Southern Appalachian Plants and Herbal Traditions: Identification and Safety

Learn the region, positive identification, contraindications and emergency response, and the conservation and permission rules that come before any collecting.

1. The Southern Appalachian plant world: place, people, and evidence30 min
2. Positive identification: whole plants, changing seasons, and dangerous lookalikes35 min
3. Contraindications, medicine interactions, and responding to an exposure35 min
4. Conservation, permission, and growing an herbal learning garden30 min

Dry, steep and label culinary herbs safely, read a commercial herbal label, and learn why a kitchen method never sets a medicinal dose.

1. Drying and storage: keep identity, cleanliness, and moisture under control30 min
2. Infusions and decoctions: a culinary mint demonstration30 min
3. Elderberry in the kitchen: fruit, cooking, and clear limits30 min
4. Topical preparations and reading commercial herbal labels35 min

Seventeen native forest-floor plants, from spikenard and wild yam to violets and jewelweed. Most are observation-only because the useful part is the root or the whole plant.

1. Forest roots and astringent-leaf traditions35 min
2. Groundcovers and evergreen understory30 min
3. Woodland flowers, ferns and wild fruit30 min
4. Violets, jewelweeds and native St. Andrew’s cross30 min

Fifteen plants of sunny fields and wet edges: bee balms, mountain mints, skullcap, passionflower, goldenrods, boneset and their lookalikes.

1. Yarrow, bee balms and mountain mints35 min
2. Skullcap, passionflower, self-heal and goldenrods35 min
3. Common blue violet, wild mint, boneset, Joe-Pye weed and Virginia plantain35 min

Twenty-five trees and shrubs. Learn the fruit and leaf foods alongside the bark, salicylate, cyanide-forming and essential-oil hazards that come with them.

1. Witch hazel, sassafras, cherry, willow and sweet birch35 min
2. Yellow birch, hemlock, pines and red cedar35 min
3. Oaks, walnut, slippery elm and basswood35 min
4. Elderberry, blackhaw, spicebush and brambles35 min
5. Sumacs, blueberry, New Jersey tea and wintergreen35 min

Eighteen familiar yard and garden plants. Learn which have real food or traditional uses, which carry interaction warnings, and why a common weed is not automatically a safe medicine.

1. Dandelion, plantains, mullein and burdock35 min
2. Dock, clover, chickweed, shepherd’s purse and ground ivy30 min
3. Catnip, motherwort, St. John’s wort and garden mints30 min
4. Lemon balm, nettle and mallow25 min

Fifteen plants taught for recognition only: overharvested medicinal roots, historically used poisons, and the deadly hemlocks.

1. Cohosh, goldenseal, ginseng and rare medicinal roots30 min
2. Bloodroot, mayapple, blue cohosh, lobelia and pokeweed35 min
3. Wild ginger, snakeroot, baneberry and deadly hemlocks35 min

Keep a seasonal journal, choose the right reference for each question, look up any species in the plant index, and finish with the final assessment and capstone journal.

1. A seasonal field journal and practical decision cases35 min
2. Using references and keeping herbal evidence current30 min
3. Plant reference index and photo credits10 min
4. Final assessment: identification, preparation and safety1 h 15 min