HERB - Top 5 Herb Books

[aleed]

Hmm...modern herbal-wise, my favorite all-purpose book is "The Complete
Herbal" (can't remember the author at present).  It has photographs of
many medicinal & culinary herbs, plus pictures of sample garden design,
instructions on makings salves, creams, vinegars etc., and some really
great recipies.

The New Age Herbal, despite its name, is the best source I've found for
listing the specific properties of varied medicinal herbs, down to the
chemical constituents and suggested dosages.

Landscaping with Herbs doesn't have much on herbal medicine or culinary
use, but lists /tons/ of herbs (and herbal shrubs and trees) by size,
foliage and flower color, annual or perennial, and preferred soil ph and
sun.  For creating beautiful herbal garden arrangements, this one makes it
much easier.

Period-wise,  The Medieval Garden is a wonderful book (for gardening in
general, not just herbs), and the one I seem to reference most often.
Gerard's & Culpeper's Herbals are a close second, and my favorite
ooo-look-at-that books are the Tacunium Sanitatis & The Illustrated
Herbal, which shows color pictures of herbals from Roman times to the
1800s.

Hmm...more than 5, isn't it.  Well, if I was on a desert island (with good
soil and a large crate of seeds), these are the books I'd want.

My favorite online site is the Time-Life Gardener's Encyclopedia--
http://www.vg.com/cgi-bin/v2/gemag/PID=69909254832283079927127,27127&s=4393

Please keep this thread going--my Books-to-buy list has tripled in the
past few days!


Thanks,

Drea

 On Fri, 30 Apr 1999, Kathleen Keeler wrote:

> Baroness Leonora asked
> 
> > P.S.  Anybody else?  What are your 5 favorite herb books?  I'd love to
> > know!  Plus it is really fun on a rainy day to root around in your library
> 
> I couldn't live with just 5 I think
> My first response
> the Greek Herbal of Dioscorides - I don't own a good copy, but one of these
> days I'll find one.
> (out of print)
> 
> Macer 'On the Virtues of Herbs' - 1971 translation by D.P. O'Hanlon. Hemkunt
> Press, Delhi (probably still in press through New Age sources)
> 
> Tacunium Sanitatis - can I please take both the Facts on File edition (Four
> Seasons of the House of Cerutti) and the Arano edition?  Out of print last I
> looked.
> 
> Cockayne:  Leechcraft, wortcunning and star something... Anyway a collection of
> Anglo Saxon herbals, translated.
> 
> Maybe I'll wait on the fifth to see Strabo and Tusser and ... none of which I
> own.
> 
> The other important set are
> A flora, as detailed and modern as possible, of Europe (that'd be huge if it
> covered from the Mediterranean to the Arctic Circle. For now I have one for the
> British Isles)
> 
> The New Oxford Book of Food Plants - JG Vaughan and CA Geissler. 1997. ISBN
> 0198548257
> 
> J Smartt and NW Simmonds. Evolution of crop plants, 2nd ed.  Longman 1994. ISBN
> 0582086434
> 
> a plant chemistry book. For now I have "Physicians Desk Reference" to medicinal
> plants (title approximate, you can tell I'm at work) but I'm not sure about it
> -- some of the pictures don't seem quite right.
> 
> Don't know what the 5th would be.  A modern garden book to grow stuff (don't
> know the perfect book), or a dye book to help choose dye plants (there's an out
> of print book (booklet really) from the New York Botanic Garden that is
> probably my first choice just now; or the Colour Cauldron --the former is the
> longer list but includes American plants, the latter is very Scottish) or my
> regional flora (Flora of the Great Plains) to help recognize what I see around
> me.
> 
> Nothing in common with Baroness Leonora! :-)
> demonstrating the vast array of interests under the rubric "herbalism"
> 
> Cheers
> Agnes
> 
> Mistress Agnes deLanvallei, O. L. (herbalism) Mag Mor, Calontir
> Dedicated to the study and safe re-creation of the Medieval uses of plants:  if
> I can be of assistance in your endeavors, I'd be honored.
> kkeeler1 at unl.edu
> 
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