Medicinal Plants of South Africa

Ben-Erik van Wyk, Bosch van Oudtshoorn, and Nigel Gericke, Medicinal Plants of South Africa. Pretoria: Briza, 2005.

Hard cover, 304 pages, well illustrated with colour photographs, distribution maps, and molecular diagrams.

Fine condition.

Medicinal plants are an important aspect of the daily lives of many people and an important part of the South African cultural heritage. This book is a photographic guide to the most commonly used and best-known South African plant medicines, including their botany, main traditional uses and active ingredients.

Southern Africa has well over 30,000 species of higher plants. The Cape floral kingdom alone has nearly 9,000 species and is the most diverse temperate flora on earth, rivalling the tropical rainforests in terms of species richness. With South Africas remarkable biodiversity and cultural diversity, it is not surprising to find that approximately 3,000 species of plants are used as medicines, and of these, some 350 species are the most commonly used and traded medicinal plants. Since it is not practically possible to illustrate and describe all the indigenous medicinal plants in a photographic guide, a selection of 132 plants has been included on the basis that they are presently the best known and most fully understood herbal medicines. However, several other, mostly related plants, are also mentioned and occasionally illustrated. The selection includes representatives of plants used by all cultural groups, including a small number of introduced species that have been incorporated into the traditional materia medica.