Leslie Taylor is one of the world's leading experts on rainforest medicinal plants. She founded, managed, and directed the Raintree group of companies from 1995 to 2012, and was a leader in creating a worldwide market for the important medicinal plants of the Amazon rainforest. Having survived a rare form of leukemia only because of alternative health and herbal medicine, Leslie has been researching, studying, and documenting alternative healing modalities-including herbal medicine-for more than thirty years. A dedicated herbalist and naturopath, she developed many herbal formulas and remedies for her companies, for practitioners, and for individuals needing help. In 1995, while researching alternative AIDS and cancer therapies in Europe, Leslie became aware of a medicinal plant from the Peruvian rainforest called cat's claw. This research took her to the Peruvian rainforest to gain firsthand knowledge about this new medicinal plant. Upon her return, she founded Raintree Nutrition, Inc., to make this important rainforest medicinal plant and others available in the United States. After that first trip, Leslie returned to the Amazon numerous times, continuing to research and document more rainforest medicinal plants. In these endeavors, she worked directly with indigenous Indian shamans and healers, learning about their use of healing plants, as well as with indigenous tribal communities and other rainforest communities. She also worked with phytochemists, botanists, ethnobotanists, researchers, and alternative and integrative health practitioners to document, research, test, and validate rainforest medicinal plants. In 2012, with many other companies selling the rainforest plants that she had introduced to the United States, she decided to close her business and naturopathic practice and devote herself to educating people about the benefits of medicinal plants. She freely shared all her proprietary formulas by posting them on the Raintree website so that anyone can make and use them. Now, Leslie Taylor remains a trusted source of factual information about rainforest medicinal plants and continues to update the Tropical Plant Database for these purposes. A practicing board certified naturopath for many years (now retired), she has lectured and taught classes in naturopathic medicine, herbal medicine, and ethnobotany, as well as environmental and sustainability issues in the Amazon rainforest. She is the author of Herbal Secrets of the Rainforest and of the best-selling The Healing Power of Rainforest Herbs, as well as the highly popular and extensively referenced Raintree Tropical Plant Database (http: //www.rain-tree.com/plants.htm), which has been online since 1996. More information about Leslie Taylor and her other books can be found at http: //rain-tree.com/author.htm and on her Amazon Author Page. She also has a personal blog where you can ask questions and share your results using chanca piedra with others at http: //leslie-taylor-raintree.blogspot.com.
