run out of their home.” This helps explain her experience in recognizing the value of the books she later donated to The Herb Society of America.

Elizabeth Wade White, Photo from The Herb Society of America Archives

includes [22] pages of handwritten recipes bound-in after the text of volume 2, including recipes for various paint, wines, and cures for poison. Also included are lyrics to the song, "Love me and the world is mine."

Culpeper’s 1675 Pharmacopœia Londinensis; or, The London dispensatory also contains holographic entries including, “Egyptian Thorn page 39 see Garrards / Treacle Mustard page 33 for perge / Ash Keys page 45 to make the body lean / Cinnamon page 58 to be taken with the juice of Water creases for the scurvey / Knot Grass for sick hogs page 23." On the free endpapers he writes, "How to make the powder called Diaperte: it is true of my knowledge for I have booth made it and used it but there are few that can come at the ingreedence...” (Culpeper, 1675).

Additions such as these indicate that the books were regularly used and adapted for the common needs of the owner, referencing other books in her/his library and common recipes which might be referred to on a regular basis. The need for “poison” calls to mind current popular fiction, such as The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner, in which a female apothecary brews and dispenses poisons to desperate, and sometimes vengeful, customers (Penner 2021).

Digitized Copies of HSA Rare Books

Researchers have access to the richness of the HSA collection through the HathiTrust, a digital preservation repository that works with institutions to digitize rare, valuable, and important texts (HathiTrust Digital Library, n.d.). The rare books in The Herb Society of America collection catalog include a link to a matching digitized publication available to all. On occasion, the digital version offered in the catalog record differs slightly in edition or date, but the link provides access to those who are conducting preliminary research and may spark interest in the wealth of knowledge and beauty these books offer.

Working with both the archives and library collections at The Society has created a deep and lasting respect, for me, for the rich historical record and cultural heritage preserved at The Herb Society of America. I encourage all members to visit and utilize the rare materials stored at the Holden Forests & Gardens Warren H. Corning Library and make use of the archival records faithfully kept in the archives. Further, check the library and research resources available on The Society’s web site. The collection includes “more than 3,500 volumes covering a wide range of topics related to herbs and gardening. Materials include books, periodicals, multimedia, art, rare books and historical archives.” (HSA Library, 2022).

Literature Cited

Abbrevitations

n.d. Not dated

n.p. No publisher name

S.l.: S.n. Without a location or name of publisher

t.p. Title page

Bigelow, Jacob. 1817-1820. American medical botany, being a collection of the native medicinal plants of the United States, containing their botanical history and chemical analysis, and properties and uses in medicine, diet and the arts, with coloured engravings. Boston: Cummings and Hilliard.

Bigelow, Jacob. 1822. A treatise on the materia medica, intended as a sequel to the Pharmacopoeia of the United States: being an account of the origin, qualities and medical uses of the articles and compounds, which constitute that work, with their modes of prescription and ad. Boston: Charles Ewe.

Bird, Frederick. 1882. The American practical dyer's companion: comprising a description of the principal dye-stuffs and chemicals used in dyeing, embracing in all over eight hundred receipts for colors and shades, accompanied by one hundred and seventy dyed samples of raw ma. Philadelphia: H. C. Baird & Co.

Briante, John G. 1870. The old root and herb doctor, or, the Indian method of healing. Claremont, NH: Granite Book Co.

Brook, Richard. 1850? A new family herbal, or, a history and description of all the British and foreign plants …[England]: Richard Brook. Callcott, Maria. 1842. A scripture herbal. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans.

Culpeper, Nicholas. 1675. Pharmacopœia Londinensis; or, the London dispensatory: further adorned by the studies and collections of the fellows now living, of the said colledge. London: George Sawbridge.

Culpeper, Nicholas. 1794. Culpeper's English physician, and complete herbal: to which are now first added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs... London: Printed for the Author.

Culpeper, Nicholas. 1809. The English physician enlarged. S.l.: S.n.

Culpeper, Nicholas. 1826. The English physician enlarged: containing three hundred and sixty-nine receipts for medicines made from herbs. Taunton, MA: Samuel W. Mortimer. Culpeper, Nicholas. 1847? The complete herbal: to which is now added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs ... London: Thomas Kelly.

Literature Cited (continued)

de La Quintinie, Jean. 1710. The complete gard'ner: or, directions for cultivating and right ordering of fruit-gardens and kitchen-gardens by Monsienr De la Quintiney. London: Andrew Bell.

Eschner, Kat. 2017. How Nicholas Culpeper brought medicine to the people. Smithsonian Magazine Smart News. Accessed January 28, 2022. Available from https://www. smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-nicholas-culpeper-brought-medicine-people-180965291/

Foster, Steven. 2004. Jacob Bigelow's American medical botany: digital reissue illuminates access to rare work.” HerbalGram. 63:52-61. Accessed January 29, 2022. Available from https://www.herbalgram.org/resources/herbalgram/issues/63/table-of-contents/article2720/#

Gerarde, John. 1633. The herball, or general historie of plantes gathered by John Gerarde of London master in chirurgerie... London: Adam Islip, Joice Norton & Richard Whitakers.

Good, Peter P. 1845. A materia medica botanica: containing the botanical analysis, natural history, and chemical and medical properties of plants... New York: J.K. Wellman. Greenaway, Kate, and A. Cardon. n.d. “Illustrated by women.” Accessed January 29, 2022. Available from https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/library/files/special/exhibns/ women/illustratedby.html

Hanson, Earl D. 2021. Constantine Samuel Rafinesque | Turkish naturalist. Britannica. Accessed January 28, 2022. Available from https://www.britannica.com/biography/ Constantine-Samuel-Rafinesque

HathiTrust Digital Library. n.d. Our digital library. Accessed January 30, 2022. Available from https://www.hathitrust.org/digital_library

The Herb Society of America. 2015. The Connecticut Unit celebrates 60 years! Accessed January 28, 2022. Available from https://www.herbsociety.org/file_download/ inline/27c2e3c8-83cc-4c9b-9b7a-c855648425f4

Hey, Rebecca. 1837. The spirit of the woods, illustrated by coloured engravings by the author of "the moral of flowers." London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman; and Robinson, Leeds.

Hill, John. 1755. The useful family herbal, or, an account of all those English plants, which are remarkable for their virtues... London: W. Johnston and W. Owen.

Hill, John. 1756. An history of plants and trees, natives Britain, cultivated for use, or raised for beauty. London: T. Osborne, J. Shipton, J. Hodges, J. Newberry, B. Collins, S. Crowder, H. Woodgate.

