Customer Reviews

Wild Roots

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

 

 

Meyers misses the point. Wild Roots was never intended to be a field guide. Wild Roots is a celebration of useful and interesting wild roots. There are dozens of books that illustrate the upper parts of the plants. This book illustrates, with beautifully detailed drawings, the underground parts of 60 wild plants (and mentions a dozen or more that are not illustrated). The area of focus is eastern North America from southern Canada into the Deep South. It is strange that Meyers would say the book is useless outside of the Appalachians. Ten of the plants in the book are found all the way out to the west coast and practically all of them are found in Meyers' home state of New York. It's not a field guide; it is a celebration. It has been in print for more than 30 years and some consider it a classic.

I have never written a review before, but feel forced to do so after reading the ridiculous 1 star review this book was given by a certain S.C. Meyers of Syracuse NY.
I would agree with him/her that this book does focus on the eastern United States, but that is it. This book covers many plants of the region east of the Mississippi and for me, living in Northern Michigan, it is indispensable. It is witty, whimsical and above all, informative. Anyone who has any interest beyond casual names of plants and really looks for ethnobotanical experience will find more than they hoped for in this book.
To say that this book is only focused on plants of the Appalachians shows the ignorance of that reviewer who, if they are from where they claim, actually live on the Northernmost border of the Allegheny Plateau of the Appalachian Region. I do not doubt that most of the plants in the book, if not all, grow in their area. This person is disconnected from their bioregion enough to not only never recognize plant names from their region, but to completely misspell their region's name and not even recognize they are living there. They even do themselves a further disservice by not recognizing the purpose and scope of this book: to appreciate and understand Wild ROOTS. This is not a plant ID guide. It is to cover a subject rarely tackled in the botanical world.
If you have a problem identifying plants, get a plant ID book. If you got that plant ID book and want to learn something more than just plant names; if you want to know folk wisdom, superstitions, woods-lore and medicine surrounding the plant - its relation to us as humans - then this is an absolute must-have.

I enjoyed this book very much. I met Doug Elliott not too long ago and found him to be very entertaining and is quite the character. He really knows what he is talking about. I am looking forward to reading his other books and listening to his CDs.

This book is well and fine if you happen to live in the Appalacian mountains. Outside that region, however, it is useless. Mr. Elliots botanical knowledge seems to be geographicaly quite limited. The illustrations of the roots themselves are very good. But the pictures of the plants themselves are small and nondiscript. This leads the question of "How do I find the root if I can't find it's top?". I highly would recommend one of the Peterson guides before this book.