Garden Herbs: Their Cultivation, Cookery, Cures, and Caveats

Judith Sumner, botanist, presents a slide illustrated lecture that traces the European herbal tradition among plants carried by early settlers to the New World; many of these species escaped dooryard gardens and naturalized in our local flora, which now includes many plants once used in cookery and food preservation; Sumner examines a range of medicinal and culinary species — from use in ancient traditions to gourmet cookery, military history, and modern medicine.

Judith Sumner is a botanist who specializes in ethnobotany, flowering plants, plant adaptations, and garden history. She has taught extensively both at the college level and at botanical gardens, including the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and Garden in the Woods.