Hill, John. 1812. The family herbal, or, an account of all those English plants, which are remarkable for their virtues, and of the drugs which are produced by vegetables of other countries... Bungay, England: C. Brightly and Co.; and T. Kinnersley.

Jordan, Lea. n.d. “Elizabeth Wade White papers, 1901-1994 [bulk 1923-1976].” New York Public Library Archives. Accessed January 28, 2022. Available from https://archives. nypl.org/mss/5990

Keese, John. 1850. The floral keepsake: with thirty engravings elegantly colored from nature. New York: Leavitt & Allen.

Kolb, Christian F. A. 1868. Naturgeschichte des thierreichs: ein anschauungs-unterricht für schule und haus... Stuttgart: Verlag der Expedition Freya (Carl Hoffmann).

Leith, David, and The Recipes Project. 2015. Pliny the Elder. Accessed January 28, 2022. Available from https://recipes.hypotheses.org/tag/pliny-the-elder

McManus, Brooke, and Francis A. Countway. n.d. “Collection: Jacob Bigelow papers | HOLLIS. Accessed March 25, 2022. Available from https://colonialnorthamerica.library. harvard.edu/spotlight/cna/catalog/990006035560203941

Millspaugh, Charles F. 1887. American medicinal plants: an illustrated and descriptive guide to the American plants used as homoeopathic remedies... New York: Boericke & Tafel.

Millspaugh, Charles F. 1892. Medicinal plants; an illustrated and descriptive guide to plants indigenous to and naturalized in the United States... N.p.: J. C. Yorston & Co. Ostdick, Nick. 2017. “Important elements of provenance in rare book collecting.” Accessed January 15, 2022. Available from https://blog.bookstellyouwhy.com/importantelements-of-provenance-in-rare-book-collecting

Parkinson, John. 1656. Paradisi In Sole paradisvs terrestris or, a choise garden of all sorts of rarest flowers... London: R. N. and Richard Thrale.

Penner, Sarah. 2021. The lost apothecary. Toronto: Park Row Books.

Pliny, The Elder. 1601. The historie of the world : commonly called the natural historie of C. Plinius Secundus... London: Adam Islip.

Popova, Maria. 2020. The spirit of the woods: poet and painter Rebecca Hey's gorgeous 19th-century illustrations for the world's first encyclopedia of trees. Accessed January 28, 2022. Available from https://www.themarginalian.org/2020/01/06/sylvan-musings-hey/

Rafinesque, Constantine S. 1828-1830. Medical flora; or, manual of the medical botany of the United States of North America... Philadelphia: Atkinson and Alexander.

Salmon, William. 1710. Botanologia the English herbal: or, history of plants. London: I. Dawks.

Short, Thomas. 1746. Medicina Britannica: or, a treatise on such physical plants, as are generally found in the fields and gardens in Great Britain... London: R. Manby and H. Shute Cox.

Tennent, John. n.d. Botanic remedies in Colonial Massachusetts, 1620–1820. Accessed January 29, 2022. Available from https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/1215

Twamley, Louisa A. 1836. The romance of nature, or, the flower-seasons illustrated. London: Charles Tilt.

A Walk with a

Rose Loveall

Ireally love learning the history and folklore of our commonly used herbs. These stories remind me that humans have been gardening and using these versatile plants for many thousands of years. Some stories are practical, with names that describe the plant. Some stories are tales of magic and ritual. Some stories are based on misunderstanding. The history of basil, a favorite of herb and vegetable gardeners throughout the world, includes all three possibilities.

Herb gardens include more basil than any other herb. The botanical name Ocimum basilicum L. makes perfect sense for this beloved herb. The genus name comes from the Greek word okimon, meaning smell. The specific epithet, basilicum, is the Latin translation of the Greek word basilikon, meaning king. I think we can all agree that basil is the king of smells—just rubbing the leaves of sweet basil turns our thoughts to pesto, caprese salad, and an idyllic trip through rural Italy.

Image by monicore from Pixabay

Basil has many magical and sacred stories. People around the world have considered basil sacred for thousands of years. In some cultures, only the pure of heart, using instruments made of silver, gold, or platinum, could cut it. Helena, Emperor Constantine’s mother, had a revelation that led her to a basil patch where she found what she believed were the remains of the cross on which Christ was crucified. Holy basil, or Ocimum tenuiflorum L., is known in India as the Queen of Herbs, a sacred plant used in both religious observance and Ayurvedic medicine.

Even the secular world considered basil magical. Basil, pinned onto a woman’s clothing In Italy, proclaimed her chastity. A pot of basil on a windowsill signified that a woman was ready to receive her lover (Kowalchik and Hylton, 1987).

During the Dark Ages, basil was not a popular herb. Perhaps because of a misunderstanding of the Greek word basilisk, which was a frightening, lizard like, fire-breathing monster, people considered basil to be an evil plant. Imagine believing that basil would cause problems with digestion, urination, and lactation, and would cause poison to be drawn to any person consuming it. Just dreaming about basil could bring misfortune and unhappiness (Hartung, 2011). Wow! Poor misunderstood basil.

Fortunately, basil did take hold in Europe by the mid-16 th century. By the next century, more than seventy varieties of basil had been described from the common Genovese basil to lemon basil, small leaved Greek basil, and purple leaved basils. Basil has become a staple in our kitchens. Additionally, many basils are used to produce everything from natural insecticides to medicinal products (DeBaggio and Belsinger, 1996).

I grow at least eighteen varieties of basil in my own gardens and sell them at my nursery. I never grow tired of describing their uses and the many scents, flavors, leaf, and flower colors to new herb gardeners. A simple question of ‘Do you have any basil for sale?’ or

‘What’s your favorite basil?’ can lead to a rather lengthy walk through the nursery gardens and greenhouses, complete with tasting and smelling.

It is always a delight to watch someone start with an appreciation of basil, then grow passionate about the plant as they discover so many possibilities in the world of Ocimum. Beyond pesto what about lime basil ice cream, lemon basil infused gin, and cinnamon basil chai shortbread cookies? From appetizers to an after dinner digestives, there is a basil to fit your wildest culinary fantasies.

With more than one hundred named basils on the market, it can be confusing to know which one to grow, or which is best for cooking. Every year new varieties appear in the market, and it’s worthwhile to try one or two new varieties to satisfy your basil obsession.

