Edible Wild Plants: A North American Field Guide (Paperback)

~ Thomas Elias (Author), Peter Dykeman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

“Season-by-season guide to identification, harvest, and preparation of more than 200 common edible plants to be found in the wild....Hundreds of edible species are included....[This] handy paperback guide includes jelly, jam, and pie recipes, a seasonal key to plants, [and a] chart listing nutritional contents.”—Booklist. “[Five hundred] beautiful color photographs...temptingly arranged.”—The Library Letter

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Sterling (December 31, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806974885
• ISBN-13: 978-0806974880
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #77,913 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #4 in	Books > Home & Garden > Gardening & Horticulture > Wild Plants
  #65 in	Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Botany

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't go camping without this one, April 7, 2002

By	Jessica Ferguson "threelittlebirds" (Woodbury, NJ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This Outdoor Life Book, while it follows the typical field guide format with nice glossy pages and clear, crisp color identification photos with full plant descriptions, is jam-packed with not only the picture, plant name, habitat, and identification details but goes in-depth to clearly define those PARTS of the plant that are edible and how to prepare them (sometimes even including simple recipes). This guide is the most detailed edible plant guide I have found and offers great "extras" like a quick key guide that allows you to identify if a plant is trail nibble, salad addition, cooked green, underground vegetable, fritter, raw fruit, cooked fruit, jams/jellies/sauces, syrup/sugar, candy, grain, nuts/seeds, flour/meal, hot beverage, cold beverage, pickle, seasoning, or thickener. The "Poisonous look-alikes" feature is an added attraction within each plant description and there is also an entire poisonous plant section so there will be no mistake that what you have found Mother Nature meant you to harvest. A fabulous handbook for gardeners, hikers, and cooks.

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a book that all who play outdoors ought to have., July 2, 1998

By	Jack B. Keller, Jr. (Pleasanton, TX USA) - See all my reviews

I bought this book to use to gather wild plants for making homemade wines, but now it's a companion whenever I go hiking, fishing, camping, or merely sightseeing. It's that valuable!

The book is divided into an introductory section, guides to harvesting plants in each of the four seasons, the plants themselves (also presented seasonally), poisonous plants, a nutritional guide, and two great indices. The introduction includes great tips on how to prepare wild foods as drinks, snacks, entres, and condiments, along with recipes for 25 jellies, 20 jams and 17 fruit and berry pies. But the good part is yet to come.

Each plant is presented with a good-to-excellent photograph, a distribution map (so a person in the Pacific Northwest doesn't have to wonder whether he or she is looking at a squashberry or a hobblebush berry), a complete description, identification of the edible parts, harvest and preparation notes, related species, and poisonous look-alikes (if any). The presentations are just excellent. My only complaint is that the book isn't twice as thick.

Whether you just want to be prepared for emergencies or you want to collect wild edibles for making jams, jellies, pies, and wine, this book is one of the only two you'll probably need. The other is a good regional guide, because with over 20,000 species of plants to choose from north of the Rio Grande alone, a guide to regional edibles is a must.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great edible wild plant book; pictures, not drawings., March 5, 1998

By A Customer

This book is a well-organized listing of edible wild plants in North America. Listings are by season, so you know when to look for a specific plant. Habitat is described including a quick reference range map of North America, as are how to harvest, prepare, and store foods for future use. A symbol key at the left of each plant will tell you at a glance what uses you can put a plant to; trail nibble, potherb, etc. Related edible and poisonous look alikes are also listed. This book utilizes pictures, something none of the other books I looked at did. I think this makes identification of plants much easier than relying on someone's black and white sketch or colored pencil rendering of something wild that I'm plan to eat. The one down side to this is that some of the pictures could be much better; about a dozen pictures are black and white, while others show the plant only at a distance which might make identification problematical. However, scientific names are provided, and if you have the luxury of time, you can do a search online for a more precise picture.