Sunday, May 8, 2011

Plants for Healthcare

From the reblog facility of Kew Gardens website:

I just found this story via twitter which reminded me of reports coming from Europe on the banning of the growing of medicinal herbs. Here is a post celebrating the heritage of traditional medicine whilst informing us of some important things worth knowing. If anyone has news on the current situation in Europe do send links if you have moment. I'm sure I saved an email on this in recent months... but if you have up-to-date news it would be gratefully received!

Medicine

Plants are a vital part of healthcare. Over 80% of the world's people rely on traditional medicine, much of which is based on plant remedies. Traditional Chinese medicine alone uses over 5,000 plant species.

Catharanthus roseus (Madagascar periwinkle)

In the developed world around a quarter of all prescriptions contain materials isolated from plants. Others, like aspirin, are synthesised copies of chemicals found naturally in plants, or are modified from the initial natural product.

The rose periwinkle of Madagascar (Catharanthus roseus, right) has yielded 2 drugs for the treatment of cancer: it is the source of alkaloids used to treat childhood leukaemia and Hodgkin's disease.

Medicinal plants are mostly harvested from the wild, which can put them under great pressure. In Europe alone, an estimated 150 medicinal plant species are at risk from over-harvesting.

Despite the high reliance on plants in medicine, less than 20% of the described plant species have been investigated for the presence of bioactive compounds. Many more medicines have yet to be developed from plant materials.

Spiny branch and yellow inflorescences of Acacia nilotica

Acacia nilotica
acacia

There is another page on this ... go to the website for more.

Alocasia macrorrhizos
elephant ear taro

Aloe ferox
Cape aloes

Aloe vera
aloe vera

Camellia sinensis
tea

Castanea sativa
sweet chestnut

Chimonanthus praecox
wintersweet

Crinum woodrowii
Woodrow's crinum lily

Digitalis purpurea
common foxglove

Dioscorea strydomiana

Ginkgo biloba
maidenhair tree

Harpagophytum procumbens
devil's claw

Hoodia gordonii

Imperata cylindrica
alang-alang

The large sausage-shaped fruits of Kigelia africana

Kigelia africana
sausage tree

Melaleuca alternifolia in Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney

Melaleuca alternifolia
tea tree

More info here:

Plant and Fungi uses

2 comments:

fernenland said...: Here are some interesting links:
http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/herb.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1229014/pdf/cmaj_158_5_637.pdf
(Note the latter is a pdf file.); May 9, 2011 at 8:45 AM
Sophie Munns said...: I just took a look at these excellent links... will gladly add them to a follow-up post ...thank you Fernenland!; May 9, 2011 at 8:57 AM

WELCOME TO HOMAGE TO THE SEED WEB-LOG ... COMMENCED IN FEBRUARY 2010 BY VISUAL ARTIST SOPHIE MUNNS!

HOMAGE TO THE SEED was launched by Sophie Munns for the 2010 Brisbane Botanic Gardens Artist-In-Residency program at Mt Coot-tha, Brisbane. The residency focused on our extraordinary regional and global Seed heritage - the critical work of seed conservation and the future of seeds - coinciding with the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity.

This project is continuing in 2013. Pop over to the website for an overview of this project. Contributions of articles, comments and inquiries are most welcome!

Sophie Munns

Blog header image: May, 2014 Residency at PLANTBANK, NSW Australia

READ ABOUT THE END OF YEAR EVENT ON THE RESIDENCY CALENDER FOR 2010

The Residency concluded with 'Homage to the Seed' - an exhibition of works produced over the course of 2010. It was held at the Herbarium at Brisbane Botanic Gardens on the first weekend of December.

To read more about the final event on the 2010 Residency calendar click here (website) and here at this blog..

An artist's 68 page book was produced to document the year's work. Available for $40 plus postage. Only a few copies left (as of March 2014)

Hear Sophie Munns on local ABC Radio Nov, 2010 interveiwed by Phil Smith.

THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN GOING SINCE FEB 2010 ... A NEW BOOK IS UNDERWAY ( MARCH 2014) !!

KEW GARDENS MILLENNIUM SEED BANK PROJECT

The Millennium Seed Bank Project (MSBP) is the largest ex-situ conservation project ever conceived. Its partners willl have banked seed from 10% of the world's wild plant species by the end of the decade. These will not just be any plants, but will include the rarest, most threatened species known to man. Read more about Kew's preservation project

kew.org website.

'Seeds for Life', the Qld chapter of the Millennium Seedbank Partnership, is based at the Seed Lab on the grounds of Brisbane Botanic Gardens at Mt Coot-tha.

UNITED NATIONS INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY 2010

International Year of Biodiversity officially launched

on 11 January 2010 in Berlin.

Press release from Bioversity International

With the official launch of the International Year of Biodiversity scheduled for 11 January 2010 in Berlin, Germany, Emile Frison, the Director General of Bioversity International, warns that there is much more to biodiversity than whales and panda bears.

“Any discussion of biodiversity conservation needs to remember that the diversity of crops and livestock is absolutely fundamental to human survival and well-being,” Frison said. “Agricultural biodiversity is not only vital for nutrition, it is also indispensable in meeting the challenges of climate change and in lifting poor people out of poverty.”

For too long, conservationists have tended to view farmers and farming as the enemy. While in many cases that may be true, the International Year of Biodiversity offers a great opportunity to work towards more productive food systems based on biodiversity and a more ecological approach to agriculture.

