Angel’s Trumpet. Image from Wikimedia Commons by berichard.
This ultimate edition of Students of Ethnobotany comes from Carina I., and teaches us that you can’t necessarily trust a plant just because it’s beautiful and comes from a good family.
Imagine this… you see a nice looking flower in a nearby garden, you take a whiff and BAM! Free will and the ability to reason are knocked right out of you! Sounds like a tale out of a science fiction story, doesn’t it?
Feed me Seymour! Audrey2. Image from Wikimedia Commons by KaiMartin.
This man-eating penultimate edition of Students of Ethnobotany comes from the fascinated Yvette Beesley.
When I was in my teens my parent were large supporters of the Arts and took me to this play called “The Little Shop of Horrors”. It was amazing, with a singing and dancing plant called Audrey2 that needed blood to survive.
This edition of Students of Ethnobotany, by G. Loi, looks more deeply into the medicinal uses of our smelly friend, the ginkgo.
The ginkgo plant at the University of British Columbia. Picture taken in October 2013. Photo by G. Loi.
Which tree has no living relatives? Which tree was still standing after the Hiroshima atomic bomb in 1945? Which tree has awful smelling seeds that can enhance memory? The Ginkgo biloba, a plant native to China. My first experience with the ginkgo plant was when I was shelling the white seeds and picking out the fruit to make congee for my mother when she was sick. The slightly bitter and bland taste did not make much of an impression for me. It was not until much later, that I realized how the history and the uses of the ginkgo were so diverse and curious.
This ornamental edition of Students of Ethnobotany comes from the impressive Thomas M.
Odds are if you’ve lived on the west (aka wet) coast and ever done some adventuring in the fantastic plethora of nature that thrives here you will have come across some salal.
Mahonia aquifolium (Photo credit Emma J.)
This colorful edition of Students of Ethnobotany comes from the creative Emma J.
Arrowweed
It would be overly simplistic to think that all effects that an invasive species could have on an ecosystem were negative. In some ways, they can even appear… beneficial?
Like people, pepper seems to come in all the colors of the rainbow. But one of these things is not like the others.
Confused yet? 
Ginkgo biloba has been popularly used as a dietary supplement to prevent memory loss, though only slight evidence exists for its effectiveness (for an awesome interactive visualization of the data supporting various dietary supplements, see Information is Beautiful). But there is more to ginkgo than dubious supplementary status. Ginkgo is a relict. 
Alien Plantation 