Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants

This paperback book is 8.5" high, 5.5" wide, and 5/8" thick. A nice size for including in a backpack (inside of a protective zip lock bag, of course.)Prior to any of the chapters on specific plant species, there is a very useful "Pictoral Key to Leaf Shapes" followed by a "Pictoral Key to Fruits and Seeds". These contain drawings of shapes and list the names of plants associated with those shapes. This helps the user to locate the chapter(s) to find more detailed information. I especially liked this.The plant chapters are in alphabetical order by the author's preferred choice of common names.It covers 66 non-poisonous plants and 5 poisonous plants. Each chapter fairly consistently contains the following section & subsection headers (parentheses mean that it is present only when applicable):1. Most Prominent Characteristicso Overall Shape snd Sizeo Stalks and Stemso Leaveso Flowerso (Bark)o (Fruit)o (Seeds)o (Roots)2. Beneficial Propertieso Edible Propertieso Medicinal Useso Other Uses -- (I especially liked this part)3. Detrimental Properties4. Where Found5. Growing Cycle6. (Lore and Signature)When no information is known, that section will contain, "We'd appreciate authenticated reports from readers."There is at least 1 photo for every plant chapter. Chapters having multiple photos were few and often did not take advantage of an opportunity to provide a close-up to emphasize a point being brought up in the text. Some of the plant photos also include a person standing or crouching next to the plant. This helps to give a size context to the overall plant (this is goodness), but when it is the only photo then 3/4 of the photo is of a person and maybe just 10% is the plant, so not much detail of the plant's leaves, flowers, or other parts are discernible to the reader.In the majority of the cases, there is not a useful close-up photo of a part that could be helpful for identification. In some cases, the selected photo seems to contradict the text that describes a part of the plant, so one is left wondering if the text was wrong, if the photo was of the wrong plant, or if the photo just wasn't showing what the text was describing. For example the text may talk about the teeth along the leaf margins, but teeth aren't visible in the photo. Additional close-up photos would have been useful.There are plenty of places where it's clear that the author is writing from personal experience. Yet there are also plenty of places where it reads as if he's copying the information from some other technical source. His choice of words in describing the plant is a case in point.Although there is a useful glossary in the back of the book, the author frequently uses terms that are uncommon to the ordinary reader for which an everyday term could have been used instead. I found it annoying having to flip back and forth between the main sections and the glossary. Towards the end of the book, the author started adding the common terms in parentheses after first using the technical term, increasing the verbiage unnecessarily when the common term would have sufficed. (Why use "glabrous" instead of "hairless", "pubescent" instead of "hairy", "incised" instead of toothed", or "entire" instead of "toothless" ?) It made me wonder if he was writing the book to score points with botanists rather than for the common person.In the "Medicinal Uses" sections, there were occasionally no entries for technical terms in the glossary. A book's value in a backpack is considerably reduced when technical terms are used without giving their definitions. I hope the next printing will include glossary entries for anodyne, catarrh, depurative, hepatic, lignin, narcosis, pectin, and piles.I was amused when the "Edible Properties" subsection under the "Beneficial Properties" section for poisonous plants like Jimsonweed and Poison Hemlock contained the word "Poisonous!" in red letters. But then the author continued with a long paragraph or more of text about its detrimental qualities -- these are not "Beneficial Properties". Why not just say, "Poisonous! Do not eat. See Detrimental Properties for further details." ?I disagree with the author's comment on page 136 that "All parts of the milkweed must be boiled in water (usually at least twice with a rinsing between boilings) before they are rendered palatable." I've eaten milkweed's raw flower buds and the tender raw top 2 or 4 leaves and found them delicious without the slightest trace of bitterness.

Great book to learn about wild plants. Great detail from the description to the close up color photographs. Saw it in a library and purchased it here. I teach scouts about survival plants, this is a great tool for that.

In my opinion this is a must have for those of us who like to get out and enjoy mother natures free offerings. Detail and great pictures, gotta love it. I recommend it highly.

Good info on wild edible and poisonous plants of the West. Has lots of extra good common sense info also.

Great book great author very accurate information I will recommend this book to all my friends and relatives

My Husband just loved reading this book. Totally got stoked at the wide uses of plants...

My friend loved his gift

I have many books on this subject and this by far is the best of the best sell all your plant book and buy this one.

great book for collection