MySource:Quolla6/Harding, 1908

The following list of plants is drawn from Harding, 1908:6 et seq.

Harding was interested in the commercialization of medicinal wild plants, and spent considerable effort, with some apparent success, on learning to grow some of these species commercially. In the process he compiled a listing of wild plants which were in use for medicinal purposes.

The geographic coverage of this list is not obvious, but it probably includes plants not found in Southwest Virginia, or even in the immediate region. Articles on some of these individual plants, such as ginseng, will probably be developed when there's a clear tie in to southwest Virginia. The fact that Harding considered these plants to have medicinal value (or at least that there was a medicinal herbal market for them) does not necessarily say anything about their therapeutic value. Some herbal medicines do indeed have therapeutic value. For example, harding includes the bark and buds of the Black Willow in his list.

The leaves and bark of the willow tree have been mentioned in ancient texts from Assyria, Sumer and Egypt as a remedy for aches and fever, and the Greek physician Hippocrates wrote about its medicinal properties in the 5th century BC. Native Americans across the American continent relied on it as a staple of their medical treatments. This is because they contain acetylsalicylic acid, also known as aspirin. From The Wikipedia

But the therapeutic value of some of the plants on this list (such as the watermelon, and poison ivy), are somewhat dubvious.

In the following list species highlighted in "light green" are known to occur in southwest Virginia. Those highlighted in "light grey", are known not to occur in southwest Virginia.