In determining which herbs to study and work with, I decided first to learn which grew wild, natively, around me. This is something which my medieval ancestors might have done, whether through their own exploration or from being shown and taught the local plant population by their own people. So I began a study over the course of a year, observing as many wild plants as I could uniquely observe, and watch. It is important to know every phase of a plant in order to prevent mis-identification. Every part of the plant tells something about its identity, including leaf, stem, flower, seed, fruit, and root. In order to observe a variety of plants, some of which only appear during certain seasons, and some which will of course only flower or yield seed during certain times of the year, it was necessary to keep a journal on my plants of study, and follow up with them throughout the year. Photographing the phases of the plants and collecting the images into a digital file greatly helped me to keep track of the plants. I resulted in over 100, trying to keep it narrowed down to only those plants which I had seen in the wild, or that I have planted myself, knowing that they grow well in my particular region’s climate. For these will be the plants which I can viably get my hands on to use, and this is what I feel was most important about my plant selection. This, I feel, makes me as close as I could get to the same practices my ancestors would have used when they selected and used plants. They would have found them locally, or they would have been given plants and then would have grown them themselves.
After a year’s time I had collected enough data in order to begin identification. This of course took many months alone. But having the database allowed me to have a sufficient number of plants which I could go through to“weed” out those which are native to the US and are not any which medieval Europeans would have grown or known about.
Now, having arrived at this point, this leaves me with many viable plants which I not only know were used by medieval Europeans, but also have readily available access to. Also, I know each plant quite well, having studied it in order to identify it and to begin building my own personal knowledge base about. For this is what the herbalists have always done: having a stockpile of information allows one to create an Herbal, which is a collection of one’s own knowledge, as well as a repository of all the known facts one can gather about those plants. This is what will make it possible to use my knowledge, as well as share it with others. In my Herbal I can store bookmarks to other references such as Gerard for a medieval source, as well as modern sources, because when studying herbs of course we must look to both.
As we have made quite significant advancements in our knowledge and technology since the medieval ages, we know a great deal more about all the plants which we still use today that were used by our ancestors. Consequently we have learned that some of them are in fact NOT to be used at ALL. For example, nightshade is poisonous! (Gerard knew that Sleepy Nightshade would cause death if too much were ingested, and called it a plant which was furious and deadly; however, he did not speak this way of the Woody Nightshade, which we now know to be toxic as well.)
The modern technologies of being able to photograph instead of simply draw my plants has helped me to share them across the world with others online to help me collect identification. It is still, however, important to remember to learn each part mentioned, just as you would draw: stem, leaf, flower, root, and fruit or seed where applicable.
Where will this project go from here? As I continue to flesh out the Herbal itself, I will take parts of this information and turn it into an A&S entry. And of course, the knowledge learned along the way will be at my disposal anytime it is needed. I am certain that I will create other projects, such as comparisons of herbs and their uses and applications in various ways. But in the meantime, you can explore my collection online right here.
