How to Write A Plant Profile (and create a materia medica you'll actually use)
There's a bunch of them on this site. You'll find them in all the herb books. They're handed out in classes and gatherings. Plant profiles are an essential way that information is shared in herbal communities and if you're reading this post you're probably interested in creating your own.
Perhaps you're just starting out on your herbal studies and are feeling overwhelmed by all the ways that herbalists record knowledge about herbs. Or perhaps you're an herbal practitioner trying to figure out how to create plant profiles that you'll actually reference in your work with clients. Maybe you're an herbalist who has never written a plant profile and don't know where to start.
If you've studied herbalism in any sort of formal classroom fashion, you've probably had to write at least a few plant profiles to complete your education. A lot of the time you're expected to use a format developed by your teacher or learning program - which is great! Humans are very good at learning through mimicry and following in the footsteps of herbalists before us when it comes to the format of our plant profiles makes a lot of sense.
For some of us, after our formal herbal studies we don't write another plant profile because we don't really need to. While most herbalists keep notes of some sort, the actual writing of complete plant profiles doesn't happen. Which is just fine! It's not a requirement that every individual herbalist write their own plant profiles and doesn't indicate whether or not you're a competent herbalist. What happens though, is that some of us will get to a point where we realize we have all this knowledge and we want to record it in some way not only for our own benefit but for the benefit of our students, clients, and the generations to come.
Other herbalists' herbal education did not happen in a classroom setting that required or expected written plant profiles. Herbalists are trained in all sorts of ways including through apprenticeship models and oral traditions where written records are not needed, expected or given high priority. It's essential to keep these forms of learning alive, too, and you might be interested in recording in writing the wisdom you hold. In addition to written forms of plant profiles, I'll talk about how you can record oral traditions and organize them in ways that make sense to you because these forms of herbal knowledge are vital.
Then there are also a lot of self-taught herbalists out there who haven't tried writing a plant profile of their own yet but you don't know where to start. Tenacious self-taught herbalists are one of the main reasons we have such a thriving traditional western herbal community today - these herbal elders kept alive traditions that they had to go out and find in books, through speaking with their elders, and from the plants themselves. So if you're a self-taught herbalist you're in good company and I'm excited that you're interested in learning one of the ways you can contribute to keeping our traditions thriving.
Maybe you fit into one of these categories or somewhere in-between. Maybe you have your own system of creating plant profiles but are a curious sort of creature and like to see how other folks create systems that work for them (I definitely count myself in this group). Maybe you got lost on the internet and found yourself here (hello, this is a nice slow place, enjoy yourself, have a cup of tea). Whatever reason you're here and are called to create your own plant profiles, I hope that you'll find the following tips of use!
deck shown is Dirt Gems Oracle
Figuring Out Your Why
The best place to start, with the making of something you hope will endure and enrich your practice for years to come, is to ask yourself why you want to do something like this in the first place. Here are three questions to get you started:
Why do you want to create plant profiles?
What will you use them for (i.e. primarily for personal reference, to hand out to clients and/or students, to keep for the next generation)?
What would it feel like to have a collection of your very own plant profiles created by you?
I recommend answering these questions out loud or writing them down (and then speaking them out loud if you want to be particularly thorough). The speaking out loud or moving in answer (such as through writing) is a way to help wake our brain-hearts up and get us engaged with the activity at hand.
How you answer these questions will also shape the structure of your plant profile. Profiles that you intend only for your own personal use can be as idiosyncratic as you want them to be - no one else needs to be able to decipher them or understand what's in them. They are purely for you to enjoy. Whereas profiles that you're creating with the intention of sharing them with others benefit from having a relatively clear and uniform structure that can be easily explained and act as a teaching tool.
You don't have to know exactly what you want your plant profiles to look like and how personal versus communal you want them to be - you'll find your stride as you play around and experiment with structures and forms that work for you.
The One Thing Every Plant Profile Should Have
And recognizing that I just spent a bunch of time talking about making a plant profile uniquely your own, there is one part of a plant profile that I do find to be vital for everyone if you're planning on ever letting another person read it: latin binomials. Latin binomials are unique names assigned to different species that are (usually) unchanging and help folks to know that they are talking about the same plant across different languages. When you read a plant profile, mine included, most will list the name of a plant that many are familiar with (i.e. Sage) and then in parentheses and italicized you'll find the latin name (i.e. Salvia officinalis). The name "Sage" is known as a Common or Folk Name - these names change across languages, cultures, and regions. Common and Folk Names are an important part of herbalism as they preserve tradition, communicate ideas about plants often in an easy to comprehend way, and they are a living lexicon that is constantly being added to. Latin binomials help us to communicate across languages and regional differences. What someone calls Sagebrush in one region might be called Desert Mugwort in another and it's the unchanging Latin binomial (in this case Artemisia tridentata) which helps herbalists to identify what plant everyone is referring to.
