Sam Thayer's Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants: of Eastern and Central North America (The Sam Thayer's Field Guides)

This is the book you want for ALL wild edibles. Complete and comprehensive... easy identification and great pictures. I own several books on wild edibles and this one is on the top of the list by far. Everyone should have a copy of this in their home. You will never go hungry with the information contained in this book. With a little effort and foraging, you have all your food needs covered no matter where you are. He speaks from first hand experience and gives you all the information you need for a confident ID and preparation. A definite must have.

Oh. My. Goodness.Where to begin?First off, the thing that struck me immediately was the organization, and general ease of navigation of this book. It feels like doing a more refined Google search where you could find your answer based on what you are looking at, and it walks you through narrowing your search down through very easily interpreted flowcharts etc.Second... the absolute amazing graphic design. The pictures of the same plant, showcasing the root system, the leaves, what it looks like in different stages or seasons. I mean... SO much love and effort and research went into this. I have never seen such a thorough botanical documentation for any reason anywhere of anything. Literally a masterpiece of botany literature in general.Third, the author puts his own commentary into the book. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression every photo was taken by him, and every plant was trialed and documented by him as well. So many guide books are copy/pasted from the one before them. Kind of how when you do an internet search for a obscure thing, and it comes up with 10 websites with the same 5 sentences maybe slightly grammatically changed.THIS BOOK however, is boots on the ground personal experiences ✨️meticulously✨️ documented. He doesn't write from "research," but rather experience. I am in absolute awe of the amount of effort and love that went into this book.I guarantee it will become an absolute wilderness guide treasure/classic in no time. I have NEVER seen a guidebook with this level of.... anything tbh. This is the new metric by which all of them will be measured going forward.Petersons guidebooks have NOTHING on this.My MIL is a gardener involved in research areas, and I'm sending this to her simply so she can admire how amazing this guide is. She'll get some use out of it too, I hope.Anyways, please purchase this book, if only to look in awe upon its abundance of folk knowledge, and ease of navigation.

Very detailed, covered a lot of plants, and good pictures

The author peppers commentary through the book, drawing your attention and interest.Descriptions are detailed but in plain language. The symbols and classification system he uses are very helpful.

This is a must have book. Thick volume full of very good photos of each plant and enough info written in an easy to understand way. Best book on the subject I have (and I have a lot of books on it). Lots of hard work went into this and I would recommend to anyone.

