November 2023 news!
What happened in November 2023 at Phyto-info… we tell you all about it!
Hello everyone 🌿
When I was a kid and went to school in the village next door (by bike, on foot or by sledge, depending on the weather), I was at the front row to watch the cuckoo return from the fields in early spring. I would exaggerate a bit by saying that we no longer knew where to cheer up because there were so many of them, but still, the cuckoo was there, and he liked it. Today, I am thrilled when I find a location, but I don’t dare to pick them anymore… I just admire them.
The field cuckoo, or cowslip, has a status of least concern on the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species (IUCN), its loss of speed being mainly due to urbanization and excessive harvesting. To help this wonder of nature, it’s simple, you have to give it the means to reproduce by limiting wild harvesting a bit. And for fans of its benefits, domesticate it, plant it in your garden or on your window sill 🥰
Added plants 👏
- Cowslip (Primula veris)
Cowslip will be an ally of choice in case of bronchitis and insomnia, but be careful to use it sparingly in case of wild harvesting 🤗. Discover its 68 traditional uses and how to use it on our platform.
Updates 👏
We update our plant sheets regularly, mainly due to the fact that we have new books 📚. This month it’s the turn of marshmallows, silverweed, true oxlip, St. John’s wort and three linden trees.
- Marshmallow (Althaea officinalis)
- silverweed (Potentilla anserina)
- True oxlip (Primula elatior)
- St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum)
- Small-leaved lime (Tilia cordata)
- Large-leaved lime (Tilia platyphyllos)
- Lime (Tilia x europaea)
Re-discover the actions of all these plants on our platform.
First workshop 👏
Our very first workshop took place in mid-November. It was an afternoon full of enthusiasm and sharing around plant galenics, namely the different preparation methods to optimize their benefits. A big thank you to the participants. No doubt, we will repeat the experience 🥰
Behind the scenes of our website 👏
Here are some excerpts from the thinking behind the construction of our website, told by Nico, our developer. You will find the entire article on his site.
🌿 What if we made a good site?
I spent 20 years of my life creating sites that sell stuff. So, once I have free rein and the purpose of the site is purely informational (without trying to force people into a buying tunnel with dark patterns at all costs), I wanted to make sure to provide this information in a modern, ethical, and comfortable way to our members and the public.
🌿 Know as little as possible about the user
My fear was to use a conventional search engine: the user sends their search to the server, the server processes the search and returns the answers to it. By doing this, we can therefore know who, by name, was looking for what (!) And that was out of the question. So I opted for a more laborious solution, but much more privacy-friendly.
🌿 Minimal third-party statistics and services
We have no statistics module on the browser side (Google Analytics or other), no cookie, no third party service apart from sending emails and online payment for membership. Even our server is managed and hosted by us. We really did our best to protect the user and her privacy.
🌿 Passwordless authentication
For the authentication of our subscribers, we have opted for email authentication only. The site sends an email to the user containing a code valid for a few minutes. We don’t store passwords. So we don’t risk having our password database stolen.
🌿 Accessibility
I wanted a site and a search tool that worked regardless of the browser, disability, connection quality, device used, etc. For example, the site uses ARIA tags to help people with disabilities read and use the site. The site is as lightweight as possible. As I write these lines, the home page weighs 0.3Mb to display. For comparison, the Bon Coin homepage weighs 13 Mb. You can access the site and the data even without activating javascript, etc.
🌿 🌻 🌾
This was the news for our month of November, if you are interested in our search tool, more info on phyto-info.com.
To discover our plant finder, head to this page.
And if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us 🤗
Next newsletter in a month! Stay tuned!