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Botany in a Day: Thomas J. Elpel's Herbal Field Guide to Plant Families
Now you can cut years off the process of learning about plants. Learn how related plants have similar features for identification. Discover how they often have similar properties and similar uses. Toms book takes you beyond the details towards a greater understanding of the patterns among plants. Most plant books cover only one or two hundred species. Botany in a Day includes more than 100 plant families and over 700 generaincluding edible and medicinal usesapplicable to many thousands of species. With this book you will be able to recognize patterns in plants everywhere you goin the wild, in your garden, among house plants, even at the florist. Understand the magic of patterns among plants, and the world will never look the same again! Many people recognize plants from the Mint family because they have square stalks, opposite leaves and most of them smell minty. I like to start my classes with a discussion of the the Mints because this pattern is so well known. What people dont realize is that similar patterns exist for other families of plants as well. Simply put, the study of botany is the study of patterns in plants! Learning patterns in plants is fun, and you only need to learn about 100 broad patterns to recognize something about virtually every plant from coast to coast across the northern latitdudes. In a two hour plant walk we typically start with the Mint Family, then progress through the Mustard, Pea, Parsley, Borage, Lily and Aster Families, so that every student can easily recognize these common families representing several thousand species. Ive had people tell me they learned more in that two hour walk than in an entire semester of botany in college. Thomas J. Elpel, Botany in a Day Thomas J. Elpel had the rare opportunity as a child to spend hundreds of hours with his grandmother, exploring the hills and meadows of Montana. Toms grandmother helped him to learn about the native plants and their uses, igniting a passion for nature that has inspired Tom ever since. Tom is now the director of Hollowtop Outdoor Primitive School (HOPS) in Pony, Montana where he teaches classes on stone age skills, including botany. Botany in a Day grew from Toms desire to provide an easy means for other people to discover a closer connection with the natural world. Tom is also the author of three other books inspired by nature, Participating in Nature, Direct Pointing to Real Wealth and Living Homes.
196 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
270 people are currently reading
5577 people want to read
About the author
Thomas J. Elpel
16 books27 followersThomas J. Elpel has authored numerous books on topics ranging from wilderness survival and botany to stone masonry, sustainable construction, and green economics.
He is the founder of Green University® LLC and Outdoor Wilderness Living School LLC (OWLS), as well as HOPS Press LLC and the Jefferson River Canoe Trail.
As a child, Tom was mentored by his grandmother, Josie Jewett. Together they explored the hills and meadows near Virginia City, Montana, collecting herbs, looking for arrowheads and watching wildlife. Grandma Josie helped Tom to learn about native plants and their uses, igniting a passion for nature that has inspired him ever since. She also sparked his interest in survival skills.
Tom's first serious exposure to wilderness survival skills began at the age of 16, when he went on a 26-day, 250-mile walkabout in the desert canyons of southern Utah with Boulder Outdoor Survival School. The following year he and Grandma Josie went together to Tom Brown's Tracker School in New Jersey.
From there Tom spent thousands of hours practicing, developing, and teaching survival skills in his "backyard" in the Rocky Mountains. These experiences led to writing his book Participating in Nature: Wilderness Survival and Primitive Living Skills.
Tom's basic philosophy is that wilderness survival skills are useful to connect with nature, yet you shouldn't run away from the problems of modern society. Instead, we need to apply the lessons of living close to nature to the challenge of solving our worldly problems.
Outdoor Wilderness Living School LLC is dedicated to providing Stone Age living skills classes and camping trips to public school groups. Tom launched Green University® LLC in 2004 to expand the curriculum from teaching merely primitive skills outward towards addressing issues of global sustainability.
In 2019 Tom enlisted former Green University students and led a "Missouri River Corps of Rediscovery" down the 2,341-mile Missouri River, as told in his award-winning book Five Months on the Missouri River: Paddling a Dugout Canoe.
He is the founder of Green University® LLC and Outdoor Wilderness Living School LLC (OWLS), as well as HOPS Press LLC and the Jefferson River Canoe Trail.
