Help, Medicinal Plants!!!!

[leon-1]

Hi folks, I need some help from you, as a lot of you maybe aware in the epeadia of the main site there is a section on medicinal plants, well I have been doing some research into this and have a list of plants, thier habitats and thier medicinal properties.

What I don't have are pictures of these plants. They are going to be used in the epeadia so I would like the pictures to come from the members here.

I don't want scanned in images from magazines, books or pictures from other sites as this could have legal implications along the lines of copyright.

The pictures would have to of been taken by you guys, eventually I would like to have pictures showing plants in each season to aid in identification all year round.

So the question is, if I put a list of plants up here will you give a hand by giving up your pictures. Not all of them will make it into the epeadia as we will select the best of the bunch, but the list is currently running at 50 or so plants and could get larger, so any help would be appreciated :biggthump

 

[tomtom]

put the list up Leon.. i will be happy gove it a go!!

 

[leon-1]

Thanks tomtom, as I said it is a big list, so here goes;

Agrimony
Wood Avens
Water Avens
Bilberry
BlackBerry
Brooklime
Burdock
Lesser Celandine
Centaury
Chamomile
Chickweed
Cleavers
Coltsfoot
Comfrey
Couchgrass
Cranesbills
Damsons
Plums
Dandelion
Elder
Elderberry
Fennel
Feverfew
Figwort
Garlic
Ground Ivy
Hemp Agrimony
Hops
Horehound
Horseradish
Lime
Lungwort
Marsh Mallows
Mallows
Marigold
Marjoram
Melilot
Mint
Mugwort & Wormwood
Mullein
Nettle
Oak
Periwinkle
Plantain
Prunella
Raspberry
Red Clover
Scabious
Scurvy Grass
Solomons Seal
St Johns Wort
Thyme
Violet
Walnut
Wood Sage and Garden Sage
Woodruffe
Woundwort.

As you can see I haven't got anywhere near them all, but it's getting there :biggthump

 

[gb]

I'll have a go too, going to the woods tomorrow anyway so i'll see i can find.

 

[leon-1]

As I said, all help will be greatly appreciated, it's still work in progress so I am trying to get as much as I can and the time scale is not immediate.

Thanks to both of you guys :You_Rock_

 

[Angus Og]

Do these have to be wild plants or household plants?

 

[leon-1]

Do these have to be wild plants or household plants?

Preferably wild, but if it is a photo in detail (leaf structure or flower) then I do not mind if it is cultivated, please mention though if it is cultivated as sometimes there are small differences :biggthump

 

[jakunen]

Leon,

I've been working on an idea to do with plants so have a fwe of those. I'll post them tomorrow as I took them off my pen-drive.

 

[match]

This might be the wrong time of year to be asking for pictures of native herbs and flowering plants :chill:

However, I'm sure I've got some pictures of such plants in my archives somewhere - I'll have a looksee. Coudl you provide latin names of the plants you have listed? In some cases, there is a lot of confusion using common names (for example, Celandine and Figwort are the same plant to me...).

To be honest, a lot of the plants on that list will be difficult to find, purely because they are very regional, only grow in certain conditions or at certain times of year. Secondly, a lot of the plants listed there are ones that I definitely would advise against using for medicinal purposes unless you definitely know what you are doing. Lesser celandine, for example, can be highly toxic when the leaves are older, while periwinkle can cause a serious reaction in some people causing a sudden drop in blood pressure. And I wouldn't recommend anyone who doesn't know exactly what they are looking for collect horseradish in the wild, as there are too many similar plants that are definitely not safe to use!

That said, it is good that such a list is being compiled, and if you want any extra information on any of the herbs you have asked for pictures of, or indeed any suggestions for other herbs and their uses, feel free to PM me or ask here (obviously )

 

[jakunen]

And I wouldn't recommend anyone who doesn't know exactly what they are looking for collect horseradish in the wild, as there are too many similar plants that are definitely not safe to use!

Such as?

This was probably the first plant I learnt as it is very distinctive! I've not come across anything in the UK with the same leaves and extremely pungent root. The smell alone I'd reckon is pretty unique. In my herbals I've not come across any entries warning you that it may be confused with anything.

Water-droplet hemlock and watercress, yes.

But horseradish???

 

[match]

Such as?

This was probably the first plant I learnt as it is very distinctive! I've not come across anything in the UK with the same leaves and extremely pungent root. The smell alone I'd reckon is pretty unique. In my herbals I've not come across any entries warning you that it may be confused with anything.

Sorry, never safe for me to post before 10am :sleepgo_r...

