Medicinal plants are currently the object of multiple works, many of which rely on tradition(s). The further this trend goes, the more critical the question(s) it raises: what does it actually mean to rely on traditions, what does it imply, what methods are required to take advantage of traditions in a reliable way? And, more than anything else, what are the possibilities to generate the new medicines that are urgently needed? Although not all works contribute to the debate with an equal success, all have at least the merit to open a debate and to provide food for thought.

Here is our selection, offered in disorder, as a bunch of books on the table, open for consultation, to read a chapter, to agree or disagree with, or to take away and to read from cover to cover.

Maria Lelia Pochettino, Ana H. Ladio, and Patricia M. Arenas (eds.), 2010. Proceedings of International Congress of EthnoBotany ICEB 2009. Tradiciones y Transformaciones en Etnobotanica/Traditions and Transformations in Ethnobotany. San Salvador de Jujuy (Argentina): CYTED, Programa Iberoamericano Ciencia y Tecnologia para el Desarrollo. Here is the Index.

Graeme Tobyn, Alison Denham, Margaret Whitelegg (eds), 2011. The Western Herbal Tradition: 2000 years of medicinal plant knowledge. Edinburgh (UK): Elsevier.

Giuseppe Squillace, 2010. Il profumo nel mondo antico. Con la prima traduzione italiana del "Sugli odori" di Teofrasto. Firenze (Italy): Olschki.

Leah Hechtman (ed), 2011. Clinical Naturopathic Medicine. Chastwood, NSW: Elsevier Australia, 2011.

Elisabeth Hsu, and Stephen Harris (eds), 2010. Plants, Health and Healing. On the Interface of Ethnobotany and Medical Anthropology. New York, NY (USA): Berghahn Books.

Naomi F. Miller, 2010. Botanical Aspects of Environment and Economy at Gordion, Turkey. Philadelphia, PA (USA): University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Rebecca Laroche, 2009. Medical Authority and Englishwomen’s Herbal Texts, 1550–1650. Farnham, Surrey (UK): Ashgate.

Eugene N. Anderson, Deborah Pearsall, Eugene S. Hunn, and Nancy Turner (eds), 2011. Ethnobiology. Weinheim (Germany): Wiley-VCH.

Adrien Dolivo, 2010. Plantes Medicinales du Monde. Médecines traditionnelles et phytothérapie moderne. Bussigny (Switzerland): Rossolis-Musée botanique cantonal de Lausanne.

Ramesh Bhandari, 2010. Ethnobotany: The Renaissance of Traditional Herbal Medicine. Darya Ganj, Delhi (India): Cyber Tech Publications.

Mahendra K. Rai, Deepak Acharya, and Jose Luis Rios, 2011. Ethnomedicinal Plants: Revitalization of Traditional Knowledge of Herbs. Science Publishers: Enfield, NH (USA) (distributed by Taylor & Francis).