Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie: An Ethnobotanical Guide

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book;entirely usable in the field.
Review: I think this is an excellent book; well-written, with excellent translations of Indigenous People's names for these plants. (I am both D-/Lakota, speak, read, and write my languages; and forage for plants.) IF I have a criticism, it is (1) that the book should have a sequel with another 130 or so plants including both food and medicinal uses, and (2) I would wish for GOOD, SHARP color photographs of the plants as harvested AND as you would see them if you were looking closely for them where they usually grow. The sketches are extremely well done but there is nothing like color to show the differences between plants that appear similar (at least until your eye is honed). Tinpsila, for example, has a near look-alike that grows in the same area where I hunt, and it is hard to teach novices the difference in person, harder from a book with B/W sketches. I like the facts that (1) she includes the medicinal uses of at least some of the plants in the book; (2) she notes the spiritual/cultural perspectives of us Indigenous People, and (3) she doesn't make any majority-culture or "Christianity Way" comments on our Traditional perspectives when she does this, nor does she refer to our Traditional beliefs in the past tense. Our Traditional Ways and beliefs are still very much alive and being lived; even if the number of us practicing them is not all of our People at the present time. If I could have only one book to take with me if I were to be "lost" somewhere, I think it would be this one.