Magical and Mundane Plants - A Wizard's (and Witche's) Guide
written by Katherine Lutz
This book will guide you through all that you need to know in your primary years at Hogwarts in the subject Herbology. Enjoy!!
Last Updated
05/31/21
Chapters
106
Reads
2,247
USE OF HERBOLOGY IN OTHER SUBJECTS
Chapter 103
This chapter we will be discussing the use of Herbology in other subjects. As you will remember, we briefly touched on the use of Herbology in potions, as the classes are clearly linked. In this lesson, we are going to take a look at areas where Herbology is utilized in other subject areas. This will help all of you to understand why Herbology is a fundamental field of magic, as well as help you to be able to hold conversations on the importance of this subject in other fields of magic.
Care of Magical Creatures
First, we are going to touch on how Herbology relates to Care of Magical Creatures. Herbs are at the bottom of every food chain, thus making Herbology essential to the survival of any animal. Plants are eaten by creatures, and plants are eaten by bugs that are eaten by creatures. Having the right food sources around are essential to the continuation of any species of animal that one might try to care for. The other reason Herbology is important to the field of CoMC is that certain herbs attract species by their scent. Magical birds enjoy the scent and colours of very particular magical flowers; the same goes with fairies. Other lowland creatures enjoy rolling in certain herbs to cover themselves with the scent which pleases them. Any tracker working in the Ministry's Magical Creatures Department is aware of what herbs and scents will attract which beasts, and also which scents will ward off other unwelcome creatures when working in the field.
Divination
Tea leaves are perhaps the most obvious overlap between Herbology and Divination, and as such you will be learning about the subject in more detail in your Divination class. Some interesting things to note is that leaves that come from non-magical plants work equally as well as leaves that come from magical plants. Many people prefer leaves from magical plants, as it makes them see the process as more mystical. Any type of leaf may be used (true Seers may read any tea-leaves); however flavoured teas (such as a fruit tea) or teas with strong odours can cause a mis-read. Your Divination class (if you so choose that elective) will cover standard tea-leaves, also known as Oolong leaves. Most educational facilities use Oolong leaves as it is noted that students have the easiest time interpreting with them, which is helpful for beginners.
Followers of Roman religion, Serer religion, and many other pagan rites place some emphasis on Divination involving plants. (Christianity, of course, has methods of divining as well, just none that directly use plants, only indirectly, as in dreams).
Let’s look at a couple other methods of Divination involving plants. There is Alphitomancy, which uses the non-magical plant of barley, which is a member of the grass family. In this method the barley ought to be fresh, and its colour should be a bright yellow. This practice of divining is often used to figure out who in a group is guilty of wrongdoing. Another divination practice involving plants is Anthomancy. Anthomancy uses flowers (with at least eight petals) to discover information about the future. This method is often preferred for one having questions about romance. Petals from the flower are dropped onto a flat plane, and a seer is able to read the signs. One last method involves the burning of plants, more specifically fresh sage or figs.This practice is called Botonomancy.
Transfiguration
What is important in understanding the transfiguration of plants, is a complete mystery. As witches and wizards, we are going to try and understand this anyway, to the best of our abilities. First of all, let’s look at what happens when a plant, or plant based product, is transfigured. Well, we first need to look at what makes something what it is before it is transfigured. What is a grape? Well, a grape is "a berry, usually green [though classified as white], purple, red, or black, growing in clusters on a grapevine, eaten as fruit, and used in making wine," but there is more to the grape than that. There is something about grape that makes it grape, and we call that an object's essence. You can mush the grape, dry the grape, hide the grape in a dark room, but there is still something about that grape which makes it a grape… the grape has something that is its grapeness.
