American Herbal Pharmacopoeia: Botanical Pharmacognosy - Microscopic Characterization of Botanical Medicines

Compiled by the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia, this volume addresses the lack of authoritative microscopic descriptions of those medicinal plant species currently in trade. It includes an atlas providing detailed text and graphic descriptions of more than 140 medicinal plant species and their adulterants.

Designed to meet the needs of the herbal products industry, regulatory agencies, and academic researchers, the book covers plant anatomy at a level appropriate for the pharmacognostic analysis of plant tissues, provides extensive coverage of the history and importance of botanical microscopy, and gives instruction on how to set up a microscopy lab and prepare, view, and archive whole and powdered plant parts for microscopic analysis.

The botanicals covered represent 90 percent of the dollar value of botanical sales in the United States The focus is on those species that are in high use, and those that are commonly adulterated. It also covers a number of popular Asian botanicals, providing the first English language description for many of these.

A team of researchers from herbal medicine, biology and botany, pharmacy, chemistry, ecology, neurology, and psychology present microscopic images that assess the botanical quality of herbs that are used medicinally in North America. They were inspired to compile the atlas by a resurgence of classical botanical pharmacognosy, which considers how a plant's medical efficacy is impacted not just by its chemistry but also by botanical factors such as growing habitat, harvesting, and processing conditions. The first section introduces botanical microscopy, with chapters on such matters as nomenclature, microscopy for identifying botanical raw materials, setting up a microscope laboratory, the diagnostic characteristics of tissues, and preparing samples for microscopic analysis. The atlas itself treats 135 herbs in color micrographs, drawings, charts, and text. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Compiled by the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia(R), this volume addresses the lack of authoritative microscopic descriptions of the most popular medicinal plant species currently in trade in the US. It provides a detailed text and graphic atlas of more than 140 medicinal plant species and their adulterants. The book covers plant anatomy, provides extensive coverage of the history and importance of botanical microscopy, and gives instruction on how to set up a microscopy lab and collect samples. The atlas portion is repeated on an included CD-that also holds extra full-color art. It offers the first English language description for many commonly used species.