That was a badly edited sentence, and should really have been two points - firstly, that its difficult to find some herbs in the wild, such as horseradish, and secondly, that any such list should carry a warning about collecting wild plants if you don't know exactly what you're doing... hemlock is indeed one of the worse misidentifications people often make...

 

[jakunen]

No problem mate. I'm still best part asleep meself. Need a bushcraft weekend to catch up on me sleep...

Hmm, have to disagree again slightly.
Look along any roadside verge and you'll find a load of horseradish. Some councils are trying to get it labelled an 'invasive weed' as its so prolific along country roads.

Apparently some council workers have complained the stuff is hard to control with a strimmer and it has given a few rashes. (Probably more due to all the other s***e that people chuck out of their car windows if you ask me, but there you go. Chalk another potential one up for petty bureaucracy(sp?))

However I do take your point. How many people have eaten what they reckoned was safe plants as it looked kinda like the stuff they had at a dinner party 2 years ago.
It amazes me the times people eat a certain type of fungi with alcohol and end up VERY ill, or those that eat Devil's Cherries (Deadly nightshade) as its called a 'cherry', without bothering to think about the 'Devil' bit...:?:

It really does frighten me sometimes, peoples attitude to this sort fo thing. When I was dabbling in a homeopathy a few years ago, I read everything I could and consulted with a qualified herbalist before I even tried anything on myself let alone anyone else...

 

[leon-1]

No problem mate. I'm still best part asleep meself. Need a bushcraft weekend to catch up on me sleep...

Hmm, have to disagree again slightly.
Look along any roadside verge and you'll find a load of horseradish. Some councils are trying to get it labelled an 'invasive weed' as its so prolific along country roads.

Apparently some council workers have complained the stuff is hard to control with a strimmer and it has given a few rashes. (Probably more due to all the other s***e that people chuck out of their car windows if you ask me, but there you go. Chalk another potential one up for petty bureaucracy(sp?))

However I do take your point. How many people have eaten what they reckoned was safe plants as it looked kinda like the stuff they had at a dinner party 2 years ago.
It amazes me the times people eat a certain type of fungi with alcohol and end up VERY ill, or those that eat Devil's Cherries (Deadly nightshade) as its called a 'cherry', without bothering to think about the 'Devil' bit...:?:

It really does frighten me sometimes, peoples attitude to this sort fo thing. When I was dabbling in a homeopathy a few years ago, I read everything I could and consulted with a qualified herbalist before I even tried anything on myself let alone anyone else...

Hi guys, I am not talking about picking, eating stewing or brewing these plants. There will be no talk of infusions, decoctions, expressed juice or poultices

The idea is to provide a first point of reference to get people interested in medicinal plants, if you have a list to work from and pictures, you may take it a little bit further and actually learn about these plants and how to prepare them.

There will be the relevant warnings once the page has been put together, but at the moment all I am really after are pictures of plants, there will be no instructions as to how to prepare these plants in this thread nor will there be any information as to what they can be used to remedy as that was not the purpose of the thread, thanks both of you as you have both brought up valid points that I should of made clear on the original posts :You_Rock_

 

[jakunen]

No problem mate. I just personally know that this is a minefield area from my studies - both homeopathy/herbalism and bushcraft.

I was once told that I could use Japanese anise as it was more pungent than the normal sort. Well, yeah, ok it is...

Looks similar, smells the same, apparently tastes the same, but it ain't going anywhere near my homemade 5 spice powder, as its also one of the THE most dangerous poisons found on the the Japanese islands...

With this country becoming yet another litigatious state and everyone seeming to want to sue for even the slightest reason, real or imagined, and you being a mate, I just want to make sure you cover yourself properly.

 

[leon-1]

Cheers Jak :biggthump

 

[jakunen]

My pleasure mate! If you're mates don't look out for you, who will?

If you need any help with the scientific/descriptive stuff just PM me as I've still got all me books and stuff and still rememebr a fair bit of it.

 

[match]

Looking at that list, there are a few that'd be worth photographing even in winter - Burdock for example is often easier to identify when young due to it being surrounded by older dead plants covered in burrs If the snow eases up here in Edinburgh I'll take a wander up onto the hills behind work and see if I can bag the first picture for your collection ):

 

[jakunen]

Sorry to steal your thunder Match, but as soon as Leon gives me his e-mail he's getting a ZIP full of pics with quite a lot of the ones he's after. Including Burdock.

But he'll probably want several pics of each showing different stages anyway.

 

[tomtom]

more than one of each can only help the chances of reliable ident information!

 

[jakunen]

Especially if it show's different life stages of the plant - shoot, young plant, mature plant, flowers, fruit, seeds, ...

Even dead plant so you know where it grows for next season...