Plants as Medicine

If We Could Talk To The Dinosaurs

2011-12-21T19:02:00.001+08:00

Welcome to the next edition of my blog. This blog has been dominated by posts that refer to plants as medicine, it is thus no surprise that the name of the blog is "Plants as Medicine." However, as many of you should know by now, I have migrated over to my new website www.sylvanbotanical.com/blog There you will find several plants as medicine blogs that I have recently written. So, I would like

Wild Ginger (Asarum species)

2011-11-21T12:46:00.001+08:00

Recently a question was asked about the possible substitutes that could be used in place of the Chinese herb "xi xin" (細辛) Asarum sp. because the practitioner was concerned the this herb is "toxic." This post is part of my response and a very short over-view of the literature on this herb in regards to its toxicity and dosage. This is not meant to be exhaustive in any way. Asarum delavayi

Perilla frutescens Zi Su 紫苏

2011-11-16T17:27:00.001+08:00

I must apologize to my regular readers. I have been so busy over the last couple months that I have not been keeping up with my blog. What I have I been doing that has taken so much time that I couldn't give my readers something new? Well mostly I have been engrossed in promoting my newest project Sylvan Institute of Botanical Medicine, which can be found at www.syvlanbotanical.com, but I have

Plants as Medicine: Sylvan Institute of Botanical Medicine

2011-10-07T20:40:00.000+08:00

Plants as Medicine: Sylvan Institute of Botanical Medicine: Thanks for stopping by for another read. I am proud to announce today the launch of a project my dear friend Benjamin Zappin and I have b...

Sylvan Institute of Botanical Medicine

2011-10-07T10:41:00.000+08:00

Thanks for stopping by for another read. I am proud to announce today the launch of a project my dear friend Benjamin Zappin and I have been brewing for quite some time. If you are a professional or a student, or just an interested person, you can come over to Sylvan Institute of Botanical Medicine and look through our classes. Also, you may want to note that in the coming weeks there will

Rosa rugosa ----------------- Mei Gui Hao 玫瑰花

2011-09-21T11:20:00.000+08:00

Shakespeare said, "A rose would be a rose by any other name." And, while this might be true, there is only one Rosa rugosa, known as mei gui hua (玫瑰花) in Chinese medicine. This is one of nine species of rose covered in the Grand Dictionary of Chinese Medicinals and one of many used around the world. Mentioned first in the Materia Medica for Food, published in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), as

Tian Shan Mountains

2011-09-06T16:51:00.005+08:00

I recently had the good fortune to go to Xinjiang Province in the Northwest of China. This is a culturally and botanically diverse area dominated by people of Central Asia and plants (and animals) from the great mountain range known in China as the Tian Shan Mountains (Heavenly Mountains). While I was only there for a short time I had an opportunity to encounter both local culture and local

St. John's Wort -- Hypericum perforatum

2011-07-29T22:03:00.002+08:00

St. John's Wort is one of the most popular herbs in the West these days after the marketing it received for its use as a treatment for mild to moderate depression. While this use is valid this plant has abundant historical and current uses that make it a very versatile herbal medicine. Hypericum perforatum is the botanical name (Latin binomial) for the medicinal plant commonly known as St.

2011-07-22T03:19:00.001+08:00

Having traveled through several ecosystems in the last 2 weeks from the Pacific Northwest (both the Cascade Mountains and the coastal range of Vancouver) to the San Francisco Bay Area with it bounty of gardens and natural diversity, I find myself on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Cape Cod is a beautiful coastal ecosystem with a wide range of flora. I have come across Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora)

Summer Speaking Engagements

2011-07-07T15:59:00.000+08:00

As I gather and prepare for my first trip to the United States in 3 years I have been greeted with one of the nicest days Beijing will likely see this summer. After a torrential downpour last night that probably woke the entire city, I know for sure everyone in my house was awoken, we have a cool breeze, sunny skies and temperatures around 28-30 degrees Celsius. Delightful! So, I wanted to post

Chinese Medical Education in The West

2011-06-17T18:48:00.000+08:00

Recently I read a discussion between a number of professional Chinese medicine (CM) practitioners, which included teachers and administrators about the education of Western students (and Chinese students) in the field of Chinese medicine. There were questions about the direction the education has taken, e.g. more and more emphasis on Western/bio medicine and comments that proclaimed the benefits

Calcium and Milk: What's Best for Your Bones and Health?