You don't have to have Latin binomials memorized (though having familiarity with them is useful), but you should have them written down. Now, if you never plan on sharing your plant profiles with anyone else, including Latin binomials might not be a priority for you. That's fine, I just think it's useful and important to include them in plant profiles that someone else might see.
Ok, that's it for the strong suggestions - onwards to more choose your own adventure type ones!
Styles + Structures
So what do you put in a plant profile? There are a few ways to help you figure this out. One is to start by copying the structure of your favorite herbalist. I've been using the same structure for years in my plant profiles (and you can find a printable template for the structure if you sign-up for my newsletter and access the member's only posts). My structure is a combination of my own needs with the plant profiles structures of my teachers and favorite materia medicas. Since I'm writing my plant profiles to be used as teaching tools, they are on the longer side, use language that is on the more accessible side of the spectrum (as opposed to relying too heavily on medical and scientific language), and include stories, personal anecdotes, and metaphor. I write my plant profiles in this way because I enjoy the structure I've created and this is a style that my international, multilingual student population connects to and expects.
The plant profiles that I most often reference as a practitioner, however, are usually very different from the ones I write. I appreciate brevity, quick guides and lists, and precise summaries, because when I'm sitting with clients I don't have time to read through a long plant profile to find the information that I need. Some of my most referenced materia medicas using this style are listed in the footnotes below. Your own needs as an herbalist might lean towards much more succinct than my teaching-focused plant profiles that you find on my site. That's good to know so you don't feel the pressure to write a full length essay for every plant profile you create.
While you'll find variations between plant profiles by different authors here are the basic components that appear again and again:
Common and Folk Names
Latin Binomial
Parts Used (i.e. use the leaf versus the root of a plant)
Herbal Constituents: the active phytochemistry the herb)
Herbal Actions (i.e. a list of what the medicinal actions are of a plant using terms like anti-inflammatory, lymphatic, cholagogue, and so on)
Main Uses (i.e. the internal and external medicinal uses of the plant)
Dosage Recommendation
Contraindications and Drug Interactions
In addition to the above components, you'll find additional listings in a plant profile depending on tradition, diagnostic techniques, cultural need, and personal preference, including:
Indications (i.e. a list of physical, emotional, and mental indications that a plant may be of use. For some folks this shows up in the Main Uses section of a plant profile while others list it out separately for quick reference.)
Habitat (i.e. the places that the plant is found in uncultivated spaces)
Growing Conditions and Collection
Flavor or Taste
Temperature
Moisture
Tissue States
Doshas
Personality Indicators (i.e. the "Chamomile Personality")
Doctrine of Signatures
Magical Uses
Tarot Correspondences
Elemental Correspondences
Astroherbalism Correspondences (including zodiac signs, planets, and lunar correspondences)
Combine With or Works Well With (i.e. herbs or therapies that the plant being written about works with)
Recipes
Emojis (a fun and modern shorthand for the emotional states that an herb best serves)
Here is where you get to pick and choose a structure to fit your needs. As a teacher, the long-form style of plant profile that I write is important for me: it helps me to gather my thoughts and experiences about a plant into some sort of cohesive narrative which I can then use as a tool and resource for my students. When I'm learning about a new plant in books, I appreciate longer profiles full of stories and some of my favorite herbal books don't follow any of the structures I've talked about but rely on personal narratives and mythology to convey a plant's healing qualities. As a practitioner my needs are slightly different which is why my short form plant profiles that live in handwritten form in my notebooks before they become (if they ever do) profiles I share with the public, emphasize actions and indications alongside the energetics of traditional western herbalism that I work with including the elements, tissue states, and astroherbalism. Knowing your needs and interests as an herbalist will guide your structure, so spend some time investigating them.
Once you've chosen your structure there are even more ways to personal how you write out a profile including whether or not your profiles are kept digitally or written down within a book or binder; using shorthand symbols or abbreviations (I do this for astrological information); and whether or not you include images with your profiles. For my studies, I rely on pen and paper, but all of my plant profiles are eventually typed up. I also keep an additional spreadsheet that has herbs categorized for quick reference, but that is something that I rely on primarily for keeping track of information as a teacher. But that is probably beyond the needs of most of you reading this, but if you like color coded spreadsheets, please know you can incorporate that into your herbal practice, too.
You can also create plant profiles that are less word-filled and more art-filled. Color, symbolism, and your choice of art medium (from painting to textile art and beyond) can convey all sorts of meaningful and intuitive information. Conveying information about herbs and healing practices through images with multifaceted meanings is an ancient form of communication and if that is the sort of plant profiles you feel called to create, go for it!