As you will probably remember from Transfiguration class, the word transfiguration comes from the Latin transfigurationem, an action based noun which denotes “a change of form.” What is interesting about this, of course, is that in the muggle world, until the 16th Century, all references to transfiguration were in reference to Jesus of Nazareth. Accounts of Jesus’ transfiguration may be found in three of the gospels: Matthew 17:1–9, Mark 9:2-8, and Luke 9:28–36. Basically, the apostles’ accounts testify that three of them (traditionally John, James, and Peter) accompany Jesus onto a mountain, where he is transformed before their eyes into a glorified state, so that the apostles might recognize what is to come. This is classified as a metamorphous, and does not affect Herbology until you take into account the second instance of the word transfiguration that was not exclusive to wizards. The other matter of transfiguration related to Jesus deals more closely with plants. Without getting into great details about biblical history, before Jesus was crucified he took bread (grain) and wine (grapes) and told his disciples that these substances were to be his body and blood. To this day, every hour around the world in Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches, liturgies are celebrated where communities gather to participate in an event of transfiguration, where (according to believers) the bread loses its bread-ness, while remaining in the image of bread, and is replaced by the presence of Jesus. Likewise, the wine is thought to lose its wine-ness, and become the blood of Jesus. Especially important about this transfiguration, is that the Christians partaking in the meal are under the understanding that the essence that has replaced the grain-ness of the bread, that has replaced the wine-ness of the wine, is alive. Also, this transfiguration is only present inwardly; the formation is of the essence, and not of the physical character of the wine or bread (this type of unique transfiguration is called transubstantiation). You will of course be learning about the possibilities of live to life transfiguration in your transfiguration classes; however, it is important to note that in the transfiguration done by wizards, when a ferret becomes a dog, it retains its ferret-ness while taking on an appearance of dog-ness. In the transfiguration which the muggle world is also aware of, they hold the belief that the former essence is lost, unless there is a re-transfiguration (or, in wizarding terms, untransfiguration).
It is really difficult to find many other instances of muggle awareness of transfiguration. Muggle scientists who deal with plants sometimes work at altering the cells of plants, or the molecular identity of the seed so that the plant will grow into something other than what it was originally meant to be. This works by scientists adding/fusing new genetic material into the seed and/or plant. The effects of this varies (sometimes a strain of plant will be infected, sometimes the healing properties of the plant will change). There are no other records of muggles using the term in regards to plants.
One last important thing to note about the transfiguration of plants include that while the plant will stop growing when transfigured with wizarding magic, the essence of the plant remains the same, and will return unto itself to continue life as a plant.
Defense Against the Dark Arts
Herbology has an interesting place in the field of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Dark wizards like to think one step ahead of everyone else, and often utilize plants to invoke their ill intent upon others.
One strong example of the use of dark magic on plants would be "Hungry grass," a phenomena noted in some muggle literature. Dark wizards curse the grass (or a field of any plant, such as strawberries, daisies, et cetera) so that when an unsuspecting victim wanders into the field, he or she becomes mad with hunger. The wander traverses through the field, losing all sense of direction due to a sense of overwhelming hunger. Whoever finds themselves trapped in the field will wander within feet of a road, and be unable to see it. The only known way to survive this curse is to cause yourself so much physical pain that you are distracted from the hunger long enough to get out of the field. Some wizards have been known to, as soon as they start to feel hungry, eat a snack. If the snack makes no difference to their hunger, they instantly disapparate away from the location before the hunger-curse can take over. Death eaters often employed this curse over farms where muggles worked, for the fun of knowing the muggle would die of exposure or hunger, whichever came first.
A second way Dark Wizards utilize Herbology is by placing dangerous herbs in convenient locations for assassination attempts. As mentioned in the year one lesson on Devil's Snare Broderick Bode was a victim to assassination by Devil's Snare on the 10th of January, 1996 (during the second wizarding war). Bode worked as an Unspeakable for the Ministry of Magic, ended up at St Mungo's after an altercation involving Death Eaters and the Hall of Prophecies. When he began to recover, Death Eaters sent him a ‘Christmas gift’ and the Devil’s Snare strangled Broderick Bode during the night. This was a public embarrassment for St Mungo's, who launched an inquiry as to why the plant had been allowed to remain at Bode’s bedside.
Charms
Charms and Herbology overlap on happy occasions. Have you ever had a Christmas Tree sing carols to you as you pass by? What about a time you might have received a serenading rose on Valentines day? Perhaps you’ve received a daisy or daffodil singing Happy Birthday to you. While there are various charms that may be placed on plants, people are often most familiar with ‘Singing Herbs.’ Other charms often associated with plants include levitating charms, as many people like to have their flower pots resting in midair, especially when decorating for a party.
Potions
As we have already studied this in class (year one week two), we are going to review a couple details of how Herbology effects potions.
A large emphasis of the lesson was placed on Sleeping potions. From dreamless sleep potions to the Draught of Living Death, plants are known to have a strong effect on the realm of sleep. Perfume potions usually utilize plants for adding scent. Because plants are easier to obtain fresh and alive (as compared to animals and animal parts) plant ingredients are often added to potions for their freshness and naturality (especially in beauty potions).
