The Complete Guide to Edible Wild Plants [Paperback]

Department of the Army (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 23, 2009

Now anyone can survive, and thrive, in the outdoors.

Anyone who has spent serious time outdoors knows that in survival situations, wild plants are often the only sustenance available. The proper identification of these plants can mean the difference between survival and death. This book describes habitat and distribution, physical characteristics, and edible parts of wild plants—the key elements of identification. Hugely important to the book are its color photos. There are over one hundred of them, further simplifying the identification of poisonous and edible plants. No serious outdoors person should ever hit the trail without this book and the knowledge contained within it. 135 color, 15 b&w illustrations

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The U.S. Department of the Army is headquartered at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and authors The Soldier's Guide, The Complete Guide to Edible Wild Plants, U.S. Army Ranger Handbook, U.S. Army Hand-to-Hand Combat, U.S. Army First Aid Manual, U.S. Army Weapons Systems, U.S. Army Special Forces Handbook, U.S. Army Guide to Boobytraps, U.S. Army Explosives and Demolitions Handbook, U.S. Army Special Forces Guide to Unconventional Warfare, and U.S. Army Special Forces Medical Handbook.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing (June 23, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1602396922
• ISBN-13: 978-1602396920
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,904 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #24 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Reference
  • #38 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Plants

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Edible Wild Plants, September 3, 2009

By 

Shannon DeVito (Vancouver, WA. USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Complete Guide to Edible Wild Plants (Paperback)

This book is not very thorough. Many plants that I know to be edible were not included, and some plants that are mentioned do not have photographic representations. Had I bought it at a bookstore rather than online I would have returned it. Very disappointing overall. I had expected a much more exhaustive guide from the Department of the Army.

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Dangerously bad book, October 3, 2010

By 

klockrike "klockrike" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Guide to Edible Wild Plants (Paperback)

I recently picked up a book from the library called The Complete Guide to Edible Wild Plants by the Department of the Army. Yes, that Army, the US Army and Pentagon are listed on the back page. This is a 'no-nonsense survival aid, {...} an essential guide for serious adventurers and the armchair botanist alike." I thought I would get some interesting information about locally edible and poisonous plants, but the book provided something else, a serious scare. First, the book covers the tropics, subtropics, and temperate zones, but covers very few edible plants from each region. That is OK, even if not great. In the beginning of the book it is stated that you should never eat any plants you can't securely identify to the correct species. Well, well - I would like to see the person that can identify any plant to the correct species based on the photos and descriptions in this book. I can't even see some of the plants in some of the photos. Many of photos are grainy, too dark, and over-tinted in green. And when they couldn't find good photos they resorted to stick figures of the plants, also badly pixelated.

The photos of sorghum grains, the only photo used to illustrate this plant, looks like a large bunch of small cockroaches on a tabletop. The description of sorghum, which supposedly is there to help you identify the plant, follows: "There are many different kinds of sorghum, all of which bear grains in heads at the top of the plants. The grains are brown, white, red, or black. Sorghum is the main food crop in many parts of the world." Would you be comfortable with identify a wild plant as sorghum after reading this? I mean, the only real description here is that the seed color can vary and that the seeds are in heads on the top of the plant. It doesn't even say it is a grass! Plant families are only listed for poisonous plants, I wonder why? If you get sick, only then you need to know the family?

The mixture of tropical with temperate plants provides some interesting contrasts. Sago palm (with a horrible photo), and sassafras (with a great photo, from the season when the plants have leaves) share one page. Same with prickly pear cactus (Opuntia) and pokeweed (Phytolacca, a plant which actually is very poisonous if raw or taller than 25 cm.)

Some information is dangerously wrong. The fish tail palm, which I recently saw in the botanical garden in Stockholm, is edible, but the fruits are toxic and the leaves can give you dermatitis (link)." In this manual, this is a perfectly fine plant without any warning signs at all. Only 17 poisonous plants are listed, and this book is supposedly covering the whole world.

Looking through this book I am starting to think it is a joke. Either that, or the American soldiers are much dumber than I thought. The text reads often like an essay by a 4th grader, for example:
"Look for sugarcane in fields. It grows only in the tropics (throughout the world). Because it is a crop, it is often found in large numbers."

This book is an embarrassment to the US government, US publishers, and botany. The book was published in 2009, and even if it was printed in China (true), I bet the material was provided from the US.

Remember that this book is called the "Complete guide..."? It is as complete and useful as the human anatomy chapter of a high school biology book is to a neurosurgeon. As a survival aid, this book is not very helpful, and could even be risky to use for the serious outdoorsman. I also really doubt there are any armchair botanists out there that would enjoy a book with so many botanical faults. I really hope the US Army provides their soldiers with better field manuals than this. There are many more and better books on this subject for those that really are interested in wild edible plants and wilderness survival.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Basic, Very Global, November 29, 2009

By 

Mary Wharton - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Complete Guide to Edible Wild Plants (Paperback)

This book is perfect for beginners interested in learning about edible wild plants. It clearly states specific precautions when making selections, and definitely stays between the lines as far as picking plants that are easy for newbies to identify as edibles. Warnings are clearly labeled and easy to read. It reviews some basic basic plant anatomy, but just enough to be helpful with identifications without confusing a beginner. It also covers plants that are potentially dangerous if consumed in whole or in part.

It covers plants found around the globe in various ecosystems ranging from artic to tropic to desert conditions. The color pictures give good detail for identifications. The digital drawings not so much, but they're not bad.

Although it definitely does not even begin to cover the broad range of edible plants actually present in the world, it covers enough of the safe ones, both endemics and cultivated crops, for most situations where one's survival might hinge on this kind of knowledge.