Herbal landscape: The perception of landscape as a source of medicinal plants

Abstract

This contribution investigates the idea of herbal landscape, associated with a personal perception of landscape as a source of materia medica. The herbal landscape can be divided into specific smaller units according to several natural and cultural boundaries. This explains why the original knowledge of plants gleaned by one set of inhabitants may be clearly distinguished from that of close neighbors. The natural boundaries are, for example, the habitat (community) and geographical range limit of plants. Cultural boundaries, for example, constitute the cultural space that influences people, the peculiarity of a given language, and the availability of education, popular books and other media regarding plant use. Nevertheless, Estonian natural herbal culture can be viewed as one large-scale herbal landscape.