herbaceous or victory garden

A happy pair of Redditors shared these pretty awesome maps that depict some of the herbal resources found on the continents of Europe and Africa. Click on the images for larger samples. News of the snake-oil—or rather placebo (from the Latin, “I do no harm”) peddling that was taking place in the States, where some popular distributors were selling cheap substitutes to a trusting public may have managed to turn some off of the idea of herbs—whether culinary, homeopathic or sacred, but I think that the fascination is still there and not so much cynicism as to let corporate greed and callousness dry up all curiosity.

Whether an aspiring chef, herbalist or witch, this guides provide a nice reference for what potions you might be able to grow in your window-sill garden and gives a brief explanation of their traditional uses.  Like the contributors, I had problems sourcing these charts back to their origin—there’s only the shop’s website, an emporium, of course of herbs and spices, which does not seem to carry prints of these items, like those pretty ubiquitous mushroom and cheese medleys, but otherwise, it seems to be a pretty sly case of guerilla marketing.