In many hundreds of ways plants serve both animal and man but as edible food sources for human beings; the plants achieve their highest evolutionary stages and take a primary place of importance both as food and medicine.

Evolution of plant life is well known. Nature's energies poured into a myriad of forms present us with the variety of plant life which we know today and upon which we depend for our existence. Herbalism is the science and practice of alleviating disease and adjusting any imbalance of bodily and mental states by administering herbs as medicine. Although there is no actual botanical difference between a weed, a garden cultivated plant or a herb - the latter is generally defined as a plant containing nutritional or healing properties. Considering this basic relationship between Nature, vegetable life and man, helps us to appreciate the all powerful and embracing provision which Nature has made for sustaining man's life on this planet. The basis of knowledge of the traditional herbalist of the.

Vegetable life climbs the evolutionary scale from the tiniest and most insignificant of plants, the algae and plankton, to culminate in trees such as the giant redwoods and cedars which leave us in awe of their magnitude and strength.