I have herbs! Now what...?

I have recently become enthused with plants that are medicinal herbs. Every time I found a new plant, I search the internet for all the uses of it. I have been acquainted with Mountain Pinks flower here in central Texas. It also goes by Rock Centaury and Quinine Weed (Centaurium beyrichii). I found it was used as tea by native Americans and pioneers to reduce fevers. So I harvested, dried, and now stored the leaves and flowers of the plant. But I can't find out how much to use in a batch... is there a way to find out? Some kind of database? Or anyone with experience in this?

Thanks in advance!

I am not familiar with any of those you mentioned, but generally tea takes 1 teasp. to 1 tablsp. of the dried herb. However some strong herbs would need less. Lobelia, good in cough tea combination has to be taken in small amounts, because larger ones can make person to throw up. If you can't find any information about dosage, then I would start with very small amount and then increase gradually.

Joy,

Thank you for the comment. I'm surprised how hard it can be to find information on herbs, just what they can do but no recipes. Next time I have a fever I'll give your advice a try! Thanks again!

http://www.henriettes-herb.com/eclectic/kings/index.html

This is a great resource for traditional and historical uses in general though the plant you are looking at has such a small range it probably won't show up in many reference sources.

However, I thought I remembered seeing this plant in Michael Moore's Materia Medica and checked. It is there. Same part of the country (southwest) as you are so this is likely to be a resource you want to keep close at hand. I think for copyright reasons I should not copy over the specific dosages, but it is user friendly and all the keys are explained in the front of the manual. Let me know if I can help if you have trouble finding the info.
http://www.swsbm.com/ManualsMM/MatMed5.pdf

Judi Anne wrote:However, I thought I remembered seeing this plant in Michael Moore's Materia Medica and checked. It is there.

Judi, thanks for the awesome resources. I'll definitely hold on to them. While I was doing research on the plant, I found out it had a name change in 2004, from Centaurium b. to Zeltnera b. The zeltnera family does not appear in that list. I don't know if it'll still work, but I'll test it when I get the need to use it. Thanks again!