I think of basils in five categories: sweet flavored, small-leaved, purple-leaved, sterile, and specialty scents and flavors. The sweet varieties such as ‘Genovese’ or ‘Italian Large Leaf’ have the classic flavor and look of basil, but if you have problems with diseases such as downy mildew or fusarium, try more resistant varieties such as ‘Aroma’ or ‘Everleaf.’ We have fallen in love with ‘Everleaf’ basil (sometimes called ‘Everleaf Emerald Towers’). It is perfect for container growing. It has the classic Genovese basil flavor, is compact with short nodes between the leaves for more leaf production, is disease resistant, and is slow to bolt. The lettuce leaf varieties of basil, such as ‘Napoletano,’ can easily grow to twenty four inches tall, with large, ruffled leaves growing five inches long and four to five inches wide. Switch out lettuce for these large leaf basils in your sandwiches, burgers, and wraps.

On the other side of the size spectrum are the small-leaf or dwarf basil varieties. Ocimum ‘Spicy Bush’ grows only to twelve inches and is perfectly rounded. The plant is perfect to edge an herb garden bed. This basil will flower quickly but can be pruned back to maintain a beautiful ball shape. The flavor is heavier than sweet basils, with a spicy mint flavor. It is delicious on pizza or appetizers, and the flavor doesn’t fade when it is heated or cooked.

Basil and its Mediterranean herbal companions, Foodology display at Missouri Botanic Garden Photo credit: Lois Sutton

Spicy globe basil, Montreal Botanic Garden

Photo credit: Lois Sutton

Purple-leaf basils range from mottled purple and green, like the heirloom Ocimum basilicum

‘Corsican,’ to deep purple, such as the Genovese type basil Ocimum

‘Amethyst’ or Italian large leaf type

Ocimum ‘Red Rubin.’ Excellent as salad greens, they also impart both a basil flavor and a stunning pink shade to vinegar (Tucker and DeBaggio, 2009). They are wonderful as edible garnishes and have pink blooms that can be added to flower bouquets.

The specialty basils encompass a vast range of cultivars, from citrus to clove to licorice, each with a different flavor profile. I cannot have a garden without Ocimum basilicum ‘Mrs. Burns Lemon.’ This basil has been in production for over sixty years, for good reason. The lemon flavor is huge, with an undertone of cinnamon and mint, and the plant is generously sized, ready to create batches of lemon pesto, lemon basil iced tea, and lemon basil infused gin.

Ocimum basilicum ‘Cardinal’ is my new favorite. I first viewed it at a Master Gardener test garden, full grown and in full bloom. It is a robust Thai-style basil growing two feet tall, heavy with the spicy flavor of clove and anise. The flower spike is the showstopper though, short and squat, in rich deep purple. Each spike can be three to four inches wide, and as a cut flower, it adds both fragrance and color to a summer bouquet.

I can see all the basil growers out there shuddering at the thought of flowers on basil plants. Of course, we need to keep flowers pinched back to keep plants shrubby and productive, but flower farmers have discovered the beauty of fragrant basil flowers in bouquets. Chefs and mixologists are mixing, sprinkling, infusing, and muddling basil flowers into new culinary sensations. Bees adore basil flowers, so why not expand your garden with more basil cultivars?

This is where the sterile basil varieties become highlights. Ocimum ‘African Blue’ (Ocimum ‘Dark Opal’ × O. kilimandscharicum Gúrke) was a chance seedling found at Companion Plants Nursery in Athens, Ohio. It typically grows to three feet tall and wide, with green leaves having purple veining and large purple flower spikes blooms with flowers. Plants will grow and flower almost continuously throughout the growing season, much to the delight of the many bees that will visit. It is a stunning garden specimen and excellent for bouquets. Although it is considered an annual, it does overwinter in the more temperate regions and is also more forgiving as a winterized houseplant than the seed grown basils. The leaf scent and flavor are a bit heavy with camphor, and most people consider it an inferior selection for cooking.

There are several newer sterile selections that are attractive in pots or in beds and that produce stunning flowers. They are disease resistant, culinary worthy, and quite tolerant of extreme hot and cold conditions. My favorite is Ocimum HerbaleaTM ‘Wild Magic’(PPAF), a patented sterile basil that grows to eighteen inches tall. The plant is well branched with deep violet green leaves, plum-black new growth, and dark stems covered with deep pink blooms. The plant has a delicious spicy flavor, great tolerance to fusarium disease, grows vigorously, and blooms over a long season. It will tolerate slightly drier soils than other basils and tolerates temperatures down to the low forties. In our central California garden, ‘Wild Magic’ looks good and usually blooms until late December when we get a hard freeze. It will tolerate life as an indoor plant during the winter. It is really a hard-working herb!

Kate Frey highlighted this basil in a 2018 article in Santa Rosa’s The Press Democrat. She advised Sonoma County gardeners that Ocimum HerbaleaTM ‘Magic Mountain’ (PPAF) provides a lovely complement to ‘Wild Magic’ in the garden, or in containers. It has

Ocimum HerbaleaTM ‘Wild Magic’

Photo credit: Morningsun Herb Farm

deeper green leaves, light pink blooms, and milder flavor.

On the other side of the spectrum is Ocimum ‘Pesto Perpetuo,’ a variegated non-blooming Genovese style basil. It is a stunning plant in the garden, shining as a container plant, or even tucked into mixed pots of perennials or herbs. It will not bloom, giving the busy gardener the opportunity to enjoy basil at its highest quality.

The largest basil I grow in my garden is tree basil known as ‘Vana.’ There are so many varieties of tulsi basil that it is difficult to choose just one, but Ocimum gratissimum L. ‘Vana’ is so large it is difficult to ignore. It grows to five feet, with large fuzzy green leaves, maroon stemmed flower spikes, and a strong lemon/licorice/clove/mint scent, I can’t help but think of tea every time I walk past it. It is woody stemmed and lives in my zone 9b garden until mid-December. It is stunning to look at, and I find even a pinch in a tea adds an amazing burst of flavor.

Basil always reminds me of my father. He did not discover basil until later in life, when he was in his sixties. He always had a huge garden, and I learned so much about vegetable gardening from him. I introduced him to basil though, and once he started growing it, there was never again a day without pesto.

I think of him standing in his garden with his basil plants, telling me in his Missouri accent that if he had a million dollars, he would spend it all on basil.

Of course, basil seed is cheap. He was a fabulous gardener growing in

amazing soil, so he didn’t need to spend very much money to have a constant supply of basil. He had truly fallen in love with this king of herbs, as so many of us have.

