Wildflower Folklore

by Laura C. Martin

Book by Martin, Laura C.

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction, Reference, Gardening, Art, Folklore

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

Reviews

[Latasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is absolutely fabulous! Each flower entry includes its common name, family, genus, species, the months it blooms, where it can be found and a black and white drawing. Then she gives some folklore of the plant including Native American uses, actual folklore, actual medical value of the plant and so on. This book is so great. You may not think you’ve ever seen these plants but look them up as your reading and I guarantee you’ve seen most of these. I think I’m going to buy this book (I checked it out from the library). If your interested in folk remedies or folk magic, I would highly suggest this book.

[Ash Pierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charming and interesting, but for the size of this book, they could have done more. The infor that was presented was very informative, with unique stories behind the names and traditional uses of the wildflowers. A good place ro start for an introduction on wildflowers, which will then lead to further reading elsewhere.

The illustrations were spot on, if only that the descriptions were given a bit of liberty (I'm a horticulturalist, I would know). My frustration stems from the fact that some plants were given 3 pages, and some were given 4 sentences. It was incredibly inconsistent, why even bother to include that paltry amount of info for the clearly (in the eyes of the author) lessor plants? I wonder if they were just trying to meet a page quota. Formatting was pretty rough for reading as well, huge margins with tiny writing. I found myself just rushing through the last few plants, no longer enjoying myself.

[Roberta · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a trivia book suitable for browsing on a rainy day. Everything about the book left me wanting more.

I found this book somewhat disappointing, even in comparison to it's companion book, Martin's Garden Flower Folklore. This book is also too large to be a field guide but it didn't really have to be as big as it is since a whole lot of what's inside is white space. The illustrations are huge, in spite of the fact that they are totally stiff and lack any detail. One of the reviews of Garden Flower Folklore says "The b/w illustrations are good, but not up to scientific illustrations standards." That goes double for this book. The so-called "botanical drawings" in this book aren't even up to coloring book standards.

There is a short description of each flower with information about habitat and when it blooms followed by as little as one sentence up to a couple of paragraphs on the flower's history & folklore.

This book is lacking the appendix on using flowers for food and medicine that appears in Garden Flower Folklore and is also lacking the pages on names and meanings of flowers. There is a bibliography that can be used to find more books about wild flowers and there is an index.

Another book has been recommended to me so I will head to the library for The Secrets of Wildflowers: A Delightful Feast of Little-Known Facts, Folklore, and History by Jack Sanders.

[Claire Pruett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well I enjoyed reading it, but it is simply just a book that tells the past uses and mild stories about wildflowers. It doesn't go into that much of detail, which falls flat a little. It was a nice read, if not a little boring.

[Sacha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely, sweet, simple. An expanded field guide with about a page for each flower and a drawing by the author. Not as deep as Secrets of Wildflowers.

[theghostfactory · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has useful information about identification, but when it comes to folklore, I was disappointed at how little it has.

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I wish the drawings had color, this is a must have for the wildflower lover and a good read for anyone.