# @wychs_bloom on Instagram

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DLWrm4DtUTb
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/63412486-wychs-bloom-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/92c2eb1338.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-06-26T06:44:47.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Christina Winters (@wychs_bloom) — https://gondola.cc/wychs_bloom

## Caption

This week, I walked the Orto Botanico di Padova, founded 1545—the oldest medicinal plant garden in continuous use.
It isn’t organized by species. It’s organized by healing action: cardiac, sedative, digestive, diuretic, toxic.

Goethe’s palm still grows.
Mandrake is tucked behind glass.
Yarrow, belladonna, foxglove, meadowsweet—some I grow, some I’ve only read about.

This garden isn’t just a museum. It’s a living call to action. A living materia medica. A reminder that plants hold possibilities we’ve not yet uncovered.

Why do herbalists still lean so heavily on “traditional use”? Because in the U.S., fewer than 100 medicinal plants have been rigorously studied in clinical trials—out of tens of thousands of potential healing species.

Why?
• Research is slow, expensive—and most plants can’t be patented.
• Western systems often dismiss Indigenous, diasporic, and women’s herbal traditions.
• Plants are chemically complex—hard to standardize into pills.

And while we stall…
In the U.S. alone, we lost 1.52 million hectares (~3.75 million acres) of natural forest in 2024—species eradicated before we even discover them. Since 2001, over 104 million acres of forest have vanished too.

Even now, public lands are at risk. Congress is considering a bill that would allow the sale of up to 3.3 million acres of federal land—including our national forests and BLM areas—to fund tax cuts .

So yes—we lean on tradition. Because sometimes, that’s all we have left.

So what can we do?
🔬 Support plant-focused research
🌲 Defend public lands and forests
🌱 Value traditional knowledge as a bridge—not a fallback.

Because the next cure… could be rooted in places like this—or lost forever.

#OrtoBotanicoDiPadova #TraditionalUse #MedicinalPlants #ForestLoss #SavePublicLands #HerbalismIsMedicine #Biodiversity #PlantConservation #HerbalistOnTheRoad
#OrtoBotanicoDiPadova
#TraditionalUse
#MedicinalPlants
#HerbalismIsMedicine
#Biodiversity
#PlantConservation
#ForestLoss
#SavePublicLands
#HealingPlants
#MateriaMedica
#BotanicalGarden
#HerbalKnowledge
#PlantWisdom
#HerbalistOnTheRoad
#Ethnobotany
#ProtectWhatHeals
#GreenMedicine
#PlantBasedHealing
#HistoryOfMedicine
#NatureKnows

## Stats

- **Views:** 282
- **Likes:** 499
- **Shares:** 0
- **Comments:** 31

## Tags

traditionaluse, botanicalgarden, plantbasedhealing, protectwhatheals, plantwisdom, natureknows, greenmedicine, historyofmedicine, plantconservation, herbalknowledge, savepubliclands, forestloss, herbalistontheroad, healingplants, herbalismismedicine, biodiversity, ethnobotany, medicinalplants, materiamedica, ortobotanicodipadova

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