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The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World
(more) »rank: 1151by: Michael Pollan
: :Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires—sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control—with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited ...
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A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants: Eastern and central North America (Peterson Field Guides (R))
(more) »rank: 4456from: Houghton Mifflin
: :More than 370 edible wild plants, plus 37 poisonous look-alikes, are described here, with 400 drawings and 78 color photographs showing precisely how to recognize each species. Also included are habitat descriptions, lists of plants by season, and preparation instructions for 22 different food uses.
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The Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants
(more) »rank: 7640by: Samuel Thayer
: :A practical guide to all aspects of edible wild plants: finding and identifying them, their seasons of harvest, and their methods of collection and preparation. Each plant is discussed in great detail and accompanied by excellent color photographs. Includes an index, illustrated glossary, bibliography, and harvest calendar. The perfect guide for all experience levels.
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Mushrooms Demystified: A Comprehensive Guide to the Fleshy Fungi
(more) »rank: 1310707by: David Arora
: :Simply the best and most complete mushroom field guide and reference book, with over 950 photographs. Review:This is the be-all and end-all of mushroom books! Truly an encyclopedia of mushroom facts and lore, lavishly illustrated with full-color photographs, literally everything you need to know about mushrooms, edible or not. Arora has taught mycology for close to twenty years and has hunted and photographed mushrooms across the North American continent. Threaded through the book are his wry and humorous observations and comments, making what could have been a rather dull, 'just-the-facts, ma'am' reference book into a really enjoyable read. The stunning photographs ...
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National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees--W: Western Region (National Audubon Society Field Guides)
(more) »rank: 15930by: Elbert L. Little
: :All 933 identification pictures are full-color photos of significant details of virtually all native trees and many cultivated species as you see them in their natural habitat. Review:More than 300 species of trees are found in the United States and Canada west of the Rocky Mountains, some introduced from other continents but many native to the region. This handsome guidebook covers them all, with photographs that enable identification by easily discernible characteristics: by, for example, the shape of the leaf or needle, by the fruit, or by the flower or cone. The photographs are linked to texts that describe a tree's ...
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The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring
(more) »rank: 4701by: Richard Preston
: :Hidden away in foggy, uncharted rain forest valleys in Northern California are the largest and tallest organisms the world has ever sustained–the coast redwood trees, Sequoia sempervirens. Ninety-six percent of the ancient redwood forests have been destroyed by logging, but the untouched fragments that remain are among the great wonders of nature. The biggest redwoods have trunks up to thirty feet wide and can rise more than thirty-five stories above the ground, forming cathedral-like structures in the air. Until recently, redwoods were thought to be virtually impossible to ascend, and the canopy at the tops of these majestic trees was undiscovered. In ...
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National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms (National Audubon Society Field Guides)
(more) »rank: 4884by: Gary H. Lincoff
: :With more than 700 mushrooms detailed with color photographs and descriptive text, this is the most comprehensive photographic field guide to the mushrooms of North America. The 762 full-color identification photographs show the mushrooms as they appear in natural habitats. Organized visually, the book groups all mushrooms by color and shape to make identification simple and accurate in the field, while the text account for each species includes a detailed physical description, information on edibility, season, habitat, range, look-alikes, alternative names, and facts on edible and poisonous species, uses, and folklore. A supplementary section on cooking and eating wild mushrooms, and illustrations ...
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A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants and Herbs: Of Eastern and Central North America (Peterson Field Guides (R))
(more) »rank: 11870by: James A. Duke, Steven Foster
: :With more than 300 photos, this new edition shows how to identify more than 500 healing plants. Descriptive text includes information on where the plants are found, as well as their known medicinal uses. An index to medical topics, symbols next to plant descriptions, and organization of plants by colors all make this an essential guide to understanding the traditional medicinal uses of the plants around us. At a time when interest in herbs and natural medicine has never been higher, the second edition of this essential guide shows how to identify more than five hundred kinds of healing plants. More than ...
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Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens
(more) »rank: 10471by: Douglas W. Tallamy
: :The pressures on wildlife populations today are greater than they have ever been and many gardeners assume they can remedy this situation by simply planting a variety of flowering perennials, trees, and shrubs. As Douglas Tallamy points out in this revelatory book, that assumption is largely mistaken. Wild creatures exist in a complex web of interrelationships, and often require different kinds of food at different stages of their development. There is an unbreakable link between native plant species and native wildlife. When native plant species disappear, the insects disappear, thus impoverishing the food source for birds and other animals. Fortunately, there is ...
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Nature's Beloved Son: Rediscovering John Muir's Botanical Legacy
(more) »rank: 22816by: Bonnie J. Gisel
: :As a young boy growing up in Wisconsin, John Muir faithfully recorded in his journal that the pasque-flower was a hopeful multitude of large, hairy, silky buds about as thick as one s thumb and that lady s slipper orchid in nearby meadows caught the eye of all the European settlers and made them gaze and wonder like children. Muir was blessed early on with a love and aptitude for botany, a field of study that helped him become one of the most influential environmentalists in the world. One realizes, in reading Nature s Beloved Son, how much Muir s successes as ...