This book is nothing short of a triumph, the culmination of Thayer's lifelong fascination with wild plants and his ultimate rebuttal to the subpar wild edibles field guides that we have settled for in the past.I'm a big fan of Thayer's first three books, The Forager's Harvest, Nature's Garden, and Incredible Wild Edibles. These books, combined with John Kallas's two volumes, are the finest wild foods literature available. The information on timing in Thayer's books is lacking in Kallas's, and the phenomenal photographs in Kallas's books do a much better job than Thayer's photographs. The Forager's Harvest series provides fewer recipes while Kallas often provides examples of prepared foods. Together, they provide all the information one could ask for about the plants covered, but you are of course limited to what plants are described, and carrying five volumes around is impractical when exploring in the field. Their purpose is depth and familiarity, something you study before you go out, and refer to when looking for a particular plant by bringing the particular volume along.The Field Guide here serves a distinctly different purpose. It is a field guide, complete with dichotomous keys, encyclopedic coverage of wild plants, and 1-2 page descriptions with relevant details for each of the 700 plants covered. One of the most difficult things when reviewing wild plant literature is keeping track of all the plants that are edible and in season at this particular time of year, deciding whether they are worth the effort, and finding out whether they even grow nearby. To seek out a particular plant requires knowing the types of conditions it tolerates, the type of ecosystem it is most often found in. With experience, you can tell easily whether a location is likely to support various plants, but only because you've seen where it grows enough times to build up your mental image. Thayer's Field Guide solves these problems by including a small section at the end called "Find Edible Wild Plants By Habitat And Season", and by including a distribution map and "Notes" section for each plant where the quality and harvesting effort are described.There is a "Best Index" after the index which is unique and very welcome - it contains the wild plants Thayer considers best for various things, e.g. "best things to feed a first date", "best fried greens", "best survival food", "best staple foods", and of course, "best edibles to tell a complete stranger what you are eating to get them to leave you alone."The way Thayer writes botanically is ideal for non-professional but rigorous botanical descriptions. Where Gray's Manual or Gleason & Cronquist might say "imbricated" to describe the bracts of e.g. the thistle, with Thayer they become "overlapping"; short axillary branches become "tufts" in the axils; a "cyme" inflorescence might be written "flat-topped branching cluster (cyme)" so that one can still verify with traditional manuals. This reduces ambiguity and excessive terminology, something even professional botanists struggle with, and without loss of information.Now, don't be mistaken - the terminology is still going to be a challenge for a beginner, for example the leaves of purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) are described as "sessile, usually paired but occasionally in whorls of 3, 1.3-4.5" (3.3-11cm) long, ascending, lanceolate, soft-hairy to hairless, the bases rounded to heart-shaped, tapered to a sharp tip, the margins entire." A beginner must still be familiar with the terms sessile, whorl, ascending, lanceolate, base, heart-shaped, tapered, margin, entire; and every description will be this way. It's not terrible difficult to learn the terms, but it's a lot of memorization and comparison. It is absolutely worth the time and energy to highlight new words and difficult descriptions, and to keep notes on plant terminology to refer back to. New or confusing terms should include several examples, as well as non-examples to illustrate the limits of a descriptor.Finally, the coverage of plants is exceptional. I have yet to think of a plant I've eaten or thought about eating that is not featured in this book. I recently learned that the young fertile shoots of horsetail were eaten in spring by some native tribes, but it's hard to find any detail. I opened this book and horsetail is the very first plant. I've snacked on hairy bittercress, but it's not so frequently mentioned in wild food literature. It's here with pictures and comments. It was mentioned to me that some peoples used to prepare (very carefully over a long period of time) skunk cabbage as a seasoning, but I thought it would be an outrageous thing to try. Thayer clarifies, the roots can be dried weeks to years, or baked several hours to several days, and eaten. The youngest leaves can also be processed and eaten this way. Who would've thought.Compared to the foraging field guides that came before, this is like Euclid's "The Elements" - sure to replace all that came before, and sure to serve as the go-to reference for all years to come.

My husband loves the book and follows Sam on TikTok so this was a perfect Father’s Day gift. It’s a very durable book, it’s loaded with tons of information, it’s organized and colorful and all around amazing. The only drawback was how heavy it is. Wasn’t expecting that but with that much knowledge it’s kind of unavoidable. For a field guy you may want to just write down or screen shot specifics you’re foraging for that day or that you may come across in the area you’re in. It’s cumbersome and heavy to carry around in the field. Maybe even leave in the car or tent or something if it’s an overnighter and reference it later. We have some of the other books that Sam recommends too and together my husband is very happy with all the knowledge he’s absorbing!

I've got a bunch of field guides, including ones from Peterson and Lone Pine, they're really great books. But you know what? This guide right here easily hits that level and exceeds it.The moment I held it in my hands, I could tell the quality was spot on. The binding is solid, it's got some gravitas, and the spine is sturdy—it's a book that's built to last and has the build to be taken out in the field for years to come.What I admire about this guide is how it goes above and beyond when it comes to talking about which plants you can actually eat. Most guides just lump everything into the "toxic" category, but not this one. It takes the time to explain which parts of the plants are harmful and which parts are safe to eat. That kind of attention to detail is hard to find.The organization is spot-on, with a clear and sensible index that makes finding what you need a breeze. And the photography—it's absolutely fantastic!I came across a TikTok video by Sam Thayer talking about this book, and I liked what I saw, so I pre-ordered it, and although it took a while to arrive, I can confidently say it was well worth the wait.You can tell that Thayer poured his heart and soul into this book. The amount of work and dedication that went into it is evident on every page. I'm truly grateful to have a copy of this phenomenal guide in my collection.Buy it!

Super easy to navigate. Well organized and clearly describe plants. Photos and images help identify species.

Gift, just what she asked for

Recommended by a guide after a wilderness hike. Really worth picking up, it's a heavy book full of excellent info & fabulous photos.

I had to laugh when I read the back cover of the book, and I quote "Occasional smart-ass comments to keep you from getting bored by the technical stuff" What a funny and clever guy! Everything is in there...even medicinal herbs I have been looking for. Just start at the index and have a look. See what a system he has designed for finding the plants. "The BEST index" So excited to start learning!