About Us
A Thousand Leaves is a small, community-centered herb shop specializing in high-quality medicinal herbs, culinary spices, and teas. We also carry tinctures, salves, hydrosols, burnables, books and zines, and other local goods.
This heart-filled space is a long time dream of a local herbalist LeAnn Averell, who recognized the need for a medicinal herb shop in Gainesville, FL, not only for herbal supply, but also as a place to build herbal community and provide educational resources around plant medicine and conservation.
We Believe Herbal Medicine…
…is and always has been the medicine of the people, and that people should have access to this knowledge. We strive to empower our community in supporting their own health and wellness through education. In addition to carrying high quality medicinal herbs, we are committed to providing a space for people to learn about herbs, health, and wellness.
Our Mission
A Thousand Leaves is dedicated to serving as a community resource for plant knowledge, remedies, healing, and social change in the city of Gainesville, Florida. We believe that health care is a right, not a privilege, and that herbal healthcare can be a cost-effective, accessible, and transformative part of creating a healthier life for ourselves and those around us. We provide access to medicinal herbs, herbal products, and herbal knowledge, with an emphasis on promoting healthy nutrition and lifestyle choices. We choose to support, whenever possible, local and regional growers, farmers, and plant communities. We honor the plants as our teachers and uphold strict ethical standards regarding the harvest and use of medicinal herbs.
Meet our Team
LeAnn Averell
LeAnn weaves a love for deep ecology, medicinal plants, and vitalism into her work as a community and clinical herbalist. She started studying herbs formally in 2007- already coming from a background in environmental advocacy and gardening- and has been fascinated with plant medicine ever since.
Her work as an herbalist and educator revolve around self and community empowerment, resilience, equal access, promoting local plant-based healthcare, and the sharing and spreading of herbal knowledge. She focuses on educating her clients so that they may be inspired to continue on a path to learn more about herbal medicine. Using an integrative approach, she uses her knowledge of many traditions to treat every client she works with.
LeAnn views herbal medicine as a way to reconnect with the world around us. She sees herbalism as an empowering path for addressing injustice in health care, and this is what initially inspired her path to learn more about plant medicine. She is passionate about interconnected issues within the community and study of herbal medicine. She believes that supporting wellness implies recognizing the impact of structural forces on the health of individuals and communities, and acknowledging the effects of racism, misogyny, poverty, transphobia and homophobia as important aspects of health and dis-ease.
LeAnn has studied with many teachers and taken many programs over the years. Nature itself is first and foremost her greatest teacher. She counts 7song and Rosemary Gladstar as early mentors, but is also profoundly impacted by the teachings and work of David Winston, Janet Kent, Michael Moore, Matthew Wood, Sajah Popham, and Thomas Easley to name a few.
She has been a Massage Therapist for over 10 years and is also a certified Doula for both birth and death, holding space for those moving through life’s transitions. She is a lifelong student of Tibetan Buddhism, Vipassana meditation, and Astrology and uses these lenses in her own healing and her practice.
She spends her time working at A Thousand Leaves, doing mutual aid with Gainesville Herbal Aid, gardening with her beloved and creating art that highlights our interdependent relationship with nature.
Susan Marynowski, M.S.
Susan has an avid mind and is always interested in learning something new and teaching others. She was first trained as a generalist, then as an artist, and then as an ecological scientist. Her interests come together in herbal medicine, where she brings an artist’s eye and a scientist’s sensibilities to understanding the patterns of medicinal plants and the functions of natural and human ecosystems. Susan has studied and practiced herbal medicine since the early 1990s. She holds a certificate from Dr. Tieraona LowDog’s “Foundations in Herbal Medicine” program, and has advanced training in cancer therapeutics, metabolic syndrome, herbal botany, herbal first aid, and functional blood chemistry analysis. She counts herbalists Patricia Kyritsi Howell and Thomas Easley as her mentors.
Susan regularly leads “wild weed walks” to examine edible and medicinal weeds, as well as teaching in more formal settings at the UF Integrative Medicine Program, the Florida School of Traditional Midwifery, the Academy for Five Element Acupuncture, the Florida Herbal Conference, and other venues. She also advocates healthy eating, leads vegetable fermentation workshops, and sponsors events with visiting herbalists. Susan was the Editor for the Journal of the American Herbalists Guild from 2015-2019. Her formal education includes a Bachelor of Fine Arts and an M.S. degree in Ecology and Public Education. She has authored or edited a number of books, articles, reports, and scientific papers. Susan wildcrafts and grows herbs and food plants with her husband on a farm near Gainesville, Florida.
Bethany Anne Valentine Moran
Bethany keeps vitalism at the core of her practice. Whether she is practicing botanical medicine, doing energy work or looking at an astrological chart she is always considering how to keep the body/mind full of vibrancy so it is resilient against stress and illness. Her goal is to set her clients on a path of healing by creating a wellness plan that is exciting and relevant to their lives! We are all unique, our wellness plans should be too.
Bethany started her herbal studies at The Northeast School of Botanical Medicine in Ithaca NY. She continued studying at The Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism in Lafayette, CO and graduated with a Certificate in Advanced Herbalism in 2020. She was attuned in upstate New York by Reiki Master & Teacher Jessica Betts in 2018. In 2023 she completed the Alchemical Herbalism course at the School of Evolutionary Herbalism which covers astrological herbalism, alchemical medicine making and philosophy.
Jena Osmani, M.S.
Jena views the Earth as her muse, and maintains a multifaceted love and passion for the plant world. She intertwines time-honored, historic uses of plants and modern scientific literature in her work with medicinal plants. Her main aim as a clinical herbalist is to honor the unique, inner ecology of the individual. Her practice is informed by her background in plant biochemistry, human physiology, and horticulture. She enjoys working with medicinal plants in all ways that are Venusian in nature - in beauty, self care, ritual, and the kitchen.
Her interest in plants began from early years of her childhood as she worked for her family’s produce business. She went on to study Biology at the University of Central Florida, and then continued her herbal education with the Florida School of Holistic Living. She completed her Master of Science in Environmental Horticulture at the University of Florida, with her research focused on seed production of regionally adapted crops in the southeastern region. She enjoys spending her free time botanizing, making fermented foods, gardening, and whipping up delicious herbal mocktails for friends.
Larsen McBride
Larsen is an urban forester and lover of trees with an interest in the way humans are an integral part of urban ecology. He acknowledges that while it can be easy to make a distinction between urban development and the non-human realms of nature, these two things are not separate. You can drive a car and live on a paved street and you are still a part of nature.
Years ago, Larsen became interested in urban gardening, not just for a food supply but also as a way to connect others with the environment around them. That passion fed an urge to understand what sustains both plants and people living in urban environments.
Today, Larsen offers data-driven research and industry standards to advise people on how to care for their trees and to advocate for the management of urban trees as a utility rather than just a landscaping decoration. Whether their use is growing food, providing shade, intercepting stormwater, or providing habitat for wildlife, Larsen wants people to help people form personally significant relationships with trees as a gateway to a deeper connection with the surrounding environment. Different individuals attach different meanings to nature, and he sees the diversity of ideas and cultures as important as the diversity of plants and animals for sustaining the web of life on this planet.
Currently, Larsen occupies his time tending a home garden, playing music, and working. He is a Certified ArboristⓇ and Tree Risk Assessment Qualified through the International Society of Arboriculture and sits on the Gainesville Tree Advisory Board. He loves to consult with residents of Alachua County about how best to maintain their trees and whether calling a tree crew is necessary. If you are interested in a tree consultation with Larsen, feel free to email him at larsenmcbride@gmail.com.