The American Botanical Council recently published an extensive review of the North American herb saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) in its winter issue of HerbalGram, the association’s quarterly, peer-reviewed magazine. Included is a cover story by Steven Foster, an herbal expert, author, and photographer, which explores the history of the plant’s use, trade, conservation concerns, ecology, and biology among other topics.
 
Extracts of saw palmetto berries are commonly used in dietary supplement products in the United States, and phytomedicines in Europe and elsewhere, with a common usage being for benign prostatic hyperplasia. The berries, ABC reports, rank in the top 13 herbal dietary supplement products in both mainstream and retail channels.
 
The article, “The Historical Interplay of Plant Biology, Trade, and Human Interactions with Saw Palmetto,” spans 32 pages in HerbalGram, making it the longest feature the magazine has published in its 39-year history.
 
“Saw palmetto is one of the most important Native American medicinal plants in the United States and international herb trade,” Mark Blumenthal, ABC founder and executive director and editor-in-chief of HerbalGram, said. “This fascinating and detailed article covers almost every aspect of saw palmetto, except for much of the scientific and human clinical research. This article does not deal with the many clinical trials and at least 10 meta-analyses, as they have appeared in numerous other peer-reviewed publications. Steven Foster’s information-rich article covers other ground, and it includes information never before published elsewhere. It is the seminal article which most future saw palmetto articles should cite. ABC salutes our good friend Steven for his massive undertaking and unprecedented contribution to the botanical literature.”
 
The entire supply of saw palmetto berries are wild-harvested at a rate of nearly seven million pounds of dried berries annually, making it North America’s highest-volume wild harvested herbal ingredient, Foster said. He focuses in the article on concerns regarding the sustainability of this supply, due to a combination of climate change, sea level rise, and other human activities leading to habitat loss. Foster also explores the history spanning thousands of years in which indigenous peoples in the Southeast consumed the berries as staple foods, and the shrubby palm which served a myriad of material uses. Saw palmetto first was incorporated into commercial products in 1879 as a berry oil for food and medicinal use. By the 1890s, most major drug retailers sold saw palmetto formulations. It was included in the United States Pharmacopoeia (USP) in 1905, and the National Formulary in 1926, and its derivative products are included in dietary supplement monographs in the current USP-NF 2021.
 
“My decades-long intrigue with saw palmetto was inspired and encouraged by my late friend Marlin Huffman of Plantation Botanicals, Inc., Felda, Florida to whom I dedicate the article. As a saw palmetto entrepreneur, in the 1990s he did more than almost anyone else to stimulate research on the plant and its biology,” Foster said.
 
Foster’s article includes 110 references, which include original documents and several obscure sources, along with 27 of Foster’s photographs, and a collection of historical herbal medicinal products and other artifacts.