Adding Your Stories
Every herbalist has a unique relationship with the plants and I think that it's a useful and beautiful thing to include some sort of personal narrative or signature in your plant profiles. Even if you're primarily creating your plant profiles by collating information from the writing of others, I think that if you're going to the effort of creating a profile it benefits all who read it to understand your approach, interests in the plants and their medicine, and personal anecdotes.
Who I am and my relationship to our plant kin is interwoven into the structure of my plant profiles. As a traditional western herbalist practicing the full spectrum of what our tradition has to offer, I include standard profile components like herbal actions, constituents, growing conditions, and so on alongside magickal uses, astrological correspondences, and the tradition of writing about the personality signatures of plants that I was taught by my teachers. All of these components inform my practice and so I include all of them in my plant profiles. Talking about plants as living beings and not just allies but elders and teachers is another important aspect of my plant profiles because that is inherent not only to my herbal practice but my spiritual practice.
I also include personal stories and anecdotes from my years of practice as well as the stories shared with me by others. Many of these don't necessarily make it into my public plant profiles, but they are included in my own notes that I'll pass to my own family and those apprentices who study with me.
I am incredibly grateful for the scientific studies on plant medicine that help us to better understand the ways that plants work in our bodies and the environments we live in. I also think that it is so important for individual herbalists to record anecdotes and stories about our plant allies. These are teaching stories that keep plant medicine a practice of the people which will help it survive and thrive for generations to come. If you ever have the opportunity to go to a gathering of herb folk (or just get to spend time with a plant story filled person) and get to sit around listening to and offering stories of plants I hope you can experience what I have time and time again - the power of the story of a plant to heal, inspire, and guide. If it feels right to put a story experienced or gifted to you on paper, I hope you do.
Oral Traditions + Audio Recordings
There is something that is captured via audio or video that can't quite be held by the written word. Audio recordings also help us to record songs and rhythms gifted by the plants that would be difficult to translate to paper. So if you're called to record oral traditions and your plant profiles as audio files, I encourage you to. I dream of an herbal library that is full of all sorts of resources from audio recordings and books, paintings and soundscapes, documentaries and textile arts, and so on that help to convey the long relationship between plant and people. When we spend time making our own records we are helping to create a legacy for others to benefit from (and make it harder for these things to be forgotten or taken away).
My tips for audio recordings are simple. Label your digital files and organize them. Do this upon recording so you don't have to manage a bunch of unlabeled or improperly labeled audio files later on (because sorting through audio files can be an arduous task - please make it easy for yourself). If having a searchable database is important to you, create a document or excel spreadsheet with the name of the plant and the key actions and other meaningful correspondences written down so you can easily search for them later.
Storing Your Stories
Finally, consider how your plant profiles will be stored. You want to be able to use these profiles with ease in your practice so make them easy to access. I spend much of my working day on the computer, so it makes sense for me to have a digital archive of my plant profiles that I can easily access. My handwritten profiles are stored in notebooks that I keep within easy reach on my bookshelf. Additional information is stored in binders as well as simple paper files. I'm currently working on creating a completely handwritten and illustrated herbal for my own joy as I've always been intrigued and inspired by the handwritten herbals and grimoires of old and hope to contribute to this art as a sign of gratitude. One day, I hope this'll sit next to my altar, opened to a page showing a beloved plant ally.
Plant profiles are living documents, meant to be amended and added on to as the need arises. I used to feel that I had to get my plant profiles "right" on the first go around and now I enjoy reading through old profiles noticing what has evolved, changed, and stayed the same through my many years of practice. Let there be flexibility, patience, and play in your practice. And most importantly, listen to the plants all along the process. As Cree and Métis herbalist and ethnobotanist Mary Siisip Geniusz says, "Plants have so much to give us, all we have to do is ask." (1)
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If you're looking for some visual inspiration check out my pinterest board for creating your own herbal. Other sources of inspiration include historical herbals and journaling spaces like the bullet journal and art journal communitites. But remember, it's more important to go ahead and make a plant profile then try to be a "perfect" enough writer or artist to accomplish the task.
Are you feeling inspired to create your own plant profiles? I hope so and I also hope that you find the same enjoyment with your own growing collection of plant profiles.
May your work become a living book of green wisdom and to be of benefit to yourself and those you serve.
This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎
Notes
(1) Plants Have So Much to Give Us, All We Have To Do Is Ask: Anishinaabe Botanical Teachings by Mary Siisip Geniusz is a beautiful example of a plant-led and culture-centered book of stories and plant profiles. I hope you have the chance to read it.
The following are a few, though certainly not all, of my favorite materia medicas that I reach for again and again when I need information quickly (i.e. in a client setting):
Dispensing with Tradition: A Practitioner's Guide to using Indian and Western Herbs the Ayurvedic Way by Anne McIntyre
The Desktop Guide to Herbal Medicine by Brigitte Mars
Bartram's Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine by Thomas Bartram
300 Herbs: Their Indications & Contraindications by Matthew Alfs
