Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants

In this book Tom isn't really trying to make a field guide to identify edible/medicinal plants. He is trying to get you to enjoy those plants, not just use them. Each plant that he talks about has a story that goes along with it. Whether it is the first time he took a sip of catnip tea or an adventure down the river on a raft made from sassafras trees that had been cut down. I have found this book extremely helpful in enjoying and getting to know the types of plants described. Which i find in turn helps me a lot with identifying them from look a likes and really appreciating what i do find to eat.

This book is written from the standpoint of someone who needs to use plants either for survival or bush medicine. It is not the best or most accurate filed guide for identifying or classifying plants. I found it best to use this book in conjunction with an Audubon field guide. The Audubon filed guide will give you a picture and a better description of the plant that you are looking for, Tom Brown's book tells you what to do with the plant when you find it. Tom browns book is the more important part of this equation, what good is knowing what a plant looks like without knowing what it is used for? So, I recommend using a different field guide for finding a certain plant, and then using Tom Brown's guide and practice making the medicinal applications and teas that he has. This book was not designed to take the place of a standard photographic field guide. It is designed to be used first in conjunction with a standard field guide until you know the plant and can identify it, then the illustrations and such are only to jog your memory in the field if you are looking for a certain remedy plant but its been a while since you messed with it.

This is an excelent book just like all of Tom's books. It takes you past the usual explainations and gives you a chance to really "Know" the plants. It's not meant to take the place of other identification guides, it goes much more in depth, every plant has a fantastic story on it's use and Tom's personal experience with it. I have read most of Tom's books and plan to read them all, this one is no exception it's great.

This book doesn't have the impersonality of other edible and medicinal plant books. It doesn't have a lot of pictures or good descriptions, but it shows the other side of gathering wild plants, the spiritual experience. It also gives a good introduction to Tom Brown's philosophy. If you want a stuffy book with lots of pictures and blunt descriptions, without any feeling, get another book. But if you want to know what it felt like to our hunter-gatherer ancesters, read this one.

This one, in particular, is kind of like reading the earliest Tom Robbins novels (Another Roadside attraction, etc.). Beyond nostalgia, this is a wonderful book - a little too large and poorly illustrated to carry CARELESSLY into the woods - yet very useful and unique. Tom gives us a pre-New Age understanding of his plant friends - the ones we might most need or want to know - while spinning sentimental and spiritual threads that may help bind us to our use of this new knowledge. Collect the Peterson's and indepth holistic herbals, but don't pass up on Tom's.