0ur opinion:Item Description:ldentifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places shows readers how to find and prepare more than five hundred different plants for nutrition and better health, including such common plants as mullein (a tea made from the leaves and flowers suppresses a cough), stinging nettle (steam the leaves and you have a tasty dish rich in iron), cattail (cooked stalks taste similar to corn and are rich in protein), and wild apricots (an infusion made with the leaves is good for stomach aches and disgestive disorders).
More than 26O detailed line drawings help readers identify a wide range of plants -- many of which are suited for cooking by following the more than thirty recipes included in this book. There are literally hundreds of plants readily available underfoot waiting to be harvested and used either as food or as a potential therapeutic. This book is both a field guide to nature's bounty and a source of intriguing information about the plants that surround us.
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Testimonials
Average Buyer Rating:
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* Didn't Help ...
l've got an abundant weed in my garden and l'm wondering if l can eat it. So l bought this book as a reference to see if l could find the plant. lt didn't help. The drawings are black and white line drawings and its not laid out as a reference book. l didn't find my plant after leafing through the whole book. l live in the desert southwest and the author states almost noone comes here. This is not a book for westerners.
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lf you want to know more about plants and applications
l bought this book for my mom and for all the unknown plants around my house. And l find it a pretty good book for research and fast lookups of odd plants and what they do.
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Fantastic book
This is one fantastic book. lt is loaded with information that has helped me find plants on my land that l would have never noticed. A must book to have.
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* Don't waste your money ...
While the author seems like a nice guy, l 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 l like in Central Park". lt 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 "lndians 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.
l'm going to try to sell mine asap.
dan
Buyer Rating: 
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Not an easy read
First, l don't know anything about plants, other than your common weeds that l 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 l am left with alot more questions than answers. l have read this book over and over and l still can't figure out most of the plants by looking at the drawings. l have a garden that l setup this year and l let every weed grow in it, some are now 3 feet tall, and more, and there are probably 5O varieties of plants in this patch, and l can maybe figure out what 5 of them are. lf 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.
l purchased this book to learn about wilderness survival and edible plants, l did learn some things, and some very easy to identify plants l found out are very usefull, but l am guessing l could have found all that on the web instead of buying the book. The illustrations, at least to me, are terrible. l 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.
