Customer Reviews

Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

On the whole, this book is interesting and informative, but I was slightly disappointed with the logical layout. The information in the book is fairly detailed and interesting, but is presented in a narrative manner. The book takes a season/habitat based approach... I guess I was expecting a more trait-based heirarchical listing system. Something that would facilitate taking an unknown plant and quickly looking up the answers to "what is it? is it edible? is it medicinal? if so, what are the details"

The approach also tends to give details on a few interesting / especially good flavored or nutricious plants and then gives a names-only grocery list of "Edible and medicinal plants" and then one of "For Observation only"

So, in summary, if you know a bit about general plant identification and your focus is on what's available for the season and habitat, this book is a valuable resource, but if you're looking for a field identification and classification tool, this is probably not the best choice.

As a professional herbalist and herbal teacher I have over two hundred herbals and field guides at my disposal. Steve "Wildman" Brill leads the field in combining an herbal and edible plant field guide, which is readable, comprehensive, and most important ACCURATE. His final chapter of recipes will make most readers want to head into the backcountry just to find the proper edibles. I cannot recommend this book highly enough for the beginner or the professional herbalist.

Although a little on the introductory side, I really enjoyed this book. I am a researcher in botany areas and I can say that the author does a great job at describing and aiding to identify and separate useful plants from obnoxious look-alikes. Somebody here suggested that the book could be organized in some hierarchical form. That is equivalent of a botanical taxonomy key. It would be great but there are keys for the purpose of organizing the info and helping to pick plants apart. I don't think it is essential here.
Somebody else said that the pretty drawings are only on the cover... is there a more literal analog of "judging the book by its cover"? While the drawings inside are black and white they serve the purpose. They are very well drawn and they are useful in identifying the plant in question. Tha author is also very conscientious and will not hesitate to say he doesn't know something and advices caution when pertinent. Excellent job.
The bottom line: it is very interesting, well organized and it sparks your curiosity. And if you wish to have a deeper treaty on any particular topic or plant you can always refer to a more specialized publication. $15? You can't go wrong.

I love this book. I bought it about four years ago and it inspired an interest in plants that has led me to pursue a bachelors in botany. It is an incredibly informative resource about plants but it also contains enough of the author's personal experiences and pearls of wisdom to make it a lovely book to curl up with. Maybe I have an odd sense of humor but this book elicits a chuckle every time I open it. The pictures are black and white line drawings but they are very detailed, much more helpful than the often out of focus color photos in a lot of other plant id books. Plant identification requires patience and attention to detail and this book provides the details needed for accuracy. It is important to keep in mind that if you are identifying plants in order to harvest them you should always always always check more than one reference before eating them. This book is not only worth the cost, it is the best edible wild plant resource available.

While the author seems like a nice guy, I found this book to be an expensive rip. Aside from the fact that it is printed cheaply on thick newsprint, the author should have named it, "Plants I like in Central Park". It is clear that he has spent little time west of the rockies, let alone west of Central Park where most of his endearing anecdotes originate.

The author continually makes unsupported statements about "Indians or native americans'" use of plants "for female reproductive problems". Give me a break. What is a reader supposed to do with that so called knowlege?

The book is too big to be a field guide, and so disorganized that it is very hard to extract useful information. The biggest fault, however, is that it really only pays lip service to the western half of the USA, and it should have stated so in the title.

I'm going to try to sell mine asap.

dan

This is the best book on edible plants I have yet encountered, and I own 7. The information is really carefully researched, both by library work and extensive personal experience; lots of books propagate the errors of other references, or ignore documented risks. I'm personally a bit reserved about medicinal uses of plants (not because plant medicines are ineffective, but because they can be quite powerful) but Brill has me at least more intrigued than I have been for a while. The writing is engaging and often humorous, without obscuring a thorough coverage of each plant - where and when it is found, what parts to use and how to collect them, and finally how to prepare for eating. While I'm at it, I'll cast my vote in favor of the excellent drawings instead of photos; colors are a lot less helpful for plant identification than many people realize.

