An authoritative guide book to more than 70 of Alaska's most common wild edible plants. Tuck this guide into a backpack, glove compartment, or pocket and use its color photographs and habitat and plant descriptions to help you discover the bounty of the land and its plants around you. The authoritative gathering instructions ensure a healthful harvest. Learn about each plant's nutritional content, and medicinal and culinary uses. Also included are recipes for fresh salads, unusual appetizers, delicious soups, breads and more. The author is an authority on the wild plants of North America and Alaska.
With bright color photographs and completely up-to-date information, this authoritative guidebook introduces adventurers and harvesters to more than 80 of Alaska's most common wild edible plants. Alaska’s Wild Plants is the perfect guide to tuck in your backpack as you explore Alaska’s lands. Now reorganized to be more user friendly with a new introduction to foraging, this informative book will help you discover the bounty of the land and its plants around you. Understand basic principles to foraging and easy plant preparations. Learn about each plant's nutritional content, and medicinal and culinary uses. Discover the habitats where the plant can be found and how to harvest it correctly. Identify the plant’s physical characteristics with an accompanying color photograph. Find more expert sources to continue your plant education. For explorers, foragers, harvesters, or just the casually interested, this book will help readers recognize Alaska’s most common edible plants, including chickweed, high bush cranberry, crowberry, sweet gale, and more.
More than 130 plants (including trees, roots, wildflowers, herbs, seaweed, and mushrooms) from Alaska, Yukon Territory, through western Canada, to Washington, Oregon and northern California are profiled. Information provided includes precise botanical identification, history (New and Old World folk uses), harvest and habitat information, and recipes.
This monumental work by the world's preeminent authority on Arctic floras--the first comprehensive, up-to-date botanic manual for this region--is the product of the author's more than forty years of study of circumpolar floras. The book describes and illustrates all flowering plants and vascular cryptograms known to occur in Alaska, the Yukon, the Mackenzie District, and the eastern extremity of Siberia. Some 1,974 taxa, belonging to 1,559 species, occur in this region; all are described. For 1,735 of these, the book provides detailed description, nomenclature, plant drawing, and range maps. In each case, one map gives distribution in the Alaskan region; a second, on circumpolar projection, gives worldwide range. This volume is the first major flora to assemble such comprehensive range data and to provide such maps. An analytic key to all species described is provided for each genus, and there is an artificial key to families. An Introduction describes the past and present climatic, geologic, and ecologic character of the regions covered, the history of botanical collection in these regions, and the book's treatment of botanical and taxonomic details; and lists the plants of neighboring regions likely to occur. Glossary, plant authors' list, bibliography, and indexes are provided. The superb drawings were prepared by Dagny Tande-Lid, and eight pages of illustration in color are included.
“Whenever I open it, I find another marvelous tidbit, like Viereck’s description of uses for soft, acidic plant sphagnum, or peat moss, the plant often found chinking the walls of log cabins…” - Fairbanks News-Miner This guide to Alaskan wild plants, native and introduced, is a great way to acquaint people with Alaskan wild plants that can be used to promote health and healing, use for emergency first-aid care, or to maintain wellness. More than fifty plant species are described with information on habitat and distribution as well as general information on how each one can be used as medicine. This natural history of some of Alaska’s medicinal plants is not intended to serve the purpose of a self-care manual of medicine, but rather be useful to persons in cities, on farms, and in the wilderness, whether they are in Alaska for recreation, hunting, fishing. or work. Others, inadvertently stranded as a result of an accident or disaster, may find themselves in need of help from healing plants. Dr. Eleanor G. Viereck presents useful and fascinating information about trees, flowers, and shrubs accompanied by accurately rendered line drawing of the vegetation. There are additional notes on history and folklore, poisonous species that can be easily confused with useful ones, and Dr. Viereck's experience with the plants. She tells where to find each plant and discusses plant collecting in general and how to brew healthful herb teas. An illustrated glossary, cross-references of therapeutic uses of specific plants, and a thorough bibliography completes this valuable contribution to plant lore.
"These beautifully photographed, full-color, pocket-size field guides are the perfect companion for hikers, trail bikers, campers, and anyone else who enjoys getting out and seeing what nature has to offer. All the plants pictured and described in the two volumes, with three or four exceptions, range throughout the temperate rainforest of North America."
A guide to the most common flowers seen along roadsides and in areas easily accessible by road. This book is arranged by flower color and has color bars on the edge of pages.
“Unlike the standard nature guides that explain how to recognize common animals, Nature stresses the web of interrelationships that link the regional flora and fauna. This affectionate examination of some of North America’s most spectacular surviving old-growth forests will delight backpackers and armchair naturalists.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review Everything you ever wanted to know about the flora and fauna of Southeast Alaska is contained in the third edition of this lively field guide to the natural world, from bears to banana slugs, mountains to murrelets. The authors, who are both Alaskan residents and biologists, combine scientific research with personal experiences to make a definitive field guide for residents of or visitors to Southeast Alaska. The unique features of the book include: In-depth information about how wildlife coexists with the environment Detailed discussions of mammals, birds, fish, invertebrates, fungi, and plants Detailed map of wilderness areas in Southeast Alaska More than 200 black-and-white illustrations A bibliography, list of common and scientific names, and an index New to this edition: More than 100 new illustrations, many never before published, as well as new maps and photos Major expansion of sections on geology, old-growth forests, marine mammals, and amphibians Fifty-two new sidebars—written in the first person to give the text a more personal touch—that describe recent findings or experiences. Sweeping updates and elaborations to chapter narratives—often thanks to technology unknown in 1992. In-depth guide to Southeast Alaska’s flora and fauna; more than an identification manual, Nature explores how the species and habitats encountered in the woods and waters of Southeast Alaska fit into the bigger picture.
"Green leaves, teas and medicinal plants, roots, and berries: the plants of traditional Iñupiat cuisine are all covered in this up-to-date edition of the well-loved 'Plants That We Eat'. Each plant is described in detail, with artful illustrations, a generous selection of photographs, and distribution maps making for easy identification. Instructions for gathering and preparing the plants are enlivened by personal stories from Iñupiat people who still enjoy their traditional cuisine. A thorough set of appendices includes how-tos on storing food, making Eskimo ice cream, and a detailed section on poisonous plants. A glossary gathers together the abundant Iñupiat words used throughout the book. Part plant identification guide, part cookbook, and part cultural legacy, 'Plants That We Eat' invites those interested in botany, arctic cuisine, or Eskimo culture to take part in this healthy and time-honored lifestyle."--Cover.
Newly revised and updated in 2009! This essential guide is all you need to identify the beautiful flowering plants of Alaska, the Yukon and northwestern Canada.
