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A Comprehensive List of the Best Homestead Herbal Medicine Books

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When and if Stuff Hits the Fan (SHTF), having printed books on hand is absolutely vital for everyone’s well-being.

Digital reference books are great and all, but if you don’t have a means of recharging your e-reader, or if the screen gets shattered and is thus unreadable, you’ll be up the creek.

How will you remember how to identify the necessary plants? Or whip them up into a tincture? Which herbs work for caring for your teeth? You’ll need reference books to help you.

Here’s a list of essential herbal medicine books for the homestead, covering just about every health issue you may come across.

Basic Plant Medicine Making

Knowing which plants have different medicinal properties is important, and just as vital is knowing how to extract and use those properties. Some herbal constituents can only be extracted with alcohol or vinegar, while others need to be boiled for X amount of time.

As such, herbal medicine books that go into the details of extractions, preparations, and formulae are must-haves for your library.

Herbal First Aid

Herbal poultice photo by seefit, via Wikimedia Commons

When an unexpected accident, illness, or injury occurs, it’s imperative to know which plants can staunch blood, ease burns, alleviate pain from fractures, and treat insect or animal bites.

  • Herbal Medic: A Green Beret’s Guide to Emergency Medical Preparedness and Natural First Aid, by Sam Coffman
  • Herbal Medicine First Aid Kit: The Complete Guide To First Aid Treatment Using Medicinal Plants and Natural Herbal Remedies, by Mary Thibodeau
  • The Prepper’s Survival Natural Medicine: The Emergency Preparedness Manual You Need for When There is No Doctor, With Essential Knowledge in Critical First Aid, Life-Saving Herbs and Natural Remedies, by Raymond L. Hillman
  • The Survival Medicine Handbook: A Guide for When Help is Not on the Way, by Joseph Alton, Amy Alton

General Health and Wellbeing

Herbal medicine books

Knowing how to treat illnesses with herbs is incredibly important, but just as vital is knowing how to maintain general health and well-being. Herbalism isn’t just handy for dealing with injuries or infections: many plants can be used to maintain dental health.

  • Adaptogens: Herbs for Strength, Stamina, and Stress Relief, by David Winston and Steven Maimes
  • Dental Herbalism: Natural Therapies for the Mouth, by by Leslie M. Alexander Ph.D. RH(AHG) and Linda A. Straub-Bruce BS Ed RDH
  • The Woman’s Herbal Apothecary: 200 Natural Remedies for Healing, Hormone Balance, Beauty and Longevity, and Creating Calm, by JJ Pursell
  • Herbal Healing for Men: Remedies and Recipes for Circulation Support, Heart Health, Vitality, Prostate Health, Anxiety Relief, Longevity, Virility, Energy & Endurance, by Rosemary Gladstar
  • Herbs for Children’s Health: How to Make and Use Gentle Herbal Remedies for Soothing Common Ailments, by Rosemary Gladstar
  • Working the Roots: Over 400 Years of Traditional African American Healing, by Michele E. Lee

Learn more about the basics of homestead herbalism in our article.

Antibiotics and Antivirals

Natural antibiotics and antivirals can be extremely important when the SHTF. These books are a great place to start.

Herbal Healing for Animals

Most homesteaders live alongside various animal species, whether they’re domestic companions, livestock, sanctuary species, or wild friends.

As such, it’s important to know how to treat their illnesses or injuries if and when they occur, as well as keep them as healthy as possible for as long as they live.

Be sure to seek out herbal medicine books that encompass health and healing for all the species with whom you share your life.

Regional Plant and Mushroom Guides

If you’re going to be healing with plants that are native to your area, then regional plant and mushroom guides are absolutely invaluable. In fact, the only tomes more important than herbal medicine books are those that allow you to identify various plants properly.

There are quite a number of lookalike species around, and a detailed, illustrated guide can help you safe as you explore plant medicines.

Young foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) shoots are often mistaken for comfrey (Symphytum spp.) with fatal effects, and you absolutely do not want to mistake water hemlock (Cicuta spp.) for yarrow (Achillea millefolium).

The volumes below are some of the key ones to look into. If you’re in a country where English isn’t commonly spoken, be sure to seek out identification guides in the language(s) that are most familiar to you.

Here are some excellent guides for North America:

If you live in other parts of the globe, consider these books:

In addition to these herbal medicine books and regional guides, another invaluable volume to have on hand is this one:

Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification, by Thomas J. Elpel

Being able to recognize characteristics such as leaf shape, margin, and venation, as well as petal and stamen numbers, can mean the difference between a healing tea and a trip to the E.R.

Herbal Medicine Books: Honorable Mention

Ancient herbal medicine book, photo byKleon3 via Wikimedia Commons

Some of the most invaluable herbal knowledge I’ve come across has been from older texts worldwide. Although the herbal medicine books below aren’t absolutely vital for your home library, they’re wonderful resources and may offer insights and treatments that more contemporary volumes neglect to include.

You may not be interested in all of these herbal medicine books, but now that you have a comprehensive list of titles you may be interested in, you can begin to build your home healing library.

Seek out the volumes that speak to you, as well as guidebooks on how to identify plants and make medicine, and go from there. As always, it’s better to have more books than you think you’ll need, than to need them one day and not have them available.