Edible & Medicinal Plants of West

I love this book for the full-color photos that help with plant identification and the specifications about environments each plant favors. I've learned a lot more about native flora from this book and done some very successful foraging. It's not comprehensive, but I appreciate the information in a size that's easy to shove in a hiking backpack for reference.

Some people may not like that I say this but this book is perfect bathroom reading.I got this book thinking that I'd take it on hikes just like a normal person would, but when I got it in the mail I looked through it and realized I wouldn't be able to use it. All the plants are listed in alphabetical order. I don't know the names of any plants! How would I ever be able to look up a plant if I didn't know the name of it?! Sure every entry has really nice clear pictures, but that's a lot of pages to rummage through. I realized I'd have to study up before I took it into nature, and that's when I got the idea. I'd read it when nature was calling!It's perfect for the bathroom because each entry is about half a page and takes maybe 5 minutes to read. So for a quick drop off you can read just one, and for a long stay you can read many more.If you're interested in plants and their usage, whether it be from a herbology perspective or just a hungry perspective, I'd say this is a good book to get started with. It's a lot like an encyclopedia, each entry is short with just the basic information. It is by no means comprehensive. If you want more info you'll have to search the internet or buy another book. For a beginner like me, who knows nothing about plants, this is a good book. Short and sweet entries with clear color pictures and just enough information to get a basic idea of each plant and to keep me busy while I do my business.

Overview: though simply listed as "the West" this book is specifically focused on the northern West, Rocky mountains and Mid West, from Alaska down to Northern California and east to the Great Lakes. This is not the author's fault, he makes that clear on the back of the book, but Amazon doesn't show an image of the back cover. The book is organized alphabetically by common name. The pictures are a good size, and there are a fair number of them. The printing, paper and binding are all good quality, and should last a long time.I was very disappointed in this book. I'm a fairly experienced forager from the northeast, but I recently moved across country and wanted to learn about some plants new to me. I started with the plants that I know, so I could get a feel for how accurate the writer's content was going to be. I found that his facts and level of research seem very mixed. Some entries are excellent, and some are very poor. This leads me to believe that he may not be personally foraging many of these plants, rather cutting and pasting the information from other sources.One thing that deeply concerns me is that there are SOME sections for "look-a-like" plants, on SOME entries. This may make a beginner or novice think that there are no look a likes where he doesn't mention them, except that there are. In other sections, he references look-a-likes, but not enough of them. For example, for chickweed, he mentions Cerastium as a look a like, which is edible. But he neglects to mention scarlet pimpernel, which is also a look-a-like and poisonous. Yet again, some of his other entries are very good and comprehensive.Anther example is burdock, which has an edible root eaten BEFORE the seeds form. Tilford mentions that it looks kind of like poisonous cocklebur, but says you can tell them apart by the shape of the seeds. This is dangerous for ID as you will be gathering the root before you can check the seed shape for ID. He SHOULD have talked about the leaf shape, which is very different and you can use the leaves to tell the plants apart before they go to seed.Also annoying, his "medicinal" uses for plants are often presented with out references, or context. It seems almost as though he has scraped the web for every mentioned use of any plant and thrown it in there. This results on most every plant being good for most every thing.He also leaves out any plant that may be controversial, even if it's an important wild edible. Wild carrot, aka queen anne's lace, is an important wild edible with medicinal properties (if used correctly), yet it's completely neglected. Probably because it can be confused with hemlock, yet other foraging guides still describe it, and take the time to show you how to confirm your ID. Tilford just omits it.On the plus side, there are a lot of plants covered here. There are a fair number of pictures, and they are of fair size. This is a good book for piquing your interest in wild plants, and providing an introduction. But for positive identification before you use anything in this book, I suggest you confirm everything with other, more reliable, sources.I also like his poisonous and advanced medicine section. With very few discrepancies, I think that this points out many of the most dangerous plants.

All you need to know about pot.

This book is really well done. It gives really good pictures and descriptions to help identify edible plants. Most other books I have seen do not give good enough of descriptions to be willing to bet my health on the plant being edible. In most cases the pictures in this book are high enough quality to settle the issue. If there are similar appearing poisonous plants it does a good job describing them.Unfortunately I did not see several of my favorite plants in Southern California. The wild radishes, yellow sorrel, and purslane which are so common here are absent from the book. Also absent is one of the more common plants for people to poison themselves on, oleander. Still, the book can't list all plants and most of the choices of what to include seem fairly well thought out.

I know little about foraging. The only other plant foraging books I've owned are by Euell Gibbons. Gibbons is a very entertaining author, but his books are not specific to my region, and they contain sketches not photos. Photographs are far superior to sketches. The downside is that the glossy paper required for photos is heavier. For you backpackers, this book is 8.5x5.5 inches and weighs a hefty 15.6 ounces. I weighed it myself. I give the book four stars instead of five because the plants are not categorized but in alphabetical order which makes looking up a plant much more difficult.

Just got this book today and have to say, It's very good. It's "to the point". It doesn't go into a whole lot of unnecessary detail. It gives you a good base to identifying plants. Shows habitat, edibleness, blooming cycles, medicinal uses and warnings in BIG BOLD LETTERS. It's in alphabetical order so if you don't already know what you're looking at, it takes quite a bit of time to find the plant in the book and identify it. That's the only negative I can say.

the pictures are so clear and extremely helpful ID the plants

good