Customer Reviews

A Field Guide to Medicinal and Useful Plants of the Upper Amazon

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A Field Guide to Medicinal and Useful Plants of the Upper Amazon is destined to be a classic. I have read dozens of books and hundreds of papers about the Amazonian flora, and yet, this is the first that combines quality color photographs with accurate botanical text, and ethnobotanical lore in one package. If this small, but valuable tome had only been available for my ethnobotanical field expedition with the Machiguenga in 1995, I suspect that I could have accomplished a great deal more. The same would be true for any scientist, eco-tourist or armchair naturalist who anticipates an Amazonian excursion, even if only a cerebral journey. This book deserves to be widely read and shared. It illustrates the hidden wealth of medicinal plants and the value of biodiversity to our future survival on this planet. This knowledge is essential, and the indigenous people who possess it are vitally endangered. I hope that this book will be translated into Spanish, Portugese, French and Dutch, so that the post-colonial settlers of Amazonia will also come to value and understand the botanical and therapeutic riches of their rainforests.

A slim, accessible and enjoyable introduction to Amazonian botany, ideal for the non-specialist. Contains over 240 colour photos; a handy species list featuring English, Spanish and Latin names; and much fascinating data about the uses to which these plants have been put. Guaranteed to put a friendly face to that mass of plantlife that you see all around you on any trip to the neotropics of Latin America.

This is the most helpful guide for me, a frequent visitor. Clear photographs, interesting descriptions, fascinating snippets of rainforest lore and well-researched information on local uses of each plant make for a good read for anyone who is interested in plants and rainforest.

I bought this book so I could research useful plants I could collect on a trip to the Amazon. For importation, the USDA requires a plant list of Latin names to be submitted as part of the application for plant cutting and seed importation permits. Admittedly, I am more interested in edible plants, which is why I gave this book a four. I honestly believe with all the species diversity there are many more edible plants in the upper amazon than this book presents. This book is far more useful for someone more interested in medicinal/folk remedy plants because there are way more of these types of plants presented in the book. Also, the book presents certain plants from an Upper amazonian cultivators perspective in the sense that the plants presented in the book are not necessarily native to the amazon. (Eg. Breadfruit - Native to the south pacific; Sugarcane - south/southeast asia; Rice! - Asia.)

However, the book presents great colorful pictures of plants and provides a separate page for each plant, which discusses the plants form as well as uses. I know of no other field guide to useful plants of the Amazon.