Tips for Happy Basil:

Start basil indoors from seed six to eight weeks before the last frost. Use well-drained soil-less media in small pots. Basils require dark for germination, so cover the seed lightly, at least one-eighth inch, with soil or vermiculite.

Invest in a heat mat to maintain soil temperatures at 65° F. This will assure faster and more even germination, less damping-off, and strong plant development.

Some basils, such as Genovese basil, are quick to germinate, often in five to seven days. The tropical tulsi basil, Ocimum tenuiflorum, is slow to germinate and requires warmer temperatures and higher light to develop strong plants. Even with heat mats and additional lighting, germination often takes fourteen days, and plant development is much slower. Be patient and allow soil temperatures to warm up to at least 65° F before transplanting into the garden.

Basils need more fertilizer than perennial herbs. If you are growing basil in containers, supply both a slow-release fertilizer when you first transplant and liquid fertilizers every one to two weeks, depending on the pot size and how often you need to water. If plants are growing in the ground, incorporate compost and a slow-release fertilizer at planting and liquid fertilizer every two to three weeks to maintain healthy growth. We prefer organic dry fertilizers and fish emulsion.

To keep basil in a vegetative state, pinch back blooms and several sets of leaves. If the plants try to re-bloom quickly, it is a sign that it’s time to fertilize.

Plant basil in succession to get the highest quality flavor throughout the season. This is especially true in warmer climates, where the basil growing season may be March through October. Basil planted in March will not produce good quality leaves by October, but basil planted in June will still be vigorous for fall harvest.

If you plan to save seed, remember that basil, both varieties and species, will cross pollinate readily. Allow only one type of basil to bloom and set seed at a time to assure that you are saving each variety separately.

All basils will readily produce roots from cut tips either in water or in soil-less media. This will assure you propagate the basil you want.

Literature Cited

DeBaggio, Thomas, and Susan Belsinger. 1996. Basil, an herb lover’s guide. Loveland, CO: Interweave Press.

Frey, Kate. “Sonoma County Gardeners Wake Up and Smell the Basils.” The Press Democrat, Santa Rosa, Ca. July 6, 2018.

Hartung, Tammi. 2011. Homegrown herbs. North Adams, MA: Storey Publishing.

Kowalchik, Claire, and William H. Hylton, eds. 1987. Rodale’s illustrated encyclopedia of herbs. Emmaus, Pennsylvania: Rodale Press.

Tucker, Arthur O., and Thomas DeBaggio.2009. The encyclopedia of herbs: a comprehensive reference to herbs of flavor and fragrance. Portland, OR: Timber Press.

Garden showing ‘Pesto Perpetuo’ (front) and columnar (rear) basils

Photo credit: Lois Sutton

We all love to spend time in our gardens but with the arrival of hot, humid days, small flying insects like mosquitoes and gnats drive us back indoors. Before you spray your yard for those bugs, remember there are other members of our environmental community that dine on them! Building a GreenBridges™ garden creates safe haven for wildlife we don't think of as pollinators but which makes our outside lives more pleasant. Enter chimney swifts!

As incredible insectivorous birds, chimney swifts do a great deal of noteworthy aerial acrobatics to feast on the flying insects in and around your gardens. If you are not familiar with this important and declining migratory species, sit back and let me take you on a journey of learning, loving, and appreciating all they do for us. In addition, you will learn how to improve their declining numbers and invite them to nest within your garden.

Chimney swifts are charcoal gray in color, with a cigar-shaped body, and long pointed wings. Their body length ranges from five to six inches, and their wingspan is twelve to thirteen inches. Their short weak legs, with all toes pointed forward, keep them from perching upright like most other birds. This Andres Jimenez | Dreamstime.com

Judy Semroc

means they cannot perch on a tree branch or a wire. They can only hang vertically using their long claws and stiff tail feathers for support. Since they spend almost all their waking hours from sun-up to sundown in-flight hawking insects, they devour incredible numbers of mosquitoes and other insects. Amazingly they feed, drink, sleep, bathe, and collect nest material, all while they are in flight!

Historically, they nested in hollow or split tree trunks, but they can also use trees with larger, open cavities where they can enter and build a nest inside the trunk. With the arrival of humans on the scene, they were able to adapt and build their nests inside masonry chimneys, silos, wells, cisterns, air vents, and other manufactured structures. Since they prefer sites with low light, house and building chimneys and abandoned silos have become preferred nesting locations for them. No matter how large the structure might be, there is only one active nest per year in any given structure.

Nest construction usually begins around the last half of May and can continue into mid-June. Both parents help build the nest and use their glue-like saliva to “cement” sticks to the sides of the chimney or structure. Since they gather nesting material on the wing, they can use their feet to break twigs and bring them back to the nest site in their bill. The completed nest measures two to three inches front to back, four inches wide and about one to two inches deep. After they have completed the nest, their saliva glands shrink in size, and they use the resulting pouches to carry balls of insect material back to the nestlings for food. The female typically lays four to five white eggs, which both parents incubate for eighteen to twenty-one days. Once the eggs have hatched, both parents feed the young on the average of every thirty minutes until they are about four days old. After that they will feed them hourly, spending all the daylight hours collecting small flying insects, mostly mosquitoes, to keep their young well fed. Unfortunately, our increasing decline in insects, due to many human-related causes, makes it tough on the parents to find enough insects to feed their young—one of the many reasons for the decline in numbers of this vitally important avian species.

After about ten days, the nestlings’ wing feathers begin to unfurl, and their eyes open at about fourteen days. The young outgrow the nest after about two weeks and hang vertically on the walls near the nest. After about twenty days, the young begin to practice flapping their wings in preparation for when they are ready to leave the structure. They finally are ready to leave the nest after about thirty days and fly with their parents in slow circles near the nest structure. Their constant twittering as a group serves as vocal communications between the parents and the young as they continue to learn how their wings operate and to refine their flight movements.

What makes them a particularly useful bird for people is the fact that they are flying and eating constantly during daylight hours. Unlike other insectivorous birds such as swallows, purple martins, and flycatchers, they cannot perch horizontally to rest or occasionally eat ground insects such as ants. Swifts spend many more hours hunting the insects we don’t particularly care for—mosquitoes, biting flies, midges, and more. A single bird can eat more than 5,000 insects per day, consuming nearly one third of its body weight in flying insects! Think of how many insects can be naturally eliminated without using chemical treatments, “bug zappers,” and other harmful ways to control “pest” insect populations.

