This paper has been done in fulfillment of "special project requirements" for Biology 160, Olympic College. It is in no way intended to be an "expert" offering of research, nor "formal" in any way. My intent is to make information regarding Plants of the Pacific Northwest more interesting and accessible to my classmates. It is also intended to help along my own personal hobby of herbalogy by organizing the data better.

As with all research, sometimes the data is flawed, and I can't guarantee that any of my links are good ones. (But I kinda liked them). Much of the information reported on certain herbs is what I encountered over and over again in different books. Everyone says eating Dandelions is good for you. It must be true!

How to use this website: if you are deeply interested in a particular plant, go to any search engine (I suggest Yahoo) and type in the botanical name, it will give you many many more hits.

MAJOR DISCLAIMER: as with ALL things herbal, before you ingest or rub a plant on yourself, be sure to check with your doctor first!!! In olden times, herbology was the exclusive domain of the local shaman for a good reason: he/she was the one who had made the serious study of these herbs, and knew the right doses and plants to use, and when to harvest them...just like a modern doctor knows his drugs. Some of that knowledge was gained by painful trial and error, and passed down generationally. In our area, the natives of America were kind enough to pass along their knowledge to early European settlers.

(I'm part Native American myself, and our oral tradition about "what plant is good to eat" goes something like this: "If you see the animals eating it, try just a little bit yourself. If it tastes ok and you don't get sick, try a little more").

I've been studying herbal "science" since the 1970's. I put "science" in parenthesis for a reason, that is that herbalogy is in the same catagory with astrology, I Ching and acupuncture. (Some people swear by all three of those "sciences"). Having said THAT, something that is often overlooked in ALL health care practices: in modern Psychology, we have a thing called "expectancy effects." That is if you expect something to happen, it will. [If it helps to think of Dumbo and his feather, please do, it's the same idea. It's also called "mind over matter"]. Any clinical medical trial will use a treatment, and a placebo to test the effects, and will use long term studies as well. I do not have any clear data on these alleged herbal remedies, other this information in both serious and questionable herbal references (and just a couple of personal experiences).

My favorite two herbals on my bibliography are the Jeanne Rose book, and the Pojar/MacKinnon book.

The first has many recipes, and what I consider objective reflections on some serious herbal researchs. It's also written with style and humor, and while not a scientific blockbuster, is certainly a good start for the beginning herbalist. Jeanne has written several sequels to this, her first book, and she has wonderful recipes for magic dreams, headache relief, fragrant bath herbals and feminine issues (which she is very forthcoming about, and if you are squeamish and male, don't read it). I seriously highly recommend it to any serious botanist or to anyone interested in alternative health research.

The second has gone to great pains to record what the Pacific Northwest indigenous groups used the local flora for, in their herbal medicines. I would suspect most of these Native herbal cures would reveal themselves to be mineral and vitamin suppliments, rather than "magic medicines", but you never know.

Herbalogy is the precursor to modern Medicine. Since before the times of the Kenniwick Man, humans have undoubtedly been eating plants, trying to stay healthy. Our ancestors, both native, and pioneer, frequently had nothing to treat their illnesses, other than natural remedies. Considering medical costs, and questionable practices of some doctors today, it is no wonder that there has been a resurgance in herbal and home remedies since the 70's.

Having said that, medical science (yes) takes an occasional serious look at herbology, as this can be a legitimate source of new medicines. Aspirin, which comes from a substance found in the bark of willows, is a classic example of this. St. John's Wort is possibly a bad example of this, as clinical trials have yet to show this is an effective cure for depression, yet many many people will attest to the worthiness of this easily obtainable herb. St. John's Wort is also a lot cheaper than Prozac. One wonders if the AMA doesn't cast a shadow of doubt on herbalogy for nefarious monetary motivations!

If nothing else, eating natural herbs can be a great way to get your vitamins and minerals, so long as you identify the plant correctly. (Many illnesses are simply a matter of bad nutrition, and eating your greens certainly can cure that!) There is also something very satisfying about making a fragrant, and wonderful cup of peppermint tea, with herbs straight from your garden. Or better yet, nothing beats a herbal bath treatment....just watching the flowers floating around the bath, and smelling floral aromas is an aesthetic experience.

