[snowshoe67]

Originally Posted by pocomoonskyeyes

Well let me throw a monkey wrench in the works!!Another excellent book on wild edibles is -Edible Wild Plants by Thomas S Elias & Peter A Dykeman, It is full of color pictures!! Over 200 species are covered! Some like Russian Thistle only grow in the west. It covers all of North America.

Poco is right the Thomas s Elias & Peter A Dykeman book is Great and in color! Thanks Poco.

[plantguy]

Right now, the Peterson Field Guides are probably the most consistently high quality in combining the drawings with the proper details. But I often counsel folks to use a good edible plant book TOGETHER with a dedicated plant identification book. Most edible plant books are not heavily invested in identification knowledge.

[ozzman]

I also like the forager's harvest quite a bit as he dispels some myths perpetuated by other popular guides like Peterson's.

he has a pretty good review of what happened to Chris McCandles on Forager's Harvest website:

Forager's Harvest - Sam Thayer's Wild Food Website

Synopsis: The best-selling book and popular movie "Into The Wild" depict Chris McCandless dying by being poisoned by a wild plant. There is no factual basis for this claim; it is wholly fabricated. There is absolutely no evidence that Chris was poisoned by any plant, or that any toxic plant contributed to his death in any way. The two plants that Jon Krakauer claims (at various times) to have killed Chris are not poisonous, and there is no excuse for Krakauer not to have known this. The toxin that Krakauer claims as the culprit (swainsonine) is not found in either plant, and neither was Chris McCandless exhibiting the symptoms of such poisoning. No person who has seriously investigated the matter gives any credibility to Krakauer's fanciful story. It is obvious that McCandless simply starved to death. Krakauer's ridiculous story can best be understood as an eloquent rendition of a common fable in our culture, which I call "The Poison Plant Fable."

If you are interested in the story of Chris McCandless, read on for the truth about his death.