Chimney Swifts and young clinging to chimney bricks

Photo credit: Greg Schechter

When it is time for the swifts to migrate south in autumn, they typically leave the Great Lakes area around the middle of September to the first week of October, with most of them gone by the last week of October. As they fly south, they usually stick to the land side of the Gulf of Mexico and then head to northwest South America to sites in Peru, Brazil, Chile, and Ecuador to spend the winter. They do not fly at night, so they must find a structure to roost in each evening. Depending on their area of summer residency, they can migrate more than 10,000 miles each year!

Their breeding grounds, their summer range, extends from southern Canada to the north, the eastern edge of the US to the east, Florida to the southern tip of Texas to the south, and the western edge of Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota (roughly the longitude line of 103° West). Most of them arrive back in northeast Ohio between the third week of April and the middle of May.

During both northward and southward migration journeys, they can congregate by the hundreds, and sometimes thousands, at large roost sites such as large brick or stone chimneys and silos. They can remember the sites where they stop and use them from year to year on their migration journeys. It can be especially important to their migration journeys that those structures remain in place each year as their roosting stops along the way.

As darkness approaches, the birds gather about an hour before sunset and start their slow descent to the chimney or roosting site for the evening. As it gets even darker, larger groups of birds descend into the structure and within ten to fifteen minutes, most of them have selected a location inside to spend the night hanging vertically on the wall.

When the birds migrate northward in the spring, they generally head to the memorized sites they used the prior season. Within two weeks of arriving at their chosen breeding areas, they form monogamous pairs and perform aerial courtship flight displays. Once they have mated and selected their nesting site, they begin nest building, ultimately lay eggs, and care for their young.

Now that we know these facts about the chimney swifts and their behavior, let’s discuss why they are imperiled and have declined in population by more than 60% since the mid-1960s. Many reasons account for their decline, but two are critical. They are losing nesting sites (chimneys, for example) at an alarming rate. Second, the insect populations (the swifts’ food sources) are declining because of the replacement of the insects’ host plants by introduced invasive plants, the use of chemical insect sprays, and other human-generated causes.

Regarding loss of nesting sites, newer chimney construction on individual homes utilize metal flue liners, which chimney swifts cannot cling to, nor can they attach their nesting material.

If they can get into a metal flue, they are typically trapped and cannot get back out. Those types of chimney liners need to be secured with a cover so the swifts cannot get inside them. In addition, many people with suitable masonry chimneys have

blocked the open tops thinking they were keeping out squirrels or raccoons, when in fact, they may have had nesting chimney swifts and did not know the “twittering” noises they were hearing came from the young birds vocalizing when the parents came with food. To keep squirrels and raccoons out of an open chimney, a two-foot-wide sheet of metal wrap at the top will prevent them from being able to climb into the chimney. But at the same time, you must remove the screening or cover that may have been put over the opening in past years.

In addition to capped chimneys, the demolition of old chimneys from churches, schools, greenhouses, and businesses in old downtown city settings, which provide great swift nesting sites, are gone forever once they are taken down. Since there is only one nest site in any one of those old chimneys, every suitable nest site is crucial. If possible, consider retaining the chimneys if the building must come down, as long as there are no safety issues with the structure.

So, what can we do to help the swifts and encourage them to happily devour insects in our home gardens? Build them a chimney swift tower!!

Just like putting up nesting boxes to encourage eastern bluebirds to nest has resulted in greater populations, a similar practice has been successful for chimney swifts. A breakthrough publication by Paul and Georgean Kyle (Kyle and Kyle, 2005) gave essential information and plans for people to build their own towers and place them in many locations such as home gardens, municipal areas, churches, schools, and parks. Homeowners, scout groups, and environmental/ecology students in high school and college classes have all built chimney swift towers.

Some groups have worked with local planning and zoning departments to suggest that chimney swift “chimneys” be a part of new building/construction plans. By incorporating more of these structures, many cities and municipalities can use the swifts’ incredible penchant for “naturally” devouring mosquitoes rather than the continued use of pesticide application/spraying in neighborhoods, parks, and over wetland areas. Pesticides then harm species such as birds, amphibians, and even humans.

Chimney Swift Tower Design & Placement Information

The minimum height for a chimney swift tower should be ten feet but the taller the tower, the more likelihood that more swifts may use the tower during migration once they have found its location. Most of the towers that people place in their garden habitats range in height from twelve to eighteen feet.

Towers can be free-standing or placed against structures such as a house, garage, barn, or shed. Before moving forward with a swift tower, be sure to check your local zoning laws to see if you need a permit for the structure. A helpful tower placement guide is to place it near structures where chimney swifts have been nesting in the past.

Inside the tower, walls should be sixteen to eighteen inches apart to accommodate the bird’s wingspan. As the young become more active and practice flying up and down in the tower, they must have room to exercise their wings in preparation for leaving the tower with their family members. In addition, the inside surface of the tower should have a rough texture so

the swifts’ claws can grip the vertical surface and the parents can attach the sticks during nest building.

The exterior of the tower can be made from all types of materials including vinyl or aluminum siding, bricks, cedar, or other wood products. To discourage predators such as squirrels and raccoons from climbing up the tower and entering the interior, a twentyfour inch band of metal flashing placed around the top of the tower will help keep these creatures at bay.

Additional information about chimney swifts can be found at Chimneyswifts.org. This organization provides a great deal of information in addition to videos, photos, tower construction directions, and swift promotional merchandise. You can also search the internet for other tower ideas and designs.

While we know we need to pull together to try to help this imperiled species, keep in mind that there are many organizations in many states that can offer good advice. The next time you happen to view a group of chimney swifts flying and hunting for insects, please consider doing what you can to invite them into your home garden habitat as well as other areas you might frequent or where you volunteer!

Migration

Long-distance migrant. Chimney Swifts migrate to South America each winter flying across the Gulf of Mexico or skirting it along the Texas coast (a route they’re more likely to take in spring than fall). Many swifts use one of three distinct flyways: the Atlantic coast, the east side of the Appalachians, and the Mississippi River. They fly high in the sky during the day and roost in chimneys at night.

Map data are provided by NatureServe in collaboration with Robert Ridgely, James Zook, The Nature Conservancy - Migratory Bird Program, Conservation International - CABS, World Wildlife Fund - US, and Environment Canada - WILDSPACE.

Literature Cited

Kyle, Paul and Georgean Kyle. 2005. Chimney swift towers. College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press.

Additional Resources

Chimney Swifts.org Available from http://www.chimneyswifts.org/

Kyle, Paul and Georgean Kyle. Chimney Swifts: America’s Mysterious Birds Above the Fireplace. College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press. 2005.

