I found 6 Books in Abysmal Sea at the vendors :
Letters of Jonas Vol 1 -6 .
I've been trying to do the 1st potion listed in Vol 1.
...he threw some sticklewort, a single sage leaf, and three leaves I recognized as nightshade...into a medicine bag and proceeded to pulp the leaves into a liquid. Pouring the noisome concoction into a vial, he handed it to me.
I put 1 single sage leaf, 3 nightshade unstacked, a vial, a cork and 4 sticklewort in nre 10 slot potion bag and got nothing, tried, 3 stickle, 2 and 1, w/o cork, w/0 vial, all combos i could think of, and nothing. /shrug
I saw on some vendors that there were a single leaf of xxxxx, handful of xxxxx, sprig of xxxxx, dash of xxxx, etc. plus lots of herbs with just their name, like Benzoin.