“Increased productivity so far has been based on simplifying farming systems,” Frison noted. “We need to move beyond that to intensification without simplification, and that requires us to research, understand and make better use of agricultural biodiversity.”

Bioversity research has shown how neglected and under-utilized species can deliver better nutrition and health, at the same time protecting the environment and increasing incomes. It is also pinpointing the impact of predicted changes in climate on crops and suggesting new sources of material that will help farmers adapt to new weather patterns.

ART SCIENCE COLLABORATION

Collaboration between the arts and sciences has the potential to create new knowledge,ideas and processes beneficial to both fields. Artists and scientists approach creativity, exploration and research in different ways and from different perspectives; when working together they open up new ways of seeing, experiencing and interpreting the world around us.

For the past decade,the Australian Network for Art & Technology (ANAT) has provided opportunities for artists and scientists to work together. Our most recent projects, delivered under the Synapse brand in partnership with the Australia Council for the Arts, include residencies, the Synapse database and a moderated elist.

Click here to view profiles of artists on this site and for further information.

HERITAGE SEED SAVING

Tip 1. 'Who's your daddy?' explains the relevance of discovering whether your parent plant is a hybrid, heirloom or open-pollinated variety.

If you are not sure why this is so critical then dont be shy about asking or seeking advice, wherever you live on this globe of ours. Lately quite a few people have told me of their astonishment at finding something they had gone to the trouble of saving and planting much later had turned out to be hybridised and incapable of reproducing.

Once we've had this frustrating experience the eagerness to understand what is now happening with seeds is awakened - which is a very positive thing.

Tip 2: become a mad scientist. Know your plant's specific name.

On a March 8 post titled ' The archeology of the everyday' I added links to a number of Australian Seed Saving organisations and places to find heritage seeds.

At the side-bar on the right-hand side down towards the end I have listed websites and blogs you can visit. This will be updated from time to time. Also check the titles of the blog archive for other related posts.

The Australian organisation Seedsavers which started in Byron Bay has a blog with excellent links here to films, books, local seed networks, permaculture, and news.

To read about their account of starting Seed savers click here.

Brisbane Seed Savers

A Local Seed Network (LSN) that has joined with many others who are actively conserving our heritage open pollinated seeds.

I found this network through Brisbane Local Food which I have just joined after reading about them at Transition Towns.

Brisbane Local Food - growing local in subtropical Australia is an active community that holds open days, exchange info, seeds, plants. recipes and help and keep connected to what's going on in this realm beyond their own backyards...

I have just been reading about the LOGAN COMMUNITY GARDEN with an African flavour here:

The land, roughly 20m x more than 50m, is donated by Griffith University right along the Logan Motorway, certainly not small by comparison to other community farms in Brissy. There're quite a few facilities donated and hand-built by the volunteers including toilets, wash-up area, a traditional African Hut, children's playground, lockable 20 foot container to store tools and a shaded area with work benches. Water is managed by the council and pumped in from a nearby lake.

From THE GARDEN DIGEST on SEEDS

One for the rock, one for the crow,
One to die, and one to grow.
- English saying
"I don't believe the half I hear,
Nor the quarter of what I see!
But I have one faith, sublime and true,
That nothing can shake or slay;
Each spring I firmly believe anew
All the seed catalogues say!"
- Carolyn Wells
Whether you tend a garden or not, you are the gardener of your own being,
the seed of your destiny.
- The Findhorn Community
The love of gardening is a seed that once sown never dies.- Gertrude Jekyll
Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has
been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed
there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.
- Henry David Thoreau
Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.
- Robert Louis Stevenson
dry seeds scatter
from my hand into the wind
one clings
as if to say there is in me
something yet to be
- Jeanne Emrich, Haiga Online

I ask not for a larger garden,
but for finer seeds.
- Russell H.Conwell
There is a way to see inside
By looking directly through
to seed or marrow

Within the bone vessel
a world is made
Red and milkweed
it flows between us like
wind

Within the seed's case
a secret is held
Its fertile whisper
shapes a song
- Joan Halifax, Marrow
Think of the fierce energy concentrated in an acorn!
You bury it in the ground, and it explodes into an oak!
Bury a sheep, and nothing happens but decay.
- George Bernard Shaw
The seed cannot sprout upwards without simultaneously sending roots into the ground.

The seed includes all the possibilities of the tree. ... The seed will develop these
possibilities, however, only if it receives corresponding energies from the sky.

Grain must return to the earth, die, and decompose for new growth to begin.
- Ancient Egyptian Proverbs
He places a seed in the dust for the reason
That it may in the day of distress, give fruit.
- Sadi

Poetry is like a free bird that knows no boundary, like seeds
that are carried along by the wind, that grow, bloom and bear
fruit where they find good soil without
asking anyone's permission.
- Ion Codrescu

The word "miracle" aptly describes a seed.
- Jack Kramer
All seed answer light, but the color is different.
The plant reveals what is in the seed.
- Ancient Egyptian Proverbs

Think small.
Planting tiny seeds in the small space given you
Can change the whole world or,
At the very least, your view of it.
- Linus Mundy
to read more click
Quotes for Gardeners
A Collection Growing to Over 3,300 Quotes Arranged by 135 Topics
Quotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Poetry, Maxims, Quips, Cliches, Wisdom
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo
Thanks to Nicki Laws for sending this link to the Homage Blog!