A herb (pronounced "urb" in American English and "hurb" in British English) is a plant grown for culinary or medicinal value. Typically, the green, leafy part of the plant is used. General usage differs between culinary herbs and medicinal herbs. A medicinal herb may be a shrub or other woody plant, whereas a culinary herb is a non-woody plant. By contrast, spices are the seeds, berries, bark, root, or other parts of the plant, even leaves in some cases and is only a culinary term. Culinary herbs are distinguished from vegetables in that they are used in small quantities and provide flavor rather than substance to food.
In botany, a herb is a plant that does not produce a woody stem, or is a plant that dies back to the ground at the end of the growing season. The term herbaceous means either having the characteristic of a herb or being leaf-like in color and texture. A related term is Forb, which means a non-woody plant that is not a grass and is not grass-like. This means that the term forb excludes sedges ( Cyperaceae) and rushes ( JuncaceaeAndesia Distichia Juncus Rush Luzula Woodrush Marsippospermum Oxychlo Prionium Rostkovia The Juncaceae or the Rush Family is a rather small monocot flowering plant family. There are 8 genera and about 400 species. Many of these slow-growing plants superfi) along with grasses ( PoaceaeSee: List of Poaceae genera The true grasses are monocot (class Liliopsida) plants of the family Poaceae (formerly Graminae . There are some 600 genera and perhaps 10,000 species of grasses. It is estimated grasslands comprise 20% of the vegetation cover).
"Herb" or "the herb" is also a term for cannabissee text Cannabis is a genus of dioecious, annual herbs that belong to the family Cannabaceae, which was formerly placed with the nettles in the order Urticales, but is now in the order Rosales. There is phylogenetic controversy as to whether the cultivat (some Rastafarians believe it is actually the most correct term).
See also
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- ApothecaryApothecary is an old name for a pharmacist — a medical professional who dispenses materia medica to physicians, surgeons and patients. The word apothecary specifically designates a person who prepared medicine (such as tablets and syrups) himself, rather
- Herbaceous perennialsRed Valerian, a perennial plant. A perennial plant or perennial ( Latin per "through", annus "year") is a plant that lives for more than two years. This term is usually applied to herbaceous plants or small shrubs rather than large shrubs or trees, but us
- HerbalismMedicine Botany The term Herbalism refers to folk and traditional medicinal practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts. The use of herbs to treat disease is almost universal among native peoples. A number of traditions have come to dominate th
- HerbologyHerbology is the art of combining medicinal herbs. Herbology This article is part of the branches of CAM series. CAM Classifications NCCAM:Component of Traditional Chinese medicine that uses a form of biologically based therapy that is centered around the
- List of herbs and spices
- Remedy
Plants
