An excellent book for the budding herbalist, like the RHS Encylopedia of Herbs I find this book beautifully designed but difficult to navigate, too useful for pure decoration and not detailed enough for professional herbalists. Besides good basic information about the plants one also finds a history of herbs, an explanation of the active constituents, guides to growing, harvesting and making herbal remedies, and even a page of advice about consulting qualified herbal practitioners. Worth buying just for Ott's detailed notes and bibliography. Although it almost duplicates the Ayahuasca information in Pharmacotheon, Ayahuasca Analogues has the advantage of being pocket sized - in price and dimensions. A reference book for over 1000 flowering bulbs, corms, tubers and rhizomes from all over the world.
Text is minimal, but useful.
The plant photographs illustrate the most distinctive features of each species or variety. Text is minimal - species are listed by genus name in alphabetical order.