Making a Herbarium

We do like our students to ‘do’ stuff, and not just learn from textbooks. One of the things we are getting them to do is help prepare herbs for the school’s herbarium within the subject of Pharmacognosy.

Pharmacognosy actually means ‘to acquire knowledge of drugs’ from the Greek words ‘pharmakon’ and ‘gignosco’. Of course in ancient Greece these drugs would have been plants, and we are carrying on the ancient tradition of gathering knowledge about different plants so we can correctly identify them macroscopically, determine what is good quality, understand correct extraction and preparation procedures and learn about the many chemical constituents within each plant.

The gaining of technical knowledge can become dry unless you put it into context, and the really fun part is the gradual building up of the school’s own Herbarium which is covering the plants used in Materia Medica 1 and is expertly led by Christina Stapley. We feel that this subject gives our students a deep knowledge about each plant. They are also given instructions about how to make their own herbarium at home…