Did you know that Bachelor's Buttons worn by women have been known to attract lovers? Or that wearing Cloth of Gold crocus confers the power to understand the language of birds and animals? "Hidden Natural Histories: Herbs "tells the stories of 150 of the most remarkable herbaceous plants used through the ages by humankind for their culinary, medicinal, and other properties. Often, the herbs most important in cooking and medicine are revered for their supernatural powers. Rosemary, for example, has been burned as an incense ...
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Did you know that Bachelor's Buttons worn by women have been known to attract lovers? Or that wearing Cloth of Gold crocus confers the power to understand the language of birds and animals? "Hidden Natural Histories: Herbs "tells the stories of 150 of the most remarkable herbaceous plants used through the ages by humankind for their culinary, medicinal, and other properties. Often, the herbs most important in cooking and medicine are revered for their supernatural powers. Rosemary, for example, has been burned as an incense to cleanse and purify a room; hung over a door to keep thieves from the house; worn to aid the memory and preserve youth; bound to the right arm to cure depression, and even grown to attract helpful elves to the garden. For each of the 150 herbs in this book, there are intriguing accounts of unexpected uses (garlic was used to rid gardens of moles; eyebright was used to increase psychic powers) and historic anecdotes (fennel seeds were eaten in the Middle Ages to allay hunger). "Hidden Natural Histories: Herbs "weeds through the long history of our use of herbs, and provides fascinating natural history and insight on every page."
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