Medicinal Herbs in the South Pacific product reviews

I look at this book with professional eyes. I am, by training, a medical herbalist - and one who lectures and writes widely in matters of natural health. Many of the books in the English language are essentially rehashed information from elsewhere with little new research included.
Many of the books covering herbs from other countries tend to be written in the native language from the country of origin (with very few exceptions) making it a little difficult for either professional or lay reader to understand them.

So, not well known even in the herbalist community, we now have the World Health Organisation who, over the last few years have had international teams of scientists working on producing valid monographs on many plants. The Team at WHO have been working on monographs of herbs available in different regions - and this one, Medicinal Herbs in the South Pacific is just one such book in a series of volumes.

The table of contents list all the medicinal herbs by their binomial name (many books list by common names - which of course change between regions and countries) which is something that pleases me enormously. In the back of the book is a list of the plant names listed by country, allowing native speakers to search for 'THAT' plant easily.

The monographs themselves are comprehensive. Botanical description and distibution are included; but unlike many other ethnobotanical books, the constituents of each plant is listed. Often the chemicals listed will back up the ethnobotanical use of the herb - but also suggest other possible uses.
The Biological activity lists the more common activities of the chemicals. Sometimes this agrees with the traditional uses of the herb, sometimes it suggests other possible uses.

This book is for serious herbalists and naturopaths and for anyone with an interest in the ethnobotanical uses of South Pacific herbs rather than the lay reader. I will have no hesitation in recommending this volume to my students and all Pacific Island students who are studying natural medicine.