In addition to all of these merits the book teaches what I think is the ideal attitude for foraging, both directly by exposition and indirectly through organization. The attitude may be summarized as thoughtful involvement, with both the plants and the places they grow. I've seen reviews of plant foraging books that are written as though the reviewer wishes to wander outside, grab a plant, look it up to see if it is edible, eat it or not, and then go on to something else. This is a recipe for a couple kinds of trouble. First, it is risky to collect plants without taking the time to learn about them; you can't just dive in and start eating stuff without learning both the plants you want to eat and something about the plants you don't want to eat. Spend some time with a plant guide or two just learning your way around plant in general. Second, careless harvesting can damage the plant populations and the plant habitats. Slow down a bit, let the caffeine wear off, and think about what you're doing. It makes a nice change. This book is a great guide.

This is a fantastic book. Very thorough information about finding, identifying, harvesting, preparing, and uses of edible wild plants. The plant drawings are fantastic and much easier to use than color photos. I enjoy his emphasis on finding edibles in your lawn or other "not so wild" places. Also includes lots of invaluable information on poisonous plants to avoid and poisonous "look-alikes" to beware of. He has a great sense of humor and an entertaining style. I bought the book and then had to immediately by another as a gift. I just got lunch by weeding my driveway...

First, I don't know anything about plants, other than your common weeds that I try to kill every year that exist in my lawn. As it turns out, the dandelion is an amazing plant however, being a total novice and buying this book I am left with alot more questions than answers. I have read this book over and over and I still can't figure out most of the plants by looking at the drawings. I have a garden that I setup this year and I let every weed grow in it, some are now 3 feet tall, and more, and there are probably 50 varieties of plants in this patch, and I can maybe figure out what 5 of them are. If your looking for a reference based on your existing knowledge of plants, then this book might be good, as a "newbie" this book doesn't help you identify unknown plants but expects you to learn plants from the book and then know them when you see them.

I purchased this book to learn about wilderness survival and edible plants, I did learn some things, and some very easy to identify plants I found out are very usefull, but I am guessing I could have found all that on the web instead of buying the book. The illustrations, at least to me, are terrible. I still think a picture is worth a thousand words, but not a drawing.

The argument the book makes about photographs versus hand drawings is that it is easier to portray a plant in all of its stages in a drawing and easier to put in detail.

If you are interested in the subject this is a MUST BUY. I recently purchased this book for the third time. I have made a present of it twice. Part of the reason for my enthusiasm for this book is that in my experience, this is the only book of it's kind that can easily be read from cover to cover with good comprehension and retention of the contents. I believe that the reason this is so is due to the book's superb integration and afore mentioned organization. The author, Steve Brill, throughout includes much folk wisdom and a great deal of scientific fact and many humorous anecdotes. This is all done with an extreme humanity, lack of pretentiousness or dogmatism. Mr. Brill frequently describes the process by which he learned things and many of the false paths he took prior to gaining enlightenment. The author is one of the very very few people secure enough not to succumb to the temptation to remove the scaffolding he used to aid himself in obtaining his knowledge.

The author begins with a light survey of, but not limited to: - general advice on how (and why) to harvest wild plants - conservation - safety and equipment - nutritional information, as well as herbal actions, herbal preparation - plant structures - natural botanical habitats

Mr. Brill proceeds to discuss various specific plants and their identification. This material organized by natural habitat within season which is probably the best organization from the point of view of the neophyte forager. The selection of plants covered with very few exceptions, are the two to three hundred most common wild edible plants in the Northeast United States. This is bears emphasis in that the author does not waste your time with "plants that you will never see except in a field guide" or with "edible" plants where "edible" merely means "can be eaten without dying". The book ends with some general pointers on how to cook wild vegetables and in excess of thirty specific recipes. The entire book is infused with superbly organized information, humor, and well thought out philosophy of nature. The bibliography is superb. END

This book mentions about 100 of the most likely medicinal and/or edible plants that you will encounter, whether in the woods, at a park, or along the sidewalk. The drawings are superb, and the information on the chemical and nutritional components of why the plant works as food or medicine is clear and thorough. The recipes are easy to follow ( I hate to cook). Best of all, the author has a great sense of humor making this one of the most readable books of its kind. I can't reccommend this one highly enough: it's become something of a "bible" for me.