Anonymous asked:
Happy days!
Something that interests me about ethnobotany is the more pharmaceutical side of it—
How would you get to know the local medicinal/edible plants? I’m very interested in creating my own catalogue, though I have no clue how to do field work T-T
Hi! I'm not super familiar with herbalism, although I have learned a bit here and there for relevant & minor issues that I have.
What you can do is start walking around your area taking pictures of various plants & identifying them via inaturalist (warning: the "what do you see?" suggestions are not always correct, it's up to YOU to look at the leaf shape, vein patterns, flowers, bark, AND etc)
Then you can do research on it once you've correctly identified the plant. temperate.theferns.info and tropical.theferns.info are good places to start bc they source all their information. Check the sources, bc often times source material is not the primary source of info, & the broken telephone effect can lead to extremely bizarre conclusions and/ or the source material can just really suck lol.
I also recommend going on google scholar to see if there are any studies on the medicinal uses of the plants you're looking at. & read those studies bc again, the source material can be worse than useless.
Good luck!!
i have a very real chance of moving somewhere where i'd have a sizeable amount of land to grow food. i promise to obsess about gardening and to use vegetables to their fullest potential 🫡
Anonymous asked:
Hello,hope you are doing better!
I wanted to kindly ask you for your favourite resources you use to learn how to start with (indoor) gardening/foraging and overall, botany! I am an enthusiast but I am a bit lost.. thank you and have a good day!
Hi! Thank you :3
permies.com is a great place for all kinds of gardening stuff, and I think The Regenerative Grower's Guide to Garden Amendments is a wonderful beginner's book. I've heard great things about The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book, but I haven't read it.
i can't recommend more specific resources for foraging & gardening without knowing which ecoregion you're in (or rather, which country & biome). but generally, if you can find out the name of the most recent subsistence culture(s) that occupied the ecoregion you currently live in, you can search their name + the term ethnobotany on Startpage to start. You can also do this in other parts of the world with similar flora (for example, alpine bistort is eaten in Siberia, and it grows where i live so i can eat it too).
Botany resources (https):
temperate.theferns.info and tropical.theferns.info
powo.science.kew.org
gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org
lmk if you want anything more specific!
ladybugoflove reblogged
Anonymous asked:
I thought green onions/Alliums were nitrogen fixers, but google is telling me no, is this true?
Unfortunately, Google is right in this case - onions/Alliums aren’t nitrogen fixers. In fact, planting them near nitrogen fixers can actually keep the nitrogen fixers from putting nitrogen back into the soil. That’s because the nitrogen-fixing process relies on a bacteria that can pull nitrogen out of a plant’s roots and into the soil, and Alliums’ mild antibacterial/antimicrobial properties kill off those bacteria. They also require a lot of nutrients in general to grow (although the root/bulb-based Alliums more so than green onions), so they’re actually likely to deplete nitrogen in the soil.
If you’re interested in learning more about nitrogen fixers, this article has a big list of nitrogen-fixing plants, and this article talks more about the science behind nitrogen fixing in general. I hope this helps!
- Mod J
ladybugoflove reblogged
This is actually a really interesting type of water retention that long grass does that I've never thought about before!
You can see how much slower the snow on the long grass is melting, which creates a slower percolation of water into the ground!
It's amazing what a difference vegetation can make for communities that struggle with drought conditions!
my grandfather brought a fig tree to canada when he moved here a few decades ago, and propagated it into 5 potted trees. when he learned that I loved eating figs, he decided to propagate so much more. he taught me how to nurture and propagate them so that when he died, i could take care of them.
he died a few weeks ago, and mom my killed the trees on purpose.
ladybugoflove reblogged
I've been seeing a few high-effort guides on how to make one's garden hostile to certain animals, so I just wanted to offer a different suggestion;
Make your garden an ecosystem. Make a home for 'pest' predators. Heck, if you eat meat, why not hunt and eat the 'pests' yourself?
ladybugoflove reblogged
go on an ethnobotanical goose chase with me~
9:30ish a.m. saw this in a blog post about dogwood/ red osier (Cornus sericea)
looked up coronic acid
lol, ok that's not right. Let's look on pubmed
I also looked up cornine, cornin, cornic acid. Find this blog that references something
check it out, and ofc it didn't cite shit -_- it's just a list of references at the end of the book
Checked out all the references with the term "medicinal" in it (approx 10-15), none of them mention coronic acid and I'm too tired to go through the rest of them.
Web search begins again. Find this mentioned by Judson Carroll.
Same situation. The book Botany In A Day doesn't indicate the source of info.
Noon. Give up on the idea of finding the first mention of coronic acid (or it's name variants).
12:30 p.m. I cant stop thinking about it. Go to the ol reliable temperate.theferns.info.
My Man Moerman!
Can't find the book (Plants of Carrier Country) to read online, but I find this paper that references it. The authors interviewed Carrier/ Dakelh elders directly, and one of the co-authors is Nancy J. Turner (a respected ethnobotanist)
(temperate.theferns you missed the "warm" part of warm ashes. pretty sure it's supposed to be a hot compress, not a concoction. ah broken telephones)
1:00ish p.m. still not sure where "coronic acid" came from
go on an ethnobotanical goose chase with me~
9:30ish a.m. saw this in a blog post about dogwood/ red osier (Cornus sericea)
looked up coronic acid
lol, ok that's not right. Let's look on pubmed
I also looked up cornine, cornin, cornic acid. Find this blog that references something
check it out, and ofc it didn't cite shit -_- it's just a list of references at the end of the book
Checked out all the references with the term "medicinal" in it (approx 10-15), none of them mention coronic acid and I'm too tired to go through the rest of them.
Web search begins again. Find this mentioned by Judson Carroll.
Same situation. The book Botany In A Day doesn't indicate the source of info.
Noon. Give up on the idea of finding the first mention of coronic acid (or it's name variants).
ladybugoflove reblogged
What they don't tell you about foraging is that you form a loving relationship with your environment. You don't want to take too much bc you don't want to see them struggle or disappear in the following years. You learn where the snakes live, how the geese play, and that the beavers like to hear you sing. You feel so safe and nurtured.
They also don't tell you that, when the only two grafted pear trees are cut down, it will feel like murder. You will grieve for your fallen family.
I didn't even think about the birds being poisoned by eating insects and grains sprayed with herbicides and pesticides..
i can't wait to have stable housing so i can get into bonsai
ladybugoflove reblogged
Plant of the Day
Tuesday 31 October 2023
The large compost heaps at Great Dixter, East Sussex, UK, formed an excellent growing area for pumpkins (Cucurbita pepo) and gourds. These tender annual plants thrive on the humus rich heaps being warmed by the heat of the decomposition.
Jill Raggett
watching city workers cut down oak, linden, black walnut, and most of the pear trees down, but leave common buckthorn alone