Ethnobotany is one of my hobbies. I love to travel and try to seek out information about the medicinal plants and flora wherever I am.
From a Rasta farm in the hills of Westmoreland, Jamaica, featuring the highly medicinal Annona muricata fruit (soursop) and Curcuma longa root (turmeric -above the lizard). Medicinal plants are commonplace in the Rastafarian culture and regularly incorporated into each meal.
This was a pivotal event in my herbal studies. I spent five days at the United Plant Savers’ Goldenseal Sanctuary in Southeastern Ohio learning from the staff of United Plant Savers about medical plant conservation and from the staff at Equinox Botanicals about their sustainable herbal products business. Whether it was camping in the field with the fireflies and frogs or digging calamus, I was totally “in my element.”
As a result of this visit, I produced a flora of 20 species of wild medical plants that were growing at the field site along with a more in-depth exploration of ecological and sustainability concerns for three at-risk species. I hope to work on this in the future and add more specific pictures for some of the key botanical features.
