http://www.stevenfoster.com/herbalblog Author, photographer, and consultant specializing in medicinal and aromatic plants. Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:43:58 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en My artistic goal as a photographer specializing in medicinal and aromatic plants, is to capture the spirit and botanical beauty-in-form using natural ambient light. As a medicinal plant specialist and photographer, my work takes me around the world. Photo equipment is ever present. In my botanical photography, color, form and ... http://www.stevenfoster.com/herbalblog/?p=1 Our main business is licensing stock photos from our collections of over 150,000 images of medicinal and aromatic plants, herbs, wildflowers and other botanicals from every continent except Antarctica. All images are "rights protected" rather than "royalty free." Licensing of stock photos is usually on a one-time, non-exclusive basis per ... http://www.stevenfoster.com/herbalblog/?p=20 Rehmannia, di-huang, Rehmannia glutinosa (Scrophulariaceae, sometimes placed in the Gesneriaceae, and now with new genetic information, placed in the Plantaginaceae-who would have guessed based on morphological features!) is a widely used drug in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). There are as many varieties of Rehmannia in China as apples in the ... http://www.stevenfoster.com/herbalblog/?p=51 If you're not looking for them, you probably won't see them. The tiny flowers of Maryland figwort Scrophularia marilandica, a member of the figwort family (Scrophulariaceae), range from reddish to almost brown in color. The flowers look like a miniature upside down scoop. The leaves and the root have been ... http://www.stevenfoster.com/herbalblog/?p=50 One of the most beautiful fall wildflowers, cardinal flower Lobelia cardinalis, has striking scarlet blooms. It's a difficult plant to photograph because the vibrant flowers have a somewhat reflective texture making it easy to get an over-exposure blowing out details. Therefore, if using a reflective metering system, the photographer must ... http://www.stevenfoster.com/herbalblog/?p=47 American hogpeanut Amphicarpaea bracteata is one of those wildflowers you might not notice if you weren't look for it. This member of the pea family has an edible root and apparently edible seed pods. The Pawnee are said to have collected and eaten the tiny beans found in the seed ... http://www.stevenfoster.com/herbalblog/?p=48 Several members of the genus Bidens are referred to by the common name "Spanish needles." A rather small inconspicuous plant that most might call a "weed" Spanish needles Bidens bipinnata, an aster family member (Asteraceae), has bipinnate (twice pinnately divided) leaves as the species name implies. An obscure medicinal plant, ... http://www.stevenfoster.com/herbalblog/?p=49 Elderberry bushes were in full fruit a week ago. Today, however, all of the fruits are gone. We managed to spend a couple hours shooting them in their prime. See our new elderberry images. http://www.stevenfoster.com/herbalblog/?p=46 There are several genera of cactus native to desert regions of North and South America that are known as Night-blooming Cereus. In my neighborhood, the most commonly grown species is Epiphyllum oxypetalum. My neighbor's twenty-year old plant bloomed for the first time last night. This species is native to southern ... http://www.stevenfoster.com/herbalblog/?p=45 An endless source of frustration for gardeners, casual plant lovers, and even professional botanists is the endless name changing game, which seems to be more about some taxonomist somewhere seeing their name in print than providing a nomenclature that is useful and stable. If the botanical "code" like the zoological ... http://www.stevenfoster.com/herbalblog/?p=44