The Nature Guys. 2020. Chimney swift the flying cigar. Accessed April 15, 2022. Available from http://natureguys.org/?s=chimney+swifts

Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke. 2015. Chimney swifts. Accessed April 15, 2022. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHxtUl1XXsQ

Texas Parks & Wildlife. 2019. Chimney Swifts, Paddlefish Progress & Tree Stand Safety, #2725 (YouTube TV). Accessed April 15, 2022. Available from https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=NyPMkr6A3EE

To Grow them is to know them, To Know them is to use them, To Use them is to love them, And then happily Herbs Become your way of life.

~ Bertha Reppert

Susan Betz

Thomas Holt | Dreamstime.com

Indoor herb gardening lets you enjoy the fragrance and flavor of fresh herbs year-round.

The novice and gourmet chef alike appreciate how herbs enhance even the simplest meals, pleasing the eye as well as the palate. They add zest to drinks, salads, main dishes, sweets, and soups. Herbs are also valued for their health benefits for promoting overall wellness by calming stress and building immunity.

Whether growing in a pot or a garden, herbs encourage creativity and offer a comforting connection to the natural world. Herbs are the quintessential passalong plants. More herb roots, slips, and seeds are shared by plant lovers than any other category of plants. Reciprocal relationships give our lives meaning, and herbs are great at making friends for themselves.

It's important to realize, as Helen Van Pelt Wilson advises, “In a natural sense, there is no such thing as a ‘houseplant,’ for no plant can claim a house as its natural habitat.” (Jenkins and Wilson, 1944). A plant growing in a container depends on the gardener for its every need. To say growing herbs indoors is simple would be misleading. Not all herbs are suitable for indoor gardening because of their size, unruly growth habit, or cultural needs. Today, thanks to the popularity of indoor gardening, new techniques, tools, efficient grow lights, organic soil mixtures, and compact herb varieties specifically bred for containers and small spaces, it is easier to cultivate these delightful plants indoors.

classification or Latin name of a plant will help you correctly identify the plant and its origins. From that information, you can research some of its growth characteristics. Knowing the life cycle of a plant will help you plan for its future. Is it an annual, biennial, or perennial plant?

Success with indoor herb gardening begins with choosing the right plants for the windows and other growing conditions in your home. Most herbs are sun lovers. An unobstructed window facing south or east is the best place to grow an indoor herb garden.

All plants have four basic needs: light, soil, water, and nutrients. A green thumb is nothing more than a good understanding of plants and their requirements, plus the time, inclination, and determination to meet those requirements consistently.

Sunlight

Light is nourishment and energy to a plant. One of the most important aspects of growing herbs is making sure they get enough light. Herbs need a minimum of five to eight hours of direct sunlight per day. However, some plants such as mint, myrtle, and patchouli will do well with daylight and minimal sunlight. Placing a plant just a few feet away from a window can reduce light intensity up to fifty percent. Spindly elongated plants are a signal they are not receiving enough light and need a brighter window or supplemental light. Northern gardeners need to study the changes in winter day length to ensure plants receive enough light indoors. Turn your plants regularly, so all sides get even exposure to light.

Light conditions suitable for growing plants can be created nearly anywhere indoors using artificial illumination. An LED or simple full spectrum grow light with a high level of light output will work for most herbs if the window light isn't bright enough. Place the light one to one and a half feet above the plant, depending on its size. Plants need rest, so schedule your lights with an electric timer set for twelve to fourteen hours rest per day.

Soil—What's in the Bag?

L.H. Bailey

Given the variety and diversity of herbs available for cultivating indoors and outdoors, it is impossible to offer a standard set of cultural needs and care requirements that apply to all. It is best to understand the individual needs of the particular plant you wish to grow and to meet those needs. A plant's native habitat offers valuable clues on how to grow it. Knowing the botanical

Many commercial potting soils are available for indoor gardening, including multipurpose peat-based mixes, soil-based blends, and others designed to suit specific plant needs such as cacti or orchids. Good drainage is essential for growing herbs, and a soil pH that is neutral to slightly alkaline is best. Soil-based potting mixes hold more nutrients, especially trace elements, and retain their porous structure longer than peat-based blends. In general, soil-based mixes are better for potted herbs and for the environment.

One plant in a tin can may be a more helpful & inspiring garden to some people than a whole garden of flowers may be to another. It depends on the temperament of the person.

Herbs are one of Mother Nature’s oldest gifts!

Photo credit: Amy Kimball

Supplemental light may be needed indoors.

Photo credit: Susan Betz

Choose a balanced, soil-based potting mix

My favorite soil mixture for producing healthy, vigorous herbs contains these ingredients:

3 parts soil-based potting mix

1 part coarse sand

1 part compost

1 part perlite

There are two schools of thought regarding repotting houseplants. Some believe late winter and/or early spring, when new growth begins, is the proper time to repot herbal houseplants into fresh soil or a larger pot before they shift into active growth. In contrast, others insist it is better to repot in late summer before bringing outside plants indoors. Either way, most herbal houseplants should have fresh soil yearly, even if they are repotted into the same pots. I generally repot my herbs in the spring before moving them out for summer vacation.

Humidity and Fresh Air

Difficulties that arise with growing herbs indoors are often because of air that is too hot or dry, especially if the plants are near hot air vents. One way to combat low humidity is to put pots on top of a tray of gravel filled with water, making sure the bottoms of the containers are not sitting in water. Air conditioning that blows directly onto plants will rob moisture from the soil, so locate your herb plants away from air vents. Misting your plants once or twice a week with a sprayer will help herbs resist insect pests that flourish in dry, hot environments. Plants thrive in company. Grouping herbs about five inches apart creates a beneficial microclimate that stimulates more fragrance and makes it easier to water. Just like people, herbs need fresh air. Open a window occasionally to give them some fresh air or use a fan to increase indoor air circulation.

Watering

Learn to read the plant, and it will tell you if it's thirsty. Proper watering and good drainage are essential for growing herbs. They are forgiving, but soggy soil is a sure prescription for root rot and fungal disease. To water herbs, gently pour the water into the pot until it runs out of the drainage hole. After an hour or so, empty any standing water left in the pot saucer to avoid waterlogging the

roots. Because salts and nutrients leach from potting soil with each watering, I prefer to discard the water and not pour it back into the pot. Try to water herbs early in the day, especially in winter, as watering indoor plants at night sometimes encourages fungal growth.

