Blog – Plants & Healers International

Ethnobotanical Trip to Costa Rica

Recently i returned to Costa Rica for the first couple weeks of March. The main focus of the trip was to help bring to completion a book on the Plants and Healers of Costa Rica which was started over a decade ago by Tenasi Rama, Frank Cook and Tin Contreras. However, first i headed north … Read more

Botanizing in the Minnesota Winter

Recently PHI Executive Director, Marc Williams got the opportunity to visit Minneapolis/St. Paul Minnesota for a week largely due to the generosity of good friend and colleague Rob Routhieaux. Being that it was winter one might think that there was not much botanizing to be done. However, St Paul has a marvelous conservatory in Como … Read more

Ethnobotanical Journey to Jamaica

Jamaican Sustainable Farm Enterprise Program at the Source Farm Sponsored by Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance (VEGA). Florida Association for Voluntary Action in the Caribbean and the Americas (FAVCA) & US AID I was tickled recently to be accepted into a development program in Jamaica partly facilitated by friends and mentors Chuck Marsh and Tony Kleese. Both of these … Read more

Plant Walk to Catawba Falls

Written by Elizabeth Drisko On a sunny morning on August 17, 2016, a group of 15 students from the Blue Ridge School of Herbal Medicine met at the Catawba Falls parking lot for a plant and mushroom walk with Marc Williams. He recommended various texts to folks interested in vascular plants, including Guide to Vascular … Read more

A Field Trip to the Appalachian Institute for Mountain Studies

Written by PHI Executive Director Marc Williams

It is always a pleasure to visit the Appalachian Institute for Mountain Studies. This non-profit headed up by Dr. Jim Veteto is dedicated to preserving the agrobiodiversity of Appalachia and educating the public on various other topics as well.

The orchard on the property features close to 100 varieties of mostly heirloom apples as well as yellow and black heart cherries, blueberries, persimmons and all manner of other fruit. We even harvested apples in June from a variety appropriately called Early Harvest. For those interested Jim also published an article a couple years ago about his research with orchardist perceptions around the effects of climate change (Veteto & Carlson, 2014).

Blueberries, Yellow Cherries and Early Harvest apples from AIMS

A Brief Moment With The Moken Sea Gypsies Of Koh Surin

For the last few years I have taught on my plant courses about the Moken sea gypsies, and the extraordinary relationship they have with their environment. Little did I realise that I would ever get the chance to meet them. I had tried back in the Winter of 2015 while visiting Myanmar formerly Burma, but … Read more