Length

1 hour 33 minutes

Class Description

Alkaloids are the thrillers and chillers of the botanical world. These can be poisonous, curative, or both! There are also some lesser-known alkaloids in food plants we eat. So we’ll step through the mischievous and the kind. This class will honor the alkaloids in medicinal plants, from the perspective of plants that even intermediate herbalists can use to some more heroic herbs, and finally, some of the world's most outrageous poisonous and medicinal substances. This could end in burning flames or paradise.

About the Teacher

Heather Irvine is an herbalist passionate about teaching phytochemistry. She began her studies at the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine in 2003, while studying Natural Resources at Cornell. She was in the first group of participants and graduates of the Clinical Herbalist program at the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism in 2009. Over time, she has combined plant physiology, mycology, chemistry, ecology, human nutrition and health, psychology, and other topics with her herbal studies, establishing a foundation for curiosity about the how and why of medicinal plants. In Vermont she had an herbal tincture business for ten years and then a clinical herbalism practice. She also lived, worked, taught, and engaged in clinical practice for several years in Boston and Brookline. She currently supports a Medicinal Plants program at Cornell year-round, and two semester-long courses Herbal Constituents I & II taught by Lisa Ganora and Kat Martello. Heather has begun writing an exciting book on the relevance and characteristics of constituents of medicinal plants. She enjoys life in Ithaca New York, and exploring Northeast Canada.

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