We will be going deeper into the realm of healing Herbology. Potions brewed for healing purposes often use plants for their main healing agent. Plants are chosen based on what qualities they have which relate to healing, their toxicity level, as well as their temperament. You will remember from week seven of last year that non-magical plants are excellent for adding to potions, especially in beginner brews, because the temperaments of non-magical plants cause the risk of explosions occurring to be reduced significantly.
Care of Magical Creatures
First, we are going to touch on how Herbology relates to Care of Magical Creatures. Herbs are at the bottom of every food chain, thus making Herbology essential to the survival of any animal. Plants are eaten by creatures, and plants are eaten by bugs that are eaten by creatures. Having the right food sources around are essential to the continuation of any species of animal that one might try to care for. The other reason Herbology is important to the field of CoMC is that certain herbs attract species by their scent. Magical birds enjoy the scent and colours of very particular magical flowers; the same goes with fairies. Other lowland creatures enjoy rolling in certain herbs to cover themselves with the scent which pleases them. Any tracker working in the Ministry's Magical Creatures Department is aware of what herbs and scents will attract which beasts, and also which scents will ward off other unwelcome creatures when working in the field.
Divination
Tea leaves are perhaps the most obvious overlap between Herbology and Divination, and as such you will be learning about the subject in more detail in your Divination class. Some interesting things to note is that leaves that come from non-magical plants work equally as well as leaves that come from magical plants. Many people prefer leaves from magical plants, as it makes them see the process as more mystical. Any type of leaf may be used (true Seers may read any tea-leaves); however flavoured teas (such as a fruit tea) or teas with strong odours can cause a mis-read. Your Divination class (if you so choose that elective) will cover standard tea-leaves, also known as Oolong leaves. Most educational facilities use Oolong leaves as it is noted that students have the easiest time interpreting with them, which is helpful for beginners.
Followers of Roman religion, Serer religion, and many other pagan rites place some emphasis on Divination involving plants. (Christianity, of course, has methods of divining as well, just none that directly use plants, only indirectly, as in dreams).
Let’s look at a couple other methods of Divination involving plants. There is Alphitomancy, which uses the non-magical plant of barley, which is a member of the grass family. In this method the barley ought to be fresh, and its colour should be a bright yellow. This practice of divining is often used to figure out who in a group is guilty of wrongdoing. Another divination practice involving plants is Anthomancy. Anthomancy uses flowers (with at least eight petals) to discover information about the future. This method is often preferred for one having questions about romance. Petals from the flower are dropped onto a flat plane, and a seer is able to read the signs. One last method involves the burning of plants, more specifically fresh sage or figs.This practice is called Botonomancy.
Transfiguration
What is important in understanding the transfiguration of plants, is a complete mystery. As witches and wizards, we are going to try and understand this anyway, to the best of our abilities. First of all, let’s look at what happens when a plant, or plant based product, is transfigured. Well, we first need to look at what makes something what it is before it is transfigured. What is a grape? Well, a grape is "a berry, usually green [though classified as white], purple, red, or black, growing in clusters on a grapevine, eaten as fruit, and used in making wine," but there is more to the grape than that. There is something about grape that makes it grape, and we call that an object's essence. You can mush the grape, dry the grape, hide the grape in a dark room, but there is still something about that grape which makes it a grape… the grape has something that is its grapeness.
As you will probably remember from Transfiguration class, the word transfiguration comes from the Latin transfigurationem, an action based noun which denotes “a change of form.” What is interesting about this, of course, is that in the muggle world, until the 16th Century, all references to transfiguration were in reference to Jesus of Nazareth. Accounts of Jesus’ transfiguration may be found in three of the gospels: Matthew 17:1–9, Mark 9:2-8, and Luke 9:28–36. Basically, the apostles’ accounts testify that three of them (traditionally John, James, and Peter) accompany Jesus onto a mountain, where he is transformed before their eyes into a glorified state, so that the apostles might recognize what is to come. This is classified as a metamorphous, and does not affect Herbology until you take into account the second instance of the word transfiguration that was not exclusive to wizards. The other matter of transfiguration related to Jesus deals more closely with plants. Without getting into great details about biblical history, before Jesus was crucified he took bread (grain) and wine (grapes) and told his disciples that these substances were to be his body and blood. To this day, every hour around the world in Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches, liturgies are celebrated where communities gather to participate in an event of transfiguration, where (according to believers) the bread loses its bread-ness, while remaining in the image of bread, and is replaced by the presence of Jesus. Likewise, the wine is thought to lose its wine-ness, and become the blood of Jesus. Especially important about this transfiguration, is that the Christians partaking in the meal are under the understanding that the essence that has replaced the grain-ness of the bread, that has replaced the wine-ness of the wine, is alive. Also, this transfiguration is only present inwardly; the formation is of the essence, and not of the physical character of the wine or bread (this type of unique transfiguration is called transubstantiation). You will of course be learning about the possibilities of live to life transfiguration in your transfiguration classes; however, it is important to note that in the transfiguration done by wizards, when a ferret becomes a dog, it retains its ferret-ness while taking on an appearance of dog-ness. In the transfiguration which the muggle world is also aware of, they hold the belief that the former essence is lost, unless there is a re-transfiguration (or, in wizarding terms, untransfiguration).
