Botanical Name: Bistorta officinalis, Polygonum bistorta. Other Common Names: Common bistort, snakeweed, poor man’s cabbage, snakeroot, oderwort, meadow bistort, adderwort, osterick, pink pokers, English serpentary, dragonwort, Easter mangiants, easter-ledges, Easter giants, easterman giants, pudding grass, passion dock, sweet dock, patience dock. Habitat: Bistort has a circumpolar distribution. It is found from the Iberian Peninsula and […]
Medicinal Herb Profiles
Bilberry – Health Benefits and Side Effects
Botanical Name: Vaccinium myrtillus. Other Common Names: Huckleberry, whortleberries, blueberry, European blueberry, bog berry, hurtle berry, blåbär (Swedish), Heidelbeere (German), petit myrte (Frence). Habitat: The plant is found in many parts of Europe, western Asia and temperate regions of North America. It grows wild in forests and meadows and on heathland and moors. Plant Description:: […]
Bergamot Herb – Benefits, Uses and Side Effects
Botanical Name: Citrus bergamia. Other Common Names: Bergamot orange, bergamott (Swedish), bergamottorange (Danish), bergamotte, (German), bergamotier (French). Habitat: The plant is endemic to tropical Southeast Asia. Today it is cultivated in many subtropical areas around the world, especially in southern Italy and the Ivory Coast. Description: Bergamot is a small tree of the Rutaceae family […]
Bearberry (Uva-ursi) – Health Benefits and Side Effects
Botanical Name: Arctostaphylos Uva-Ursi. Other Common Names Uva ursi Hogberry Manzanita Kinnikinnik Rockberry Beargrape. Habitat Bearberry is well suited to sub-Arctic zones and may be found at those latitudes worldwide. It is particularly common in Central and Northern Europe, but may also be found growing in the wild in North America as well as isolated […]
Sweet Basil – Health Benefits and Side Effects
Botanical Name: Ocimum basilicum L. The low-growing bush basil (Ocimum minimum) is a separate species, but it is probably a variant of sweet basil. Much of the herb grown today is a hybrid, a cross between Ocimum basilicum and Ocimum americanum. There are many cultivars of basil that have their own denomination. Other Common Names: […]
Barberry – Uses, Health Benefits and Side Effects
Botanical Name: Berberis vulgaris. Barberry belongs to the genus Berberis that contains at least 500 species of thorny evergreen or deciduous shrubs. It is a popular garden shrub and grown for its ornamental leaves and yellow flowers. But barberry also has medicinal uses and has been used for more than 2500 years in Asia and […]
Balloon Flower – Health Benefits and Side Effects
Botanical Name: Platycodon grandiflorus. Other Common Names: Blue balloon flower, Chinese bellflower, Japanese bellflower, platycodon, jie geng (Chinese), kikyó (Japanese), ballonklokke (Danish), Ballonblume (German), praktklocka (Swedish). Habitat: This plant is originally native to northern China, Japan, Korea and Russia (Eastern Siberia), but is today widely grown as an ornamental plant around the world. Of all […]
Astragalus Root – Health Benefits, Uses and Side Effects
Botanical Name: Astragalus membranaceus, A. propinquus, A. mongholicus. Although more than 2,000 species belong to the genus Astragalus, there are only two related species A. membranaceus and A. mongholicus that are primarily used for health purposes. Astragalus has been used in China since ancient times. The Chinese name for the plant “huang qi” means “yellow […]
Artichoke – Benefits, Uses and Side Effects
Botanical Name: Cynara scolymus L Other Common Names Globe artichoke Garden artichoke Ætiþistill (Icelandic) Artischoke (German) Artichaut (French) Chao xian ji (Chinese) Kronärtskocka (Swedish) Habitat: The artichoke plant as it is known today is a cultivated form that probably derived from the artichoke thistle or the cardoon (Cynara cardunculus). The Ancient Romans and Greeks knew […]
Arrowroot – Health Benefits and Side Effects
Botanical Name of Arrowroot: Maranta arundinacea. The plant is named in honor of Bartommeo Maranto, a medical practitioner of the mid-1500’s. The common name is a misspelling of the name given to the root used extensively by the Aruac people in South America, “Aru-root.” Other Common Names: Maranta starch, obedience plant, Bermuda arrowroot. Habitat: Native […]