2011-06-04T11:09:00.000+08:00

The introduction below is from an excellent article from Harvard Public Health that can be found at this link. Introduction Those advertisements pushing milk as the answer to strong bones are almost inescapable. But does "got milk?" really translate into "got strong bones?" The pro-milk faction believes that increased calcium intake—particularly in the form of the currently recommended three

Treating Emotional Disorders with Herbs

2011-05-30T12:00:00.000+08:00

As most of you probably know, myself and my long-time friend and colleague Benjamin Zappin have launched a new school, Sylvan Institute of Botanical Medicine. We can also be found on Facebook where we have events listed. The website is in the process of being completely rebuilt and we hope to have it on-line soon. One of the focus' of the Institute is to provide webinars for folks so they can

Caffeine in the Gut

2011-05-26T00:29:00.000+08:00

This is a little different than my usual blog posts, but I thought it was pretty cool. Bacteria use caffeine as food source A new bacterium that uses caffeine for food has been discovered by a doctoral student at the University of Iowa. The bacterium uses newly discovered digestive enzymes to break down the caffeine, which

Teaching in Taiwan

2011-05-22T11:34:00.002+08:00

Viburnum odoratissimum Yesterday I spent 6 hours with professors and students lecturing on 1) Comparing traditional Western herbal medicine with Chinese medicine and 2) discussing a methodology for integrating plants from outside of China into Chinese medicine. Here is a link to the China Medical University website showing the information about the lecture and the poster that was used to

Mudan Peony Festival, Luoyang, China

2011-04-26T15:19:00.004+08:00

The Peony Princess I recently took a couple days off to head down to Henan Province, Luoyang to be precise, to visit the Mudan Peony Festival, something I have wanted to do for many years. I was not disappointed! Luoyang is a small city by Chinese standards, around 2.5 million people. The new section of the city on the Southern bank of the Luo River is in stark contrast to the old part of the

Rhodiola

2011-04-05T07:22:00.000+08:00

Rhodiola is a very popular medicinal plant these days. There are about 90 species throughout the frigid and high altitude zones of the Northern Hemisphere. There are over 50 species in China with 16 being endemic. North America has about 40 species. The most common species listed as a medicinal plant is Rhodiola rosea. This is mostly due to research that originally came out of Russia. This

Elecampane -- Inula species used in Chinese Medicine

2011-02-26T12:48:00.000+08:00

Welcome back to Plants as Medicine. It is snowing here in Beijing for the third time this year and I am hard at work designing a learning garden that will be dedicated to Autumn Reine. We will have a large variety of plants, primarily medicinal, from China and as much of the rest of the world as we can. Inula britannica But today, spurred by some comments recently about Elecampane and the use

Autumn Reine Garran 吳嶸曉

2011-02-16T09:57:00.003+08:00

This is a poem I wrote on the morning we celebrated Autumn Reine's life and laid her to rest. It was read during her return to the Earth. Cool North winds blow Yellow leaves rain down And swirl on lonely streets Calm in the cold concrete jungle. Gestures of knowing Eyes that speak Cheeks calling out to be pinched Joyous cooing as breast appears. Wrapped up to cuddle Peaceful is the sleep

In Loving Memory

2011-02-10T10:27:00.000+08:00

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Willow

2011-01-25T09:56:00.000+08:00

Willow is a very commonly used herb in Western herbal medicine. It is primarily used for inflammation, pain, and bleeding. While writing a monograph on this plant for my new book, I did a little research into how the Chinese view this medicinal. Here is a little about what the Chinese literature as to say about some of the Willow species used in Chinese medicine. Chinese medicine uses a number

Abies species

2011-01-16T00:13:00.001+08:00

Recently I had a Facebook exchange with a fellow herbalist (Kiva Rose) in the Southwest of the United States. She was telling me about her use of a species of Fir there Abies concolor. I have played with Abies magnifica, mainly as a tasty tea, but don't really have any clinical experience. Her account brought me to wonder, as often happens, if there are any species of Abies used in Chinese

Fresh Ginger

2011-01-10T11:01:00.001+08:00

Fresh ginger (Zingiber officinale sheng jiang 生姜) is a member of the Zingiberaceae family and holds an important place in herbal medicine. There have been many scientific studies on the plant and it has become quite famous for its important role in treating motion sickness and other digestive ailments. In Chinese medicine it is found in many, many formulas. But, as I noted in a translation from

Pao Zhi - The Chinese Way of Preparing Herbs

2010-12-31T08:28:00.002+08:00

In Chinese herbal medicine pao zhi is a term that generally describes all the procedures involved in preparing plant (or animal or mineral) to be consumed by humans. This includes every part of the process from harvest to consumption. However, we mostly think of pao zhi as some specific processes applied to herbs when they are already dried. These processes include, but are not limited to the use

Ligusticum

2010-12-28T15:09:00.005+08:00

Ligusticum is part of the Apiaceae (Carrot) family. According the the Jepson Manual of Higher Plants of California the genus has approximately 25 species, however the electronic version of the Flora of China says the genus has approximately 60 species with 35 endemic to China. Further research will need to be done to see if I can figure out a more accurate number. This genus has quite a number