It is really difficult to find many other instances of muggle awareness of transfiguration. Muggle scientists who deal with plants sometimes work at altering the cells of plants, or the molecular identity of the seed so that the plant will grow into something other than what it was originally meant to be. This works by scientists adding/fusing new genetic material into the seed and/or plant. The effects of this varies (sometimes a strain of plant will be infected, sometimes the healing properties of the plant will change). There are no other records of muggles using the term in regards to plants.
One last important thing to note about the transfiguration of plants include that while the plant will stop growing when transfigured with wizarding magic, the essence of the plant remains the same, and will return unto itself to continue life as a plant.
Defense Against the Dark Arts
Herbology has an interesting place in the field of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Dark wizards like to think one step ahead of everyone else, and often utilize plants to invoke their ill intent upon others.
One strong example of the use of dark magic on plants would be "Hungry grass," a phenomena noted in some muggle literature. Dark wizards curse the grass (or a field of any plant, such as strawberries, daisies, et cetera) so that when an unsuspecting victim wanders into the field, he or she becomes mad with hunger. The wander traverses through the field, losing all sense of direction due to a sense of overwhelming hunger. Whoever finds themselves trapped in the field will wander within feet of a road, and be unable to see it. The only known way to survive this curse is to cause yourself so much physical pain that you are distracted from the hunger long enough to get out of the field. Some wizards have been known to, as soon as they start to feel hungry, eat a snack. If the snack makes no difference to their hunger, they instantly disapparate away from the location before the hunger-curse can take over. Death eaters often employed this curse over farms where muggles worked, for the fun of knowing the muggle would die of exposure or hunger, whichever came first.
A second way Dark Wizards utilize Herbology is by placing dangerous herbs in convenient locations for assassination attempts. As mentioned in the year one lesson on Devil's Snare Broderick Bode was a victim to assassination by Devil's Snare on the 10th of January, 1996 (during the second wizarding war). Bode worked as an Unspeakable for the Ministry of Magic, ended up at St Mungo's after an altercation involving Death Eaters and the Hall of Prophecies. When he began to recover, Death Eaters sent him a ‘Christmas gift’ and the Devil’s Snare strangled Broderick Bode during the night. This was a public embarrassment for St Mungo's, who launched an inquiry as to why the plant had been allowed to remain at Bode’s bedside.
Charms
Charms and Herbology overlap on happy occasions. Have you ever had a Christmas Tree sing carols to you as you pass by? What about a time you might have received a serenading rose on Valentines day? Perhaps you’ve received a daisy or daffodil singing Happy Birthday to you. While there are various charms that may be placed on plants, people are often most familiar with ‘Singing Herbs.’ Other charms often associated with plants include levitating charms, as many people like to have their flower pots resting in midair, especially when decorating for a party.
Potions
As we have already studied this in class (year one week two), we are going to review a couple details of how Herbology effects potions.
A large emphasis of the lesson was placed on Sleeping potions. From dreamless sleep potions to the Draught of Living Death, plants are known to have a strong effect on the realm of sleep. Perfume potions usually utilize plants for adding scent. Because plants are easier to obtain fresh and alive (as compared to animals and animal parts) plant ingredients are often added to potions for their freshness and naturality (especially in beauty potions).
We will be going deeper into the realm of healing Herbology. Potions brewed for healing purposes often use plants for their main healing agent. Plants are chosen based on what qualities they have which relate to healing, their toxicity level, as well as their temperament. You will remember from week seven of last year that non-magical plants are excellent for adding to potions, especially in beginner brews, because the temperaments of non-magical plants cause the risk of explosions occurring to be reduced significantly.