As a child, Tom was mentored by his grandmother, Josie Jewett. Together they explored the hills and meadows near Virginia City, Montana, collecting herbs, looking for arrowheads and watching wildlife. Grandma Josie helped Tom to learn about native plants and their uses, igniting a passion for nature that has inspired him ever since. She also sparked his interest in survival skills.
Tom's first serious exposure to wilderness survival skills began at the age of 16, when he went on a 26-day, 250-mile walkabout in the desert canyons of southern Utah with Boulder Outdoor Survival School. The following year he and Grandma Josie went together to Tom Brown's Tracker School in New Jersey.
From there Tom spent thousands of hours practicing, developing, and teaching survival skills in his "backyard" in the Rocky Mountains. These experiences led to writing his book Participating in Nature: Wilderness Survival and Primitive Living Skills.
Tom's basic philosophy is that wilderness survival skills are useful to connect with nature, yet you shouldn't run away from the problems of modern society. Instead, we need to apply the lessons of living close to nature to the challenge of solving our worldly problems.
Outdoor Wilderness Living School LLC is dedicated to providing Stone Age living skills classes and camping trips to public school groups. Tom launched Green University® LLC in 2004 to expand the curriculum from teaching merely primitive skills outward towards addressing issues of global sustainability.
In 2019 Tom enlisted former Green University students and led a "Missouri River Corps of Rediscovery" down the 2,341-mile Missouri River, as told in his award-winning book Five Months on the Missouri River: Paddling a Dugout Canoe.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 86 reviews
January 21, 2009
Botany in a Day is really a gross misnomer. This book is clear and well-written but it really takes some concentrated study to absorb all the information.
It starts with the evolution of plants from spore plants, to vascular plants with spores, to plants with seeds then monocots and dicots and now I forgot what else. Time to go back and study it again.
Then it helps you learn the plant families so you can more easily identify and group plant you encounter.
It starts with the evolution of plants from spore plants, to vascular plants with spores, to plants with seeds then monocots and dicots and now I forgot what else. Time to go back and study it again.
Then it helps you learn the plant families so you can more easily identify and group plant you encounter.
December 28, 2024
This is a great resource for amateur botanists! I really like the pattern and family focused approach to identification (to help identify plants even if you don’t know the specific species). Well written, well organized, great photographs, and not too much technical language—would be relatively easy for anyone to understand. If you have a bit of a background in plants already, it’s even better.
January 29, 2009
I really liked this book! I wish I'd read it a long time ago. I could have saved myself some stress during my plant identification course. Elpel outlines characteristics of each plant family to make identification really easy. It makes a lot of sense. I had a hard time getting through all the evolution (everything-comes-from-blue-green-algae) crap, but the rest of it was so helpful! I can't wait for the spring and summer so I can start applying this stuff.
September 23, 2025
I would say I’ve read enough of this book for her to count as read
December 15, 2020
PPLD's 2018 Winter Adult Reading Program runs January 13 - March 14. I try to get a lineup of short books, so that I can do the 8 books in 8 weeks. The title was misleading, this took WAAAY more than a day! And now I'm behind... :-( But at least I've got my first book done.
I've been really into gardening (mostly ornamentals/landscaping, with a recent emphasis on natives and wildscaping), and I've also recently taken to nature-hiking, so I'm starting to focus on being able to identify natural elements of my surroundings. Yet, I've never really studied even the basics of botany. What an eye-opener: Loved it!
I really appreciated that the author was from Montana (very close to my Colorado)! So often, American nature books come from the Eastern US, or from California, but this one was appropriate for my region. So, one of the limits of this book was that it focused solely on plants above the "frost belt" in North America - not saying people living elsewhere would have no use for this book - some families have genera simply everywhere - but it'd be hit or miss.
The main focus of the book was as a general forager's guide. Well... I'm really not planning to eat wild plants or treat myself with wild herbs, I just want to learn about plants. But I guess knowing a little chemistry of the involved plants adds an interesting layer of knowledge.
I may end up buying this book as a general reference to keep around, but want to preview a couple other books first. The author has another book for kids, Shanleya's Quest: A Botany Adventure for Kids Ages 9 to 99, which is supposed to come with a card game - I'm definitely thinking about getting the card game!
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Did I choose to read a book like this because I love gardening? Yes, of course! But also... I'm already a National Merit Scholar. With a degree in physics. I work as a programmer.
Actually, I was homeschooled. And my mom grew up on a farm. And I grew up ion an acre in sub-rural Oklahoma (our neighborhood was annexed shortly after we moved to CO, but we had our own septic tank), with a creek in back. So, I definitely have fond memories of playing outdoors, in nature. But, I didn't know the names of most things around me. Even if I knew the names, so what?
My parents believed it was healthy for kids to grow up in the country (which I sometimes suspect to be more rooted in misanthropy than biophilia). To some extent, I did (Well, it was more country than most modern suburbs being built today, but it was also more suburban than any farm). However, I think they inherited the agrarian mindset, mainly seeing nature as something to be dominated, rather than the naturalist/scientific mindset, trying to understand nature on its own terms, as it was before we did anything to it, curious about the science of where things come from and how they are related, instead of merely the science of how humans can use it (...although, this book has more of a hunter-gatherer mindset, which is still ultimately oriented toward human use, but with a bit more intimate knowledge of local ecology than the agrarian mindset). Which isn't to say that I am totally different from my parents on any of these counts. But maybe I am? Trying to figure that out...
I've been really into gardening (mostly ornamentals/landscaping, with a recent emphasis on natives and wildscaping), and I've also recently taken to nature-hiking, so I'm starting to focus on being able to identify natural elements of my surroundings. Yet, I've never really studied even the basics of botany. What an eye-opener: Loved it!
I really appreciated that the author was from Montana (very close to my Colorado)! So often, American nature books come from the Eastern US, or from California, but this one was appropriate for my region. So, one of the limits of this book was that it focused solely on plants above the "frost belt" in North America - not saying people living elsewhere would have no use for this book - some families have genera simply everywhere - but it'd be hit or miss.
The main focus of the book was as a general forager's guide. Well... I'm really not planning to eat wild plants or treat myself with wild herbs, I just want to learn about plants. But I guess knowing a little chemistry of the involved plants adds an interesting layer of knowledge.
I may end up buying this book as a general reference to keep around, but want to preview a couple other books first. The author has another book for kids, Shanleya's Quest: A Botany Adventure for Kids Ages 9 to 99, which is supposed to come with a card game - I'm definitely thinking about getting the card game!
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Did I choose to read a book like this because I love gardening? Yes, of course! But also... I'm already a National Merit Scholar. With a degree in physics. I work as a programmer.
Shouldn't you ask why your boy or girl needs to know anything about Iraq or about computer language before they can tell you the name of every tree, plant, and bird outside your window? What will happen to them with their high standardized test scores when they discover they can't fry an egg, sew a button, join things, build a house, sail a boat, ride a horse, gut a fish, pound a nail, or bring forth life and nurture it? Do you believe having those things done for you is the same? You fool, then. Why do you cooperate in the game of compulsion schooling when it makes children useless to themselves as adults, hardly able to tie their own shoes? - The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation Into the Prison of Modern Schooling
Actually, I was homeschooled. And my mom grew up on a farm. And I grew up ion an acre in sub-rural Oklahoma (our neighborhood was annexed shortly after we moved to CO, but we had our own septic tank), with a creek in back. So, I definitely have fond memories of playing outdoors, in nature. But, I didn't know the names of most things around me. Even if I knew the names, so what?
See that bird? It's a brown-throated thrush, but in Germany it's called a halzenfugel, and in Chinese they call it a chung ling and even if you know all those names for it, you still know nothing about the bird. You only know something about people; what they call the bird. Now that thrush sings, and teaches its young to fly, and flies so many miles away during the summer across the country, and nobody knows how it finds its way. - Richard Feynman
My parents believed it was healthy for kids to grow up in the country (which I sometimes suspect to be more rooted in misanthropy than biophilia). To some extent, I did (Well, it was more country than most modern suburbs being built today, but it was also more suburban than any farm). However, I think they inherited the agrarian mindset, mainly seeing nature as something to be dominated, rather than the naturalist/scientific mindset, trying to understand nature on its own terms, as it was before we did anything to it, curious about the science of where things come from and how they are related, instead of merely the science of how humans can use it (...although, this book has more of a hunter-gatherer mindset, which is still ultimately oriented toward human use, but with a bit more intimate knowledge of local ecology than the agrarian mindset). Which isn't to say that I am totally different from my parents on any of these counts. But maybe I am? Trying to figure that out...
April 30, 2021
For a budding botanist, this is a great introduction to getting familiar with and learning plant families. It definitely feels like a reference book and can be a bit overwhelming to read cover to cover which is why it took me a few months to read. I'd read a few pages at a time and it was a lot to soak in (since I'd look up photos of the different plant families and take notes while reading). Although I feel like I can't name all the plant families or genera from memory, this book gave me a primer and I'm planning on studying flashcards with descriptions of all the plant families listed! Botany in a Day is comprehensive and what I was looking for. There were some inconsistencies and errors in the editing, and the medicinal property descriptions of the plants could get confusing to digest, having little knowledge of herbal botany. I appreciated the "key words" that the author uses as a short description for each plant family and the inclusion of examples of the different genera within them. It would be great if there was a short section for the major regions of North America and highlighting the most common plant families + genera in those areas to help focus the reader a bit- I definitely felt like I was swimming at times reading about them all. I would be interested in getting a copy of this book as a personal reference guide... thankfully my work place has one so when I need to return this book to the library, I'll be able to still reference it if I want to! I definitely didn't learn everything there is to know in the field of botany in one day with this book-- but it is a great place to start for someone who really wants to dig into learning their plant families.
March 27, 2021
If you want to get a feel for your own ignorance and get in touch with your inner Dunning-Kreuger effect then jump into Botany having only studied high school biology. Dizzying variety in classification and small tricky subtle distinctions and the taxing need to pay attention to so many details. The amount one needs to know to get a grip on this field is staggering. If you want to be intellectually humbled and awed start taking a look into botany. The book does its best but I really feel dumb every time hit this stuff. The flower illustrations are pretty almost as much as the real things are.
Anyway, I will drop this video by a Botanist Youtuber who is really good and a lot funnier than me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUFQo...
Another attempt and another chance to feel dumb. Maybe I should just take a hammer to my head to get similar results.
READING PROGRESS
January 10, 2021 – Started Reading
January 10, 2021 – Shelved
January 13, 2021 – page 19 "I like this subject, but damn, it breaks my physics brain which is always looking for simple models."
January 13, 2021 – page 72 "I read this book several times but it so hard to get this stuff to stick. I mean I like to think I pick up a little bit with every reading but my mind has a hard time with this type of material."
January 13, 2021 – page 90 "Damn I am so bad at this"
January 13, 2021 – page 98 "Like trying to make sense of Borges Chinese encyclopedia with classifications and plant markers, Plant biology makes no sense to me. I am sure the plants are perfectly fine but I am flummoxed"
January 13, 2021 – page 116 "Plant systematics is breaking my head but is ok plants you are pretty anyway."
January 13, 2021 – page 132 "so much variety so many small details that require notice and attention, holy cow."
January 13, 2021 – page 156 "It must be a superhuman feat just to grasp in outline this subject nevermind exhaust it."
January 13, 2021 – page 176 "Oh, shit so many damned yellow composites. If you want to get in touch with your best Dunning-Kreuger self this is the book for you."
January 13, 2021 – page 258
January 13, 2021 – Finished Reading
Anyway, I will drop this video by a Botanist Youtuber who is really good and a lot funnier than me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUFQo...
Another attempt and another chance to feel dumb. Maybe I should just take a hammer to my head to get similar results.
READING PROGRESS
January 10, 2021 – Started Reading
January 10, 2021 – Shelved
January 13, 2021 – page 19 "I like this subject, but damn, it breaks my physics brain which is always looking for simple models."
January 13, 2021 – page 72 "I read this book several times but it so hard to get this stuff to stick. I mean I like to think I pick up a little bit with every reading but my mind has a hard time with this type of material."
January 13, 2021 – page 90 "Damn I am so bad at this"
January 13, 2021 – page 98 "Like trying to make sense of Borges Chinese encyclopedia with classifications and plant markers, Plant biology makes no sense to me. I am sure the plants are perfectly fine but I am flummoxed"
January 13, 2021 – page 116 "Plant systematics is breaking my head but is ok plants you are pretty anyway."
January 13, 2021 – page 132 "so much variety so many small details that require notice and attention, holy cow."
January 13, 2021 – page 156 "It must be a superhuman feat just to grasp in outline this subject nevermind exhaust it."
January 13, 2021 – page 176 "Oh, shit so many damned yellow composites. If you want to get in touch with your best Dunning-Kreuger self this is the book for you."
January 13, 2021 – page 258
January 13, 2021 – Finished Reading
November 5, 2025
Elpel does a good job of teaching you how to recognize the mint, cabbage, daisy, and rose families, and reminding you in general to think in terms of family relationships. A lot of this book is focused on medicinal use, which sometimes felt a little alarming to me. He'll just pop in that something is useful for treating cancer or mental illness, without further context.
But it's nice to spend some time learning about plants.
But it's nice to spend some time learning about plants.
January 13, 2021
If you want to get a feel for your own ignorance and get in touch with your inner Dunning-Kreuger effect then jump into Botany having only studied high school biology. Dizzying variety in classification and small tricky subtle distinctions and the taxing need to pay attention to so many details. The amount one needs to know to get a grip on this field is staggering. If you want to be intellectually humbled and awed start taking a look into botany. The book does its best but I really feel dumb every time hit this stuff. The flower illustrations are pretty almost as much as the real things are.
Anyway, I will drop this video by a Botanist Youtuber who is really good and a lot funnier than me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUFQo...
Anyway, I will drop this video by a Botanist Youtuber who is really good and a lot funnier than me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUFQo...
September 16, 2019
A little on the hippy-dippy herbalist side (your mileage may vary on how you feel about this), but overall a really fun and accessible introduction to descriptive botany, which I'd previously found pretty arcane in terms of "how do I actually tell things apart though without just sitting there looking at two plants for 20 years." I've read the more narrative parts and am now just keeping and using the various keys and family blurbs as a super useful reference as I slowly expand my knowledge. I do wish that more non-North American families were included as well, though I totally get the time and space limitations - just that a lot of urban plants in the US are introduced from Europe or Asia and therefore I often run into things when using this in a metro area that I end up having to consult google or iNaturalist on. It is however awesome for referring to after hikes and/or in concert with my local field guide of native plants.
February 12, 2019
Could’ve done without the hippie-dippie parts, but otherwise very informative and interesting, with beautiful illustrations.
Read
October 28, 2024A good resource/reference book but it does feel like there's a bit of a hurdle getting into things as someone who was starting completely from scratch.
September 10, 2023
I'm not *done* done but I finished reading the introduction and read about some random families as they came up and keyed out at least one thing, so I am counting it. I am obsessed with this book!!!
June 22, 2021
Terrific herbal reference. By the time you finish the herbalism chapter at the end of the book you'll be really keen to put random bits of plants in your mouth when you're on a walk. I've been looking at my Virginia creeper for the past week gathering the courage to see if calcium oxalate really feels like fiberglass insulation in your mouth.
August 11, 2023
Great short intro to recognizing plant families in North America!
April 26, 2020
Good book to learn about synapomorphy in plant families. If you want to learn more about edible wild plants and mushrooms, check out @mnforager on Instagram and Ironwood Foraging Co. on Facebook and at IronwoodForaging.com
January 10, 2023
The descriptions and illustrations are fantastic, the herbalism nonsense that makes up better than half of the text detracts significantly from the otherwise quality primer of North-American plants.
I had to stop several times and ask myself, WTF am I reading? Herbal douches, herbs for asthmatics to smoke, herbs for your colon; there is no ailment that doesn't have a cure. The audacity of the author to make all manner of evidence free claims, and then almost mock other herbalists for their evidence-free claims is stunning. I think there are probably only a couple of instances where any peer reviewed science is referenced.
Also the encouragement of using plants that are endangered or threatened is cringe-worthy. He'll acknowledge that they are threatened and then give some version of "only use it if you need it".
I noticed that a family as interesting and rich in diversity as cactaceae was basically glossed over with only a handful of genera represented. This seems to be because of a lack of medicinal properties. (I am glad however that he did not include peyote, we don't need any further encouragement of poaching.)
This same book with more detailed descriptions in place of new age nonsense would easily be a 5 star primer.
I had to stop several times and ask myself, WTF am I reading? Herbal douches, herbs for asthmatics to smoke, herbs for your colon; there is no ailment that doesn't have a cure. The audacity of the author to make all manner of evidence free claims, and then almost mock other herbalists for their evidence-free claims is stunning. I think there are probably only a couple of instances where any peer reviewed science is referenced.
Also the encouragement of using plants that are endangered or threatened is cringe-worthy. He'll acknowledge that they are threatened and then give some version of "only use it if you need it".
I noticed that a family as interesting and rich in diversity as cactaceae was basically glossed over with only a handful of genera represented. This seems to be because of a lack of medicinal properties. (I am glad however that he did not include peyote, we don't need any further encouragement of poaching.)
This same book with more detailed descriptions in place of new age nonsense would easily be a 5 star primer.
April 19, 2024
Wow! Just wow! Fabulous resource!
June 27, 2019
This book totally changed my relationship to plants. It taught me how to see relationships between plants. Now, when I encounter a new plant, I can easily know a lot about it. I may not know its name but I can tell what plants it's related to and so I can know some things about how it propagates, what parts of it might be edible, whether or not it's safe to touch, what kind of other plants might be growing near it. I would recommend this as a beginner book to anyone curious about the natural world.
November 30, 2020
So perfect. I highly recommend this book for all lovers of plants, whether you're a beginner/intermediate/expert in identifying them. Learning plants by family first and then drilling down to the individual species that are locally abundant is a practical method that allows you to really see all the species around you and observe their life cycles.
It's also a good primer for folks who are interested in WHY medicinal plants work the way they do, as Elpel has provided brief scientific explanations of things like alkaloids, glycosides, acrids and resins.
It's also a good primer for folks who are interested in WHY medicinal plants work the way they do, as Elpel has provided brief scientific explanations of things like alkaloids, glycosides, acrids and resins.
March 8, 2016
if you have ever looked closely at a patch of waste ground and realized a sweeping, vast vegetal saga was unfolding at your feet, or that you understand as much about your garden as billy pilgrim did of tralfamadore, this book is great way to start paying attention. it won't actually teach you botany in a day, and the focus is on useful plants found wild in the americas, but even with those limits there is almost too much here.
April 25, 2016
Excellent reference book!
February 18, 2021
Fantastic book for beginners. Was hoping for more general rather than specific information but it still really covers most of the basic building blocks you'd need for field botany.
August 10, 2022
Every now and then, I cannot resist stopping near a greenery. Those moments prior to reading this book were all about taking quick pictures with my phone. Now I gaze at it for its own sake—not that the author, a well-versed forager, has warned me of some phone-snatching vines. It just used to happen less often and more briefly in the belief that “they’re always there in the background”. Shrubs are shrubs, nothing magical, I once thought.
Or there really isn’t anything magical unless you’ve marvelled at nature’s masterpieces. I would analogise it to the experience of recognising classmates in the beginning of each school year. It is not an automated process but one that takes time to learn. It also explains why I would never walk past a budding classmate without waving at her.
To be completely honest, I would owe myself a thumbs up if I could name more than 3 orders and families next Monday. Memories run away from me as if an exploding seed pod jerks from the ovary. I am no biologist to start with. All it takes as a non-hunter-gatherer to start building a (shallow) understanding of how plants work is a little thirst for knowledge, or a wish to outstrip a University Challenge contestant in a question on botany, or both.
In the subtropical zone where I live, a wide variety of vegetables lie strewn on greengrocers’ shopfronts. So wide I could never wrap my head around their “street name”, let alone the posher Linnean binomial scientific Latin name. Elpel adopts the common names for brevity and I love that.
It’s time to annoy my friends with trivia! Plenty of green vegetables—gai-lan, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussel sprouts, turnip, pak-choi, leaf mustard, choy-sum—are literally siblings. Redwood has the tallest tree, Norway spruce the oldest. Ginkgo is the oldest living tree species dating at 200 millions years ago. For something more textbook-y, some petals are in fact sepals (lilies and tulips), bracts (poinsettia), or even styles (iris)!
There are more rewards than my overstated curiosity. Elpel appears to be the kind of guy who can prescribe me with tisane or poultice when I’m ill. In my whole life, I have been defying herbal medicine, especially the Chinese one that is imbued with pseudo-scientific theories. He might have goaded me into accepting evidence-based herbal palliatives, when in the absence of more practical alternatives, of course. He also set the scene for my horticultural reading to come.
Or there really isn’t anything magical unless you’ve marvelled at nature’s masterpieces. I would analogise it to the experience of recognising classmates in the beginning of each school year. It is not an automated process but one that takes time to learn. It also explains why I would never walk past a budding classmate without waving at her.
To be completely honest, I would owe myself a thumbs up if I could name more than 3 orders and families next Monday. Memories run away from me as if an exploding seed pod jerks from the ovary. I am no biologist to start with. All it takes as a non-hunter-gatherer to start building a (shallow) understanding of how plants work is a little thirst for knowledge, or a wish to outstrip a University Challenge contestant in a question on botany, or both.
In the subtropical zone where I live, a wide variety of vegetables lie strewn on greengrocers’ shopfronts. So wide I could never wrap my head around their “street name”, let alone the posher Linnean binomial scientific Latin name. Elpel adopts the common names for brevity and I love that.
It’s time to annoy my friends with trivia! Plenty of green vegetables—gai-lan, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussel sprouts, turnip, pak-choi, leaf mustard, choy-sum—are literally siblings. Redwood has the tallest tree, Norway spruce the oldest. Ginkgo is the oldest living tree species dating at 200 millions years ago. For something more textbook-y, some petals are in fact sepals (lilies and tulips), bracts (poinsettia), or even styles (iris)!
There are more rewards than my overstated curiosity. Elpel appears to be the kind of guy who can prescribe me with tisane or poultice when I’m ill. In my whole life, I have been defying herbal medicine, especially the Chinese one that is imbued with pseudo-scientific theories. He might have goaded me into accepting evidence-based herbal palliatives, when in the absence of more practical alternatives, of course. He also set the scene for my horticultural reading to come.
April 10, 2018
Each plant family has traits in common. One key to learning the families is to learn to recognize these traits. One by one most plant families are dealt with along with some of the genera and medicinal properties.
This book is very readable as it skips many of the botany terms using more familiar terms or defining the technical terms. The drawings are well done and illustrate the key traits of the family under consideration.
One annoying factor in the book is the lack of a proof reader. There are numerous typos.
For anyone serious about learning more about plants, this book is a good place to start. Anyone interested in herbal remedies will find this an interesting book.
Although the book can be read much more quickly than I read it, the information included takes time to read and reread, then consider, before moving on.
This book is very readable as it skips many of the botany terms using more familiar terms or defining the technical terms. The drawings are well done and illustrate the key traits of the family under consideration.
One annoying factor in the book is the lack of a proof reader. There are numerous typos.
For anyone serious about learning more about plants, this book is a good place to start. Anyone interested in herbal remedies will find this an interesting book.
Although the book can be read much more quickly than I read it, the information included takes time to read and reread, then consider, before moving on.
July 21, 2022
This book had an helpful collection of diagrams for prototypical plants in each family found in North America and plant keys. It has been useful for identifying many plants.
My favorite part of this book was actually in the foreward. I have a fascination with plants and scientific philosophy, so I have always wondered how it was discovered that plants had certain medicinal properties; if people frequently went around eating random plants when they were sick to see what helped even though doing that could probably kill them. In the foreward, Thomas provides a very clear breakdown of the herbalist's knowledge gathering process, into an art of relating senses to previous experiences and the medicinal properties of similar plants. It was really enlightening to read and exciting to finally understand the origins of folk medicine.
My favorite part of this book was actually in the foreward. I have a fascination with plants and scientific philosophy, so I have always wondered how it was discovered that plants had certain medicinal properties; if people frequently went around eating random plants when they were sick to see what helped even though doing that could probably kill them. In the foreward, Thomas provides a very clear breakdown of the herbalist's knowledge gathering process, into an art of relating senses to previous experiences and the medicinal properties of similar plants. It was really enlightening to read and exciting to finally understand the origins of folk medicine.
February 11, 2021
Useful for developing a better sense of pattern recognition in plants and a rough schematic of how they are divided up and related (systematics). I ended up reading it with Wikipedia open just because some of the taxonomy is out of date with big complex families like Asteraceae and Liliaceae. But that doesn't diminish the utility of the book!
My only gripe: I'm not sure how long days are in Montana but this book took me several months, making notes and copying diagrams. It's definitely not botany in a day, but that's also ok as there's a huge wealth of information here.
My only gripe: I'm not sure how long days are in Montana but this book took me several months, making notes and copying diagrams. It's definitely not botany in a day, but that's also ok as there's a huge wealth of information here.
September 16, 2021
Although the book itself can be read through quickly, it can take rereading several times to get all of the terms and identifiers, and especially an optimal order to use them. It's a great introduction book, helping to get down the major stuff, but the genus level identification is often light and species level skipped entirely which leaves the need for more books. What I really wished for was that it had come with some laminated flow charts, i.e. "Composite flowers? Most likely Asteraceae. Parallel veined leaves? Most likely a Dicot."
The book is heavily geared towards the US mountain west region, particularly Montana. It will be very useful as an introduction and broad strokes identifier across the northern hemisphere though, due to wind patterns and geological events that make East-West travel of seeds much more common than North-South. This means it would be more useful to someone in say Germany or Mongolia than to someone in Guatemala. As I said previously, once you're down to the species or even genus level on identifying a particular plant, you'll likely need a different book anyway.
The main weakness is shared by every printed book, and a large amount of online resources in this genre: It's very hard to keep up with the changes molecular phylogenetics is making to the tree of life. Sometimes changes that solve old disputes, sometimes changes that only make sense when looking at genes shared between species.
The book is heavily geared towards the US mountain west region, particularly Montana. It will be very useful as an introduction and broad strokes identifier across the northern hemisphere though, due to wind patterns and geological events that make East-West travel of seeds much more common than North-South. This means it would be more useful to someone in say Germany or Mongolia than to someone in Guatemala. As I said previously, once you're down to the species or even genus level on identifying a particular plant, you'll likely need a different book anyway.
The main weakness is shared by every printed book, and a large amount of online resources in this genre: It's very hard to keep up with the changes molecular phylogenetics is making to the tree of life. Sometimes changes that solve old disputes, sometimes changes that only make sense when looking at genes shared between species.
April 7, 2021
I had big plans with this book to become a blue collar armchair botanist my friends would awe at and tell their extended family and children about. I would say that I have some base knowledge of plants that I didn’t have before, and this book will be a continued reference for me. But this book reads like a reference book. I think that’s what it’s best for. Not the easiest to use to identify, but more about gaining a broader understanding about plant families.
January 31, 2019
Contains lots of good information and pictures. The beginning makes it sound like all you have to do is learn a few plant patterns and then you'll be able to identify lots of plants.... then you look at the rest of the book and realize there are TONS of plant families and that it will take more than just a few plant patterns.
A great book to take along if trying to identify plants in the wild.
A great book to take along if trying to identify plants in the wild.
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