Class: Herbology (Professor Fernfoot)
Pairs with: the eight study plants that run through the whole course. Their lesson home is the Herbology class page; their hiding places are this trip.
Trip type: Grocery Store / Market / At Home
Where it works: any ordinary grocery store, supermarket, or market. No specialty shop required; the more ordinary the store, the better the trip. Free: nothing needs buying. About an hour, list in hand.
Why we're going: The whole course follows eight study plants, and it is easy to think of them as garden plants, or as names in a lesson. They are also stock. Modern shops sell them fresh, dried, bottled, and bagged, under forms the old apothecaries would mostly recognise. This trip sends the course's plant knowledge into the aisles, to prove how much of the herb world is hiding inside an ordinary weekly shop.
The mission: The eight study plants (mint, sage, thyme, rosemary, lavender, chamomile, comfrey, and mugwort) do not only live in gardens. They are hiding in an ordinary grocery store right now. Find all eight, and report exactly where each was and what form it wore. You will come home with a complete field list of the eight, their hiding places and forms, and an honest record of any your town does not sell.
What to record:
For each of the eight: where you found it, and its form (fresh bunch, potted herb, dried spice, tea, oil; stranger forms count too).
The form that surprised you most, and why.
One plant found in three different forms in the same store.
An honest "not found here" list. A plant absent from a modern shelf is evidence too; the office wants it recorded.
How it runs:
Level One — At Home: Start with your own kitchen. Search the spice rack, tea box, cupboards, freezer, and windowsill, and list every study plant already living in your house, and its form. Most households run a small apothecary unknowingly. Yours is the first store on the trip.
Level Two — In Person: Take the hunt to the store, list in hand, and work it aisle by aisle: produce, spices, teas, then the seasonal and health shelves where the shy ones hide. Comfrey and mugwort are the usual stragglers; if your store surrenders all eight, note it in your report.
Picture ideas for the gallery:
The fresh herb shelf or potted herb section where your finds began.
The strangest form you found, photographed at home if the shop prefers no cameras.
One plant in three different forms, side by side.
Your own kitchen apothecary: the spice rack and tea box that started the trip.
Etiquette & safety: Behave as a shopper, because you are in somebody's shop: do not open sealed packages, and know that a notebook is quieter than a camera. Nothing here needs buying. The standing rule holds: identification is for recording, and no plant gets used on a field trip's say-so.
Field Report: Which study plant turned up in the strangest place, and what does that say about how far it has traveled to reach your shelf? File your report in the comments below: where you went, what you found, and one thing that surprised you. Photographs go to the Field Trip Gallery through the form on the Field Trip Office page, with the town and country where they were taken.
