Kelly Kindscher

Long before sunflower seeds became a popular snack food, they were a foodstuff valued by Native Americans. For some 10,000 years, from the end of the Pleistocene to the 1800s, the indigenous peoples of the plains regarded edible native plants, like the sunflower, as an important source of food. Not only did plants provide sustenance during times of scarcity, but they also added variety to what otherwise would have been a monotonous diet of game. Nevertheless, the use of native plants as food sharply declined when white men settled the Great Plains and imposed their own culture with its differing notions of what was fit to eat. Those notions tended to excluded from the accepted diet such plants as soapweed, labsquarter, ground cherry, prairie turnip, and prickly pear. Today it is strang to think of eating chokecherries,, which were a key ingredient in that staple of the Indian diet, permmican. Based on plant lore documented by historical and achaeological evidence, Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie related how 122 plant species were once used as food by the native and immigrant residents on the prairie. Written for a broad audience of amateur naturalists, botanists, ethnologists, anthropologists, and agronomists, this guide is intended to educate the reader about wild plants as food sources, to synthesize information on the potential use of native flora as new food crops, and to encourage the conservation and cultivation of prairie plants. By writing about the edible flora of the American prairie Kelly Kindscher has provided us with the first edible plant book devoted to the region that Walt Whitman called "North America's characteristic landscape" and the Willa Cather called "the floor of the sky." In describing how plants were used for food, he has drawn upon information concerning tribes that inhabited the prairie bioregion. As a consequence, his book serves as a handy compendium for readers seeking to learn more about historical uses of plants by Native Americans. The book is organized into fifty-one chapters arranged alphabetically by scientific name. For those who are interested in finding and identifying the plants, the book provides line drawings, distribution maps, and botanical and habitat descriptions. The ethnobotanical accounts of food use form the major portion of the text, but the reader will also find information on the parts of the plants used, harvesting, propagation (for home gardeners), and the preparation and taste of wild food plants.

An Ethnobotanical Guide

Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie

The wild plants in this book tell stories of land, people, and food. As renowned botanist Kelly Kindscher guides us through over one hundred edible plants in this beautiful field guide, we find that foraging has always been an important part of prairie life. Before colonization, Native American women were the primary gatherers of wild plants, which were an abundant, sustainable, and delicious feature of Indigenous diets. Colonizers reduced the significance of wild plants in prairie life as they relocated Native peoples and imposed their agrarian culture on the