The 10 Best Books On Herbal Medicine To Read

1 The Wild Medicine Solution - Giodo Mase

2 The Healing Kitchen- Holly Bellebuono

We love weeds and this is one of the best books on herbal medicine to read when it comes to using the wonderful weeds (as well as other plants) that you have in your backyard. This book gives you so many new ideas on how to use weeds, plants and herbs in your kitchen and within your diet. It has awesome ideas like nettle rice pudding or crackers and just really creative yet tasty ways to use plants in your life. 

3 Root To Bloom - Mat Pember And Jocelyn Cross

A visually stunning book that highlights some of our most common ‘weeds’ and plants that grow so prolifically. Gives you information on each plant and how to use them and why you would use them. Available at the Dunedin library which is great news!

4 Treasures Of Tane - Rob Tipa

This is a great book on Māori medicine and native plants, it documents and describes the amazing plants that grow here and particularly in the South Island. We love incorporating natives into our products. A few of our favouites include horopito in our Anti-Flam and kawakawa in our Daily Boost Tonic and Golden Skin Oil. When you read some of the best books on herbal medicine in New Zealand (like Treasures of Tane) you’ll learn about the cultural importance of these beautiful plants and how you can use them for yourself.

🌿Related: You can read more about the native plants used at Wild Dispensary here

5 Healing Herbs - Healing Neal’s Yard Remedies

An amazing resource book that has awesome easy to refer to tables for herbs to help with common complaints. This is one of the best books on herbal medicine to read because it breaks each plant down into what it is used for and why. A great resource to own and available at the local library.

A few of Skye’s favourite books on herbal medicine:

6 Plants For The People - Erin Lovell Verinder

This book is stunning. Beautifully laid out with a section on how to make your own remedies, oils and oxymels as well as a materia medica section explaining the plants and how and why they work as they do. Erin is an Australian herbalist and this book highlights what we are trying to do with Wild Dispensary - bringing plants to the people.

7 Materia Medica Of Western Herbs- Carol Fisher

I bought this book when I started my natural medicine degree. It is written by a New Zealand herbalist and is an amazing resource that lists plants with all their active constituents and also studies on how the plant works. This is one of the best books on herbal medicine to read if you are looking for some in-depth scientific explanations as to how and why these plants work. Academic reading can be a bit dry, but this is an amazing resource.

8 Master Recipes from the Herbal Apothecary - JJ Pursell

This book is also available from our local library! This book details 375 recipes and is simple to read and use, a great resource to look through and also some simple techniques to start your own herbal medicine journey.

9 Māori Healing and Herbal: New Zealand Ethnobotanical - Murdoch Riley

This a textbook but it is so amazing as it documents the uses of traditional Māori medicine here in Aotearoa. It can be found in the library, possibly a bit harder to purchase, but it is a very interesting book to read. We are lucky to have such a depth of knowledge available to us. It really is one of the best books on herbal medicine to read and own.

10 Plant Magic - Christine Buckley

This is one of my most favourite books. I recommend this to anyone that is looking for some of the best books on herbal medicine to read. It highlights the easy ways to use herbalism and also gives you some great base recipes for you to make your own.