General information that is often overlooked: for teas: never use metal to boil your herbs, much of their natural potency can be ruined by this. Always try to use ceramic pots.

Always be sure you know who has been in the area where you are gathering herbs. Some people view these plants as weeds, and it will do you no good to cook up a pot of dandelions, if the County has just come through the field where you picked them, and sprayed them all with herbicide!

Mis-identification: One wrinkle I bumped into, involved the I.D. of American species versus European cousins. Certainly when Europeans came to the New World, they recognized that some plants "looked like" plants they used for remedies in the Old World [many herbalists refer to Gypsies as having the most well developed herbal lore from the Old World]. Sometimes the American plant cousins did the same thing the European counterparts did (I think Balm of Gilead is an example of this, see Populus balsamifera) Also, many plants in the Pacific Northwest have a polar distribution, thus some of my links are in German, from Scotland, or in some Scandinavian language I don't recognize. It's no shock that genus Rubus (for example) is all over the Northern hemisphere, and that all of them taste very similar.

However, in some cases, it's a strange mismatch. Colt's Foot is an example of this, there are two Latin names for it I've turned up so far. In some cases, the genus or family is not even the same, so be sure to get the Latin names for any species you use for herbal remedies.

This "name game" will be ongoing should you plan to take up herbalogy as a lifetime hobby. Many resources rely on Medieval and Ancient Greek writings (which predates Linneaus just a bit!!!) One can only wonder what Nostradamous used for his snuff! ;)

I focused mostly on the Dicots for my research into herbalogy, as there are frankly a lot more of them. If you click on the highlighted letters, you might even find a nice photo to help you with your recognition skills.

Use at your own risk, and be sure to fully research any herb you wish to try. Also, if you love herbal tea, be sure to research fully what you are drinking! I got to drinking Ginsing Tea once, and it did some VERY weird things to my body that were kinda freaky.....be careful!

Some neat links I really enjoyed: 

• General good table for California natives http://www.ca.blm.gov/hollister/virtual_herbarium_fo.html
• For those interested in plant virus's, this is a good link for an index to the family, and what virus it tends to host<<< click there.
• This is a good link for just photos, and they are listed under their common names http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/photos/

Click on the highlighted letters, and they will take you to more links. These are just the ones that looked interesting to me.  Enjoy!

Click here for the very first page of plants

For general interest, I clipped this post off a music newsgroup:

Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 22:16:30 -0400 From: "Peggy Riley" <riley@net-port.com> Subject: Just a bit of trivia....or not?

Perhaps some of you would find this topic boring so feel free to click past. But I was thinking and thought I would share this with any of you who might be wondering. I was wondering first how Mr. Hayward ended up at the charity gig for Amazon Conservation Team. Well, the first, and simplest reason is, 'they asked'. Then the fact that the committee members of Susan Sarandon, Kenny Loggins, Justin Hayward and even the Amazon Conservation Team itself are all handled by the offices of Rogers and Cowen.

But as I remembered and re-read the books on Dr. Plotkin, (the founder of ACT) I found another cute little coincidence. The ACT (from my simple definition) works to provide sustenance for Shaman's and communities so that the links between natural medicine and western medicine can continue. Dr. Plotkin in his work as an ethnobotanist concentrates on finding those 'miracle cures' that are part of the eco-systems of the world. The Cancer treatment from a yarrow tree, a pain killer from a toad venom, or any of a million other possibilities. The connection came when I remembered that the cavers/scientists of "Amazing Caves" were looking for 'extreme' life forms for the same reasons. [ed--Extremophiles are bacteria that live in very weird places, and Amazing Caves is about the search for these] I guess in my mind I found that an interesting parallel.

But none of this should be a surprise to me as there is an inter-webbing (spiders have curative venom also, but I didn't mean a pun here) of those working to fight the terrible diseases of the world. Imagine if a one of these people finds the cure for AIDS, Parkinson's, Diabetes, Cancers of all kinds, or even just a better pain killer. Wouldn't that be one of the truest expressions of working for the best for all men, and kind of carry through on the 'love one another theme' of the 60's by having these people actually spending their lives just to help others?