ABC Announces Botanical Literature Award Winners

AUSTIN, Tex.The American Botanical Council (ABC) recently announced its 2013 recipients for the James A. Duke Excellence in Botanical Literature Award. The recipients are Medicinal Plants and the Legacy of Richard E. Schultes and Smoke Signals: A Social History of MarijuanaMedical, Recreational, and Scientific.

Medicinal Plants and the Legacy of Richard E. Schultes is a collection of essays published by the Missouri Botanical Garden and co-edited by Rainer W. Bussmann, Ph.D, and Bruce E. Ponman. The book is a dedication to the 10th anniversary of ethnobotanist and Harvard University Professor Richard E. Schultes' death. Schultes published about two dozen books and 500 papers, collected more than 30,000 plant samples, and contributed more than 14 years of fieldwork in the Amazon, according to Bussmann.

If anybody could be named as the father of ethnobotany, it would be Richard E. Schultes," Bussmann said. No researcher has ever done more field research, more to promote the discipline, and has encouraged more students to become ethnobotanists, with almost every senior scientist in the field acknowledging some connection to Schultes."

Smoke Signals was written by award-winning investigative journalist Martin A. Lee. The book highlights the social history of marijuana since the 1960s and how the illicit marijuana subculture has transformed into a dynamic industry. In recent years, the botanical has garnered even more attention; ABC's HerbalGram recently announced cannabis as its new cover herb earlier this month.

When I began writing about cannabis, I had no idea about the impressive scientific data, mainly based on pre-clinical research, that powerfully validates the experience of many medical marijuana users," Lee said. Public attitudes reflect conflicting claims about marijuana's potential benefits and risks. There has been a deliberate effort to create uncertainty about what the science says about cannabis."

Winners will be awarded the ABC James A. Duke Excellence in Botanical Literature Award at the 8th Annual ABC Botanical Celebration and Awards Ceremony on March 7 in Anaheim, California.

ABC also recently gave its inaugural Mark Blumenthal Herbal Community Builder Award to renowned herbalist Rosemary Gladstar. Known to many as the "Godmother of American Herbalism," Gladstar is a teacher and author whose efforts have helped develop the American herbal community.