This is your chance to learn about the thousands of plants used medicinally throughout the world and the numerous products for sale in the United States. Some of these you can easily grow in your backyard or in pots on your porch or kitchen windowsill. Then, some hot water is all that stands between you and receiving some of the healing properties of many plants. Other plants are rooted in traditional use from the far reaches of the planet; these have important lessons for us living in the so-called modern world.
Through this site, I will attempt to be your guide to the amazing topic of plant medicines.
You should know that I am a family medicine physician and I have been interested in plants for a long, long time. (Stay tuned and I may share with you a photo from the 1960s when I began my botanical training!). However, I am not an herbalist. I am not a botanist, horticulturalist, shaman, nor curandero. That said, I am someone who, from an early age, has been fascinated by plants, flowers, herbs, and botanical medicines. And, I strongly, passionately know that as we gravitate toward cities and technology, we are at risk of missing some of what the plant world has to teach, to offer, to share. My personal and professional life has been a journey, both figuratively and literally, to capture just that, the need and effect of plants in the modern world.
This site is a travelogue of sorts, as much as it is a guide to exciting botanical adventures, applicable to all of our lives. In the content on this site, you will find exciting botanical research studies, lessons from my clinical practice, and links to other resources, including books I have been involved with writing.
On that note, I consider myself more of a life-long learner, and hardly an expert. For that, I will refer you, through the information here, to any of a number of herbal experts out there and their websites, books, and classes for further learning.
So, bon voyage! May you have a fruitful (pun intended) botanical adventure!
David Kiefer, MD
February, 2024
