Author Helen Farmer-Knowles
Octopus Books
£12.99
ISBN 978-1-84181-390-5
Available in April 2010.
This is the latest in the Godsfield Bible Series, and I have to say I hated it on sight. What clever individual decided it would be a good idea to put the title in bright red on a green background? If you’re planning on keeping this book, then do the classroom theng and cover it, or the flickering colours will drive you bonkers.
Having said that, I reckon that this compact but weighty book should not be dismissed as just another herbal – it’s an extremely comprehensive look at how plants can heal, both spiritually and physically.
The healing power of plants is wide-ranging. Herbal remedies are many and varied, but they don’t cover absolutely everything. Add edible healing plants (grapes, blueberries, pumpkin seeds etc), trees and flower remedies, and there you have a very good healing ‘all-rounder’.
The glossary is fairly comprehensive, but the index could be a little confusing. Those looking for a remedy for a painful tooth, for example, will find five separate references, none of them linked, and no, clove oil wasn’t amongst them.
The only other disappointment, for me, is that the eminent Nicholas Culpeper barely gets a mention, and astrology has virtually none at all. Planets are assigned to different trees, but you won’t find them anywhere in the index. They’ve stuffed so much into this book that something had to give, I suppose, though it remains a good ‘pointer-in-the-right-direction’ manual. I’ll certainly be hanging on to my copy, but hand me the backing paper, please.
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