I am a big fan of clay pots for growing herbs indoors because the growing conditions within the pot are easily adjusted by altering the type of potting mix used or by adding or withholding water. They allow the potting soil in the pot to "breathe" because water slowly evaporates through the sides of the pot, increasing air exchange between soil and roots. This means plants are less apt to have wet feet, which hinders their growth. What's more, the moisture evaporation through the porous sides of clay containers is a simple way to raise humidity and moisture in the air surrounding the plant. Whichever container you select for an herbal houseplant, it should suit the size and needs of the specific herb you plan to grow. The pot needs to be deep enough to accommodate the plant's roots and wide enough to support the plant's future growth. For example, parsley is a plant with a long taproot and requires a deep container sufficient to accommodate the length of its entire root structure.

Fertilizing

Use an organic half-strength solution of a 15-15-15 liquid fertilizer to feed your indoor herbs. Many indoor plant enthusiasts favor liquid fertilizers because watering and feeding are completed simultaneously. All complete fertilizers have three numbers, which represent the three primary elements they contain that are essential for healthy plant growth—nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium (NPK).

Look at the fertilizer label to determine the percentage of each of these elements. I use a fish emulsion to fertilize my herbs every two or three weeks when they are actively growing because it contains naturally occurring beneficial soil bacteria that are frequently missing in inorganic fertilizers. Lower temperatures and fewer daylight hours of late autumn and winter decrease the need for fertilizer, especially during slow growth or dormancy periods. Gradually start fertilizing again when spring returns.

Pruning and Pests

Herbs should be pruned regularly as they grow. Pruning is key to the health and well-being of attractive, nicely shaped plants with lush foliage. Every herb species has its own growth habit and natural shape, which is why some herbs are not suitable for indoor culture. Plants growing in containers require more grooming than those grown in the ground. Fast-growing plants need frequent pinching to promote maximum foliage production and deter straggly growth. Many herbs put on new growth at their branch tips, and this is where they should be snipped or pinched regularly

Photo credit: Susan Betz

Clay pots in a variety of shapes and sizes

Photo credit: Susan Betz

ORGANIC PESTICIDE AND FUNGICIDE CONTROL

This hydrogen peroxide solution, in addition to controlling aphids, is also useful as a foliage spray to control fungus, gnats, and spider mites. Occasionally watering your plants with a diluted solution of hydrogen peroxide will boost oxygen levels and soil aeration. Let the soil dry briefly before resuming your regular watering regimen.

In a 24-ounce plastic or glass spray bottle, combine 2 cups water and 2 tablespoons three-percent hydrogen peroxide. Cap the bottle and store at room temperature.

to encourage a bushier form. Some herbs, such as chives, parsley, and sorrel, grow from the base of the plants. Old-growth should be removed from the sides of these plants rather than from the branch tips.

The best defense is a good offense for pest and disease control. To keep your plants healthy, examine them frequently. Stay ahead of insects and disease by recognizing early symptoms of trouble and accepting when a plant is kaput. It is also wise to learn to recognize when it's time to trash a pestridden or sick plant to stop further spread of disease or insects.

Charles A. Lewis, in his classic book, Green Nature/Human Nature: The Meaning of Plants in Our Lives, perceptively states, "Plants and people share the rhythm of life. They both evolve and change, respond to nurture and climate, and live and die." (Lewis, 1996). Some plants manage to adapt readily to an indoor environment and thrive for years with little effort on your part. But not all plants are long-lived, especially certain herbs. The important thing is to enjoy them while you have them and replace them as needed.

Generally speaking, I use a few types of herbal houseplants in my home throughout the year.

Temporary House Guests

I treat short-lived plants, such as basil, cilantro, and summer savory, the same way indoors as I do annuals in the garden. Transient decorative gift plants associated with seasonal celebrations bring temporary pleasure and are here and gone.

Hardy Long-Lived Herbs

Aloe vera, scented pelargoniums, lemongrass, and many other perennial herbs are easy-going long-lasting plants indoors if given the proper environment, soil, nutrients, and lighting.

Indoor Gardens

Creatively approached, growing a group of herbs together in a single pot offers a great opportunity to experiment with theme gardening. When combining several plants in the same container, it's important to choose plants with similar cultural needs because all the plants will receive the same amount of moisture and light. Keep in mind that the plants will eventually outgrow the space. Your container's diameter should be about two inches larger than the total diameter of all the pots you are combining. As the garden ages, prune or remove plants to avoid overcrowding. Close planting reduces air circulation and increases the chance of a pest or disease problem. Keep plants groomed and pruned to fit the available space.

Pot an Herb – Grow a Friend

Last but not least are those special herbs I value as good friends or those which have sparked my botanical curiosity with a snippet of historic intrigue or an amusing tale about them. I enjoy the adventure of interacting with them, spending the time and effort learning to create the perfect environment suited to each plant's individual requirements. I think of them as friends and want to know more about them. And yes, I do talk to my herbs! Although there are many delightful myths and legends associated with herbs, the magical gift of a green thumb is not one of them. Gardening is a skill developed through trial and error, and container gardening is an excellent way to begin cultivating your green thumb. We're increasingly aware of how plants and gardening connect us to the healing power of the natural world. You can travel the planet by gardening on your windowsill. In and out of the garden, herbs offer people of all ages a fun, friendly, delightful venue to explore and ask questions about cultural, ethnic, geographic, and economic diversity. By kindly nurturing us, herbs teach that there are many approaches to understanding and enjoying the continuity of people-plant relationships.

Literature Cited

Bailey, Liberty H. 1902. Garden making, suggestion for the utilizing of home grounds. New York: Macmillan, Company. Jenkins, D.H and Wilson Helen Van Pelt. 1944. Enjoy your house plants. New York: M. Barrows & Co. Lewis, Charles L. 1996. Green nature-human nature: the meaning of plants in our lives. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Reppert, Bertha. 1990. Growing and using herbs with confidence. Nicholasville, KY: Remembrance Press.

Bibliography

Betz, Susan. Herbal Houseplants, Grow Beautiful Herbs -Indoors! Beverly, MA: Cool Spring Press. 2021. Foster, Steven. “Aloe Vera: every windowsill deserves one.” The Herb Companion. February / March. Loveland, CO: Interweave Press. 1995.

