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With over 50 years as the leading expert in herbal wellness, Traditional Medicinals is bringing that deep-rooted knowledge to a wider audience through a new educational video platform: The Plant Wisdom Collective.
Growing up in the Dolomites, a mountain range in the northeastern Italian Alps, herbalist Guido Masé was immersed in folklore and mythical locales. As a boy, he learned about spirits in the hills, the power of plants, and rituals that offered a glimpse into an unseen world.
“I hiked around the mountains collecting berries, mushrooms, and the flowers of elder and arnica to make remedies for the family,” he remembers. “It wasn’t until my late teens that I realized herbalism held both lenses in a single art: folklore and herbal traditions, combined with biochemistry and human physiology as a way of approaching the world around us.”
Today, that education serves Masé well as principal scientist and head formulator at Traditional Medicinals, an independent herbal wellness brand committed to sustainability, ingredient purity and efficacy, and social and environmental responsibility.
With over 50 years as the leading expert in herbal wellness, Traditional Medicinals is bringing that deep-rooted knowledge to a wider audience through a new educational video platform: The Plant Wisdom Collective. Led by Masé and Taryn Forrelli, ND, Traditional Medicinals’ chief science officer, the four-part series explores the roots of herbalism, the value of high-quality sourcing, and how tradition and science converge in modern herbal formulations. The series reveals what makes herbs truly powerful — from how they’re grown to how they’re blended for taste and function.
“Part of the impetus for launch of the Plant Wisdom Collective was the desire to share something we hold dear: the resilience that comes from engaging with plant wisdom, from joining in this chemistry of communion, and how it can change lives even with very simple, accessible steps,” Masé says.
The series builds on Traditional Medicinals’ storytelling roots as cultivated by co-founder Rosemary Gladstar, a pioneering voice in modern herbalism. “Rosemary has always been an exceptional teacher and storyteller. She helped me understand how a good story — a meaning-making experience for those listening — is almost as important as the remedy itself,” Masé says. “In that sense, Rosemary has been advancing herbal education her entire life and in doing so, delivering wellness at the same time.”
Herbalism is both the remedy itself (the plant, tea or extract) and the story behind it — knowledge passed down from one generation to the next. From Indigenous oral tradition to fairytales like Rapunzel and Snow White, human storytelling has always involved plants. Yet ancient herbalism intersects with modern science, too.
Many of today’s pharmaceuticals have roots in traditional herbal remedies. The heart medication digoxin, for example, is derived from the flowering foxglove plant, while aspirin is made with a compound derived from the bark of white willow trees. Modern research also supports the use of many ancient herbal remedies with evidence, from taking ginger for an upset stomach to drinking hibiscus tea regularly for heart health.
“The study of herbalism is showing that modern science can, with the right type of research, begin to understand why humans employed certain traditional practices and the nowledge they carry,” Masé explains.
Traditional Medicinals makes more than 60 organic teas and lozenges formulated from time-honored and evidence-based ingredients that are sourced responsibly from around the world. Certifications like FairWild and Fair for Life safeguard worker standards across the company’s value chain while also ensuring consistency and the highest quality of herbal ingredients.
In the United States, most people don’t ordinarily connect with herbs in their daily lives today. Many have limited familiarity with plants and their qualities, the places they grow, and the people who steward them.
This is not the case for many cultures and places in the world, where herbalism is a common practice, similar to learning how to cook. “The U.S. is actually a bit of an anomaly globally,” Masé says. “For whatever reason, herbal knowledge is not ‘culturally baked-in’ in this country, although folk traditions from Appalachian herbalism to Native American herbalism to African-American herbalism have always kept the faith and stewarded the knowledge.”
Still, he worries too many of us are losing our connection to nature along with the health-supporting benefits that plants can provide. “We are in a precarious place right now,” he says. “What we don’t want is to commodify these herbs, race to the lowest price, or start tweaking their chemical profile or extracting individual constituents. This will leave behind the meaning, much of the value and disempower the traditional holders of this knowledge: the small-scale wild collector, the wise woman of the neighborhood, the kitchen herbalist for the family.”
Decentralizing herbal knowledge is the aim of The Plant Wisdom Collective, so that anyone can learn to use herbs to engage with wellness in everyday life.
The educational video series is grounded, non-technical and delivered in a viewer-friendly format. “We remind folks that plants are living beings, with a context and environment all their own,” Masé says. “We also encourage those who explore the series to prepare, taste and experience the herbs for themselves.”
The goal is to help people feel confident exploring the benefits of key herbal allies, understand how herbs can support their health, and recognize the signs of good quality in herbs and herbal remedies.
Beyond individual health, Masé sees reviving plant wisdom as a benefit for everyone. “As people understand how herbs show up in the modern world, their benefits and power, they can contribute to our shared mission for a thriving, connected, ecologically aware human society.”
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