HORT4011: Common Medicinal Plants: Classification, Identification and Application

Medicine and food share the same origin. There is a significantly increasing use of herbs in cooking as people keep seeking diverse food sources for health benefits. Accordingly, the number of herbal farms has been kept raising in the past decades, in which highly demanded herbs are grown as specialty crops. More and more herbs are distributed through grocery stores; many of the herbs, however, are still collected from the wild, which lead to medical cases involving in herb adulteration, contamination, or just simple misidentification. The goal of this course is to provide information of classifying, identifying and applying Herbs and herbal products for human health. This course focuses on the classification and identification of approximately 120 common medicinal plants, which covers 20 key medicinal plant families. With over 50 dry herbal samples being distributed to the class, participants of the class have the opportunity to learn essential skills of identifying and practicing fresh herbs and the processed herbal products. The information of herbal names (English, Chinese, scientific, and pharmaceutical names), morphology, properties (flavors), therapeutic actions, dosages, chemical components and cautions is provided for each herb. In addition, the knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine and herb uses, systems and methods for Chinese herbal classification, identification will also be introduced. Together, this course is set to provide useful information to students who study plant science, agriculture, pharmacy, and food systems.

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