Aloe vera, a popular windowsill plant

Photo credit: Susan Betz

Corsican mint, strongly scented of pennyroyal and peppermint

Photo credit: Susan Betz

Patchouli, another indoor companion

Photo credit: Susan Betz

Biographies

Susan Betz' s long history of growing and using herbs to educate the public is evidenced by her membership in The Herb Society of America (life member) as well as the International Herb Association, Garden Communicators, and the Ecological Landscape Alliance. Susan received The Society’s Helen D. Conway Little Medal of Honor in 2018. She is a charter member of HSA’s Native Herb Conservation committee and contributes to HSA’s native herb fact sheets. She is the author of Magical Moons & Seasonal Circles, Stepping into the Circle of the Seasons & Neighboring with Nature/Native Herbs for Pleasure and Purpose.

Amy E. Dawson is a cataloger, librarian, archivist, and educator who has worked at appraising and describing collections. She has completed rare book cataloging projects for The Herb Society of America and other organizations such as The Rowfant Club, The Golden Group, and Library Cataloging Solutions. She is the former Special Projects Coordinator of the Special Collections Department of the Cleveland Public Library.

Carol Ann Harlos, a Society member at large, is a retired math and science teacher (Buffalo City Schools) and retired lecturer at Buffalo State College. She is an active writer and gardener! She is a previous The Herbarist author, served as editor for the Essential Guide to Monarda and participates in the HSA native plants committee. She writes a gardening column for Forever Young Magazine as well as being newsletter editor and writer for Herb Gardeners of the Niagara Frontier. She is a Master Gardener, past MG President, and MG Coordinator (Erie County New York state).

Erin Holden works in the National Herb Garden at the U.S. National Arboretum and holds a Master of Science in Herbal Medicine from the Maryland University of Integrative Health. She has worked at the Arboretum since 2013, primarily in the Herb Garden and the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum. She helped launch the Arboretum’s Herban Lifestyles, an educational series suggesting ways to include herbs in everyday life. Erin is a clinical herbalist and has served as a teaching assistant for various herbal medicine graduate courses. Currently she is the co-blogmaster of The Herb Society of America’s blog.

The Society’s Honorary President for 2022 – 2024, began her career with degrees in forestry and environmental horticulture. With that background in mind, she and her husband, Dan Sales, began their nursery, Morningsun Herb Farm, in 1995, growing drought tolerant plants, including culinary, and medicinal herbs. Long an advocate for replacing grass yards with plants attractive to hummingbirds and butterflies, Rose continues to be a trend setter for California gardeners.

Biographies

Judy Semroc, a former petroleum engineer, now spends her days out of doors! She is a conservation specialist, field biologist, educator, author, photographer, and also a 25+ year member of The Herb Society of America. She has received multiple awards for her work with organizations such as The Cleveland Museum of Natural History and Portage County (Environmental Hero Award). She founded volunteer programs as “Operation Botanic Rescue,” “Chrysalis in Time,” and now heads a new business, Nature Sparks, offering nature hikes, educational experiences for children, and biologic inventories of property areas.

Lois Sutton, PhD, is a life member of The Herb Society of America. She has served in various roles on the national board (e.g., Past President, 2008 – 2010) and sits on several HSA committees, including The Herbarist committee. She received The Society’s Helen D. Conway Little Medal of Honor in 2019. She is a member at large in the Mid-Atlantic District but values her ties to the Pioneer, South Texas, and Frankenmuth Mid-Michigan Units. She and her husband, Andy MacPhillimy, maintain a GreenBridges™ Garden in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

Brian D. Varian, PhD, is a Lecturer in Economics at Newcastle University in England. He completed his doctoral studies at the London School of Economics. He is a Trustee of the Economic History Society and an External Affiliate of the Centre for Economic History at the Australian National University. He has published widely in the areas of economic history, international trade, and the economics of production. Brian is a member of The Herb Society of America. His interest in the economic aspects of herbs arose naturally, having been raised in a house with plenty of them.

Barbara J. Williams was a member at large in the Great Lakes District, a winner of the Nancy Putnam Howard Award for Excellence in Horticulture, and a retired public garden director. She drew over 100 botanical drawings that are included in Manual of Herbaceaous Ornamental Plants by Steven Still. She served as HSA secretary and chaired several committees for The Society, including the communications, research grants, and promising plants. She was a crucial member of The Herbarist committee. She frequently contributed her scholarly works to The Herbarist.

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Our gratitude to the advertisers and sponsors of The Herbarist 2022!

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Think how pleased—and amazed—our founders would be learning that The Society is able to offer educational programs to members across the country, at the same time or at a time of their choosing, all from the comforts of home!

Monthly webinars are free-of-charge to members.

Dive into a single topic with some of the best herbal educators, growers, authors, and herbalists working today. If you're too busy to watch live, find a webinar recording on demand. From herbal folklore to growing and crafting with herbs to health and wellness topics, the library awaits your exploration.

“The Herb Society of America is dedicated to promoting the knowledge, use and delight of herbs through educational programs, research, and sharing the experience of its members with the community.”

Grow Your Own Tea with Christine Parks March 2022

Living with Flowers with Janice Cox July 2022

The Indigenous Garden at Olbrich Botanical Gardens with Rita Peters & ErinPresley August 2022

Breeding New and Improved Culinary Herbs with Peggy Riccio June 2022

Thank you

Amy and Lin, for your vision, leadership and always steady hands on the tiller.

Amy Schiavone

President of the Board, 2020 - 2022

Linda Lange

President of the Board, 2022 - 2024

Gratefully, the HSA Staff

Pioneer Unit

28th Annual Herbal Forum

Herb and Plant Sale

March 17-18, 2023

Shop our huge selection of plants and take in the gardens we maintain: the Pharmacy Garden established by Madalene Hill at the Festival Institute in Round Top and the Children’s Sensory Garden at Brenham Elementary School in Brenham.

herbsocietypioneer.org

Central Ohio Unit of

The Herb Society of America

We cordially invite you to visit our Herb Garden at Inniswood Metro Gardens

940 South Hempstead Road Westerville, Ohio

Our garden features a collection of over fifty different thymes in a delightful display of herbs grown both for their ornamental and herbal attributes.

www.centralohioherbsociety.org

It’s About Thyme

Sunny Sundays

On Sunny Sunday afternoons from May through October Unit members are in the Herb Garden to answer garden visitors’ questions.

Annual Plant Sale

At Inniswood Metro Gardens the first weekend in May each year.

Congratulations to Unit member Caroline Jamison upon receiving the Golden Sage Award as a 50 year member of HSA.

1400 Culinary & decorative herbs, scented geraniums, perennials, trees & shrubs from around the world, colorful conifers, natives for pollinators.