Show #26/5213. de Hortus Botanicus

Medicinal Gardening

Prior to modern medicine, we're talking about five hundred years ago or so, all doctors had to work with were plants and of course even modern medicine is still largely plant based. That's where a lot of the most important healing agents come from. A lot of plants that are in this garden come from the east of Europe. It's a wonderful education garden and a great opportunity for people in the community or people from all over the world to come see what medicinal plants would have been used at that point in time.

Petra shows us HORSERADISH, it's a quite an important medical plant. They use the roots. It's now flowering, you see from the flowers it's in the Brassicaceae family. It's important for vitamin C. In medieval times it was used to treat various diseases. They would take the root shave it, it's a strong taste. It's a wonderful culinary plant. Horseradish is used in many, many sauces. It's a very important family like broccoli, kale, many of the leafy greens that we eat because they are very high in antioxidants. It's very pungent thus helpful for respiratory type illnesses and as an antioxidant, high in vitamin C. It would have been very important along with citrus in the fight against scurvy.