AHP ~ Microscopic Characterization of Botanical Medicines

SCOTTS VALLEY, CalifAmerican Herbal Pharmacopedia® (AHP) will release a text book titled Microscopic Characterization of Botanical Medicines" in December 2010. Complied by the AHP, this volume addresses the lack of authoritative microscopic descriptions of medicinal plant species currently in trade. It includes an atlas providing detailed text and graphic descriptions of more than 140 medicinal plant species and their adulterants.

Designed to meet the needs of the herbal products industry, regulatory agencies and academic researchers, this book covers plant anatomy at a level appropriate for pharmacognostic analysis of plant tissues, provides extensive coverage of the history and importance of plant microscopy, and gives instructions on how to set up a microscopy lab and prepare, view and archive whole powdered plant parts for microscopic analysis.

The atlas portion is repeated on an included compact disc that also holds extra full color art. The botanicals covered represent 90 percent of the dollar value of botanical sales in the United States. The focus is on those species that are in high use and those that are commonly adulterated. In addition, the text covers a number of popular Asian botanicals, providing the first English language description for many of these.

The Microscopic Characterization of Botanical Medicines" is a resource text that: