Wildflowers and herbs have been useful to mankind in many ways, ever since the beginning of our history, other than subject matter for art and needlepoint. Lately, alternative medicine has taken over part of the front seat for medicinal purposes, due to the each individual wanting some say-so in their medical choices.

Wild plants provide over 25% of the basic ingredients for our modern medicine. Further, some 80% of all pharmaceutical products contain some sort of natural wildflower or herbal product. These statistics show the remarkable impact our natural flora has on man's well being world wide. But the sad fact is that on average one species of wildflower becomes extinct in each US state per year due to man's progress: water pollution, deforestation, acid rain, and strip mining.

The phrase to stop "picking the wildflowers" means many things other than simply not picking the wildflowers: it means holding onto the future of natural medicine, along with traditional drugs instead of picking the pretty wildflowers along the road, only to watch them die in a few days.

Cross-stitching can easily transfer these beautiful wildflowers into works of art for many years of personal viewing, education, and appreciating their worth and value. An excellent website, "Alternative Nature Online Herbal", at www.altnature.com , has many identification photos of these wildflowers, along with their medicinal purposes for many diseases and alternative methods. Many other links, information, and leads are on this website about wildflowers.

Another good website is American Meadows Wildflower Information Lookup at http://www.wildflowerinformation.org/MedicinalWildflowers.asp. Check them out, and you will be astounded at the quality of the photographs and artwork, along with the educational aspects of each plant.

Some high points I found while doing the Internet wildflower research, regarding wildflowers being used for medicinal purposes are: the Madagascar periwinkle, which makes "vincristine" that is used for children with leukemia, increasing their survival rate from 20% to 80%; another one is the Pacific Yew, which forms the drug "taxol" that is now working with many forms of cancer research, which includes ovarian cancer.

The usage of wildflowers for either a beauty form or alternative medicine is becoming very popular during this period in the United States, but has been used for many centuries in other countries for medicine. So, by doing a cross stitch of your favorite wildflower you are tapping into art, history, and medicine at the same time. What a gift this would be for yourself or someone special!

It is widely known that wildflowers are plants that have not changed much over the years, so there is no change in design for the cross stitch work; they are easy to identify and design in today's times with the Internet available for lots of research.

It is wise to choose the wildflowers that are native to the area you live in for your subject matter; also, if you are making the wildflower cross stitch design for a gift, choose the wildflowers that are native to where the recipient lives. Some ideas are: a cancer quilt, with many of the wildflowers that are presently being used for cancer research (ex: "mayapples" form podophyllin); a heart quilt, with the wildflowers being used for heat disease.

Personally, I would go for a visual effect while designing the cross-stitch wildflowers. Choosing the silken threads for the texture of the flowers on the cross-stitch, and the cotton threads for the leaves and stems would appeal to the eyes, unless the flowers are of the textured coarse type.

Get to know the flowers; touching them if possible, or smelling the fragrance that gently lifts from its beauty, will help with the actual true design you create. The wild sunflower has shades of yellow and golden orange petals with dark sienna and rust centers, and shades of green leaves and stems.

The background can be white, light lavender, or even black if you use the fluorescent colors. Leaving the root and base of the plant as part of its design, can give it a "real look" as compared to a fake artificial plastic look. Also, subtle words of its medicinal properties can be placed lightly behind it for the complete aspect of the plant. Your design, your choice ? so enjoy!