A profusion of plants and herbs, and their practical application throughout history.
Leila White
Artwork by Carole Crosby
My book details over one hundred medicinal plants found growing in an acre of an East of England churchyard. It explores the history of usage from the distant past to the present.
Flowers Agrimony to Yarrow, trees, Ash to Yew ; hedgerow plants, the leaves, flowers, fruits and roots.
It tells of the uses made throughout history, from the medicine of the Druids to the present day.
I have been interested in plants my whole life, and as a child knew most of the wild flowers around my home. In those days children picked the flowers to take into the classroom for the nature table.
Many years later I was to study the medicinal values of plants, and find out what the plants were used for. They may have been used in herbalism, homeopathy, aromatherapy or Bach Flower Remedies.
The book features the plants I found in the limited area of a country church yard, well over a hundred of them. Having written about what they were used for, I was drawn to find out who had used them and how they had been used.
It was a study which took many years to complete.
