Learn about invasive plants with medicinal properties Oct. 26

The Cavendish Historical Society will host its third workshop on plants at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 26 at Cavendish Fletcher Community Library, 573 Main St. in Proctorsville.

This time, the focus will be on invasive species, such as garlic mustard, plantain, barberry, eucalyptus, ragweed and others. The emphasis will be on plants that can do damage to existing ecosystems yet also offer medicinal benefits.

When Japanese knotweed is mentioned, people often cringe and tell tales about how it has taken over parts of their yard and is impossible to kill. However, it has been used for centuries in traditional medicine in Asia as a treatment for inflammation, infections, skin burns and, most recently, Lyme disease.

Although knotweed was brought to the Americas in the 1800s as an ornamental plant, other plants that had medicinal properties were brought by the colonists. In addition, the “seed trade” was big business, with middle- and upper-class landowner buying plants from around the world to study in their backyards.

Dr. Charis Boke, a member of the Anthropology Department at Dartmouth College, will once again be speaking. She is currently writing her first book, Poison, Power, and Possibility: Building Relations with Medicinal Plants, which explores the poetics, politics and practices of contemporary herbalists in North America, leaning on ethnographic research, botanical histories and lived experience to examine what it takes to remedy what ails us. Boke assisted with the Benjamin Rush Medicinal Garden at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia.

For more information, please call 802-226-7807 or send an e-mail.