Flower Power Garden Hour 121: Dr. Cassandra Quave, The Plant Hunter: A Scientist’s Quest for Nature’s Next Medicines

Dr. Cassandra Quave is a botanist extraordinaire. I was fortunate to chat about her early life, career path, and her new book “The Plant Hunter: A Scientist’s Quest for Nature’s Next Medicines.” Book Description: In The Plant Hunter, Dr. Quave weaves together science, botany, and memoir to tell us the extraordinary story of her own journey. Traveling by canoe, ATV, mule, airboat, and on foot, she has conducted field research in the flooded forests of the remote Amazon, the murky swamps of southern Florida, the rolling hills of central Italy, isolated mountaintops in Albania and Kosovo, and volcanic isles arising out of the Mediterranean — all in search of natural compounds, long-known to traditional healers, that could help save us all from the looming crisis of untreatable superbugs. And as a person born with multiple congenital defects of her skeletal system, she's done it all with just one leg. Filled with grit, tragedy, triumph, awe, and scientific discovery, her story illuminates how the path forward for medical discovery may be found in nature's oldest remedies.   “The Plant Hunter: A Scientist’s Quest for Nature’s Next Medicines” can be found at penguinrandomhouse.com   Cassandra can be followed at: Instagram: @quavesthnobot Twitter: @QuaveEthnobot Podcast: foodiepharmacology.podbean.com Website: cassandraquave.com   To ask questions for future shows, submit them at: Facebook Instagram email Marlene at [email protected]   Find Marlene over on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook