[AlpineZone]

After having my two new books for a few weeks and studying them. I wanted to write a post about them.

1. The forager's harvest by Samuel Thayer

2. Advised from VThompson (thanks vt a rocking book) Edible wild plants by Lee Allen Peterson

IMH and bias opinon, These are two fantastic books if you live in the east of the US and everyone should own them.

The forager's harvest is awesome because it doesn't cover everything that some books try but it covers the most popular in great detail along with making teas, juices, preparing foods, drying etc with nice no mistaken it for something else photos.

Edible wild plants is a perfect companion because its a field guide and small enough to take with you and the way its written out is specifically designed for field use. I also like its listing of 37 "poisonous" look alikes and vast array of diffrent plants the foragers harvest doesn't cover and how easy they are to look up.

Hope this was useful.

[snowshoe67]

Alpine, great books my wife is get me The Peterson book for christmas. Thanks for bring the Books up.

[vthompson]

I have quite a few books on edible and medicinal wild plants, but these 2 are usually my go-to books whenever I am looking something up.

[Celticwarrior]

Originally Posted by AlpineZone

After having my two new books for a few weeks and studying them. I wanted to write a post about them.

1. The forager's harvest by Samuel Thayer

2. Advised from VThompson (thanks vt a rocking book) Edible wild plants by Lee Allen Peterson

IMH and bias opinon, These are two fantastic books if you live in the east of the US and everyone should own them.

The forager's harvest is awesome because it doesn't cover everything that some books try but it covers the most popular in great detail along with making teas, juices, preparing foods, drying etc with nice no mistaken it for something else photos.

Edible wild plants is a perfect companion because its a field guide and small enough to take with you and the way its written out is specifically designed for field use. I also like its listing of 37 "poisonous" look alikes and vast array of diffrent plants the foragers harvest doesn't cover and how easy they are to look up.

Hope this was useful.

I have the Peterson guides, but I STILL haven't gotten around to getting the Foragers Harvest. Guess I have to get off my duff and order it, eh Alpine? Thanks for the review.

[cowgirlup]

Originally Posted by Celticwarrior

I have the Peterson guides, but I STILL haven't gotten around to getting the Foragers Harvest. Guess I have to get off my duff and order it, eh Alpine? Thanks for the review.

Yeah, me too. Does the Foragers Harvest book have more color pictures?
It's been a little tough with the Peterson book.

[AlpineZone]

Originally Posted by cowgirlup

Yeah, me too. Does the Foragers Harvest book have more color pictures?
It's been a little tough with the Peterson book.

Yeah CG the forager's harvest has a lot more colored pictures then peterson's guide.
Where as the field guide has the group in the middle of the book the forager's harvest has colored pictures as part of the articles through the whole book.

[pocomoonskyeyes]

Originally Posted by AlpineZone

Yeah CG the forager's harvest has a lot more colored pictures then peterson's guide.
Where as the field guide has the group in the middle of the book the forager's harvest has colored pictures as part of the articles through the whole book.

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.

[tjwilhelm]

Thanks for the referals! Looks like I'll be adding to the already evergrown library (in the DW's opinion). After reading Cowgirl's thread on Edible Landscape, I've been motivated to bring more wild edibles into my pasture area. Good books on wild edibles are certainly a must.

[plantguy]

Could I offer a word of counsel here. As an instructor of edible and toxic plants (for 40 years) I would caution against too much insistence on color photos as the yardstick by which an identification guide is measured.

As visual beings with excellent color vision, it is natural for us to feel comfortable using such photos as an aide. However, even great color photos can deceive as much as inform. When we see such images we form a visual impression and that is quite different from distinguishing the critical details. Widely divergent plants can leave very similar visual impressions.

If one were shown a good color shot of new stems of common chickweed (Stellaria media) and of common St. John'swort (Hypericum perforatum) they would appear extraordinarily similar, although if you mess this up, instead of enjoying the great chickweed salad, you could make sunlight poisonous to yourself for 8 hours [not always the best plan].

There is some advantage to the book that points out to look for the single-file line of fuzz on the stem segments of the chickweed, or the tiny transparent dots of the St. John'swort when you view a leaf up in front of the bright sky (hence the latin species name "perforatum"). Also, the ability to write and illustrate such a book saves one from certain imprecisions.

For instance, Edible Wild Plants by Thomas S Elias & Peter A Dykeman, is a mostly credible book, but that did not save them from printing an excellent color picture of the seeds of Norway maple (Acer platanoides)[flat seeds with a wing] on the sugar maple page (Acer saccharum)[spherical seeds with a wing].

Just a thought.

[cowgirlup]

Good points. I do like the color pics because sometimes the written description paired with a drawing can be confusing to me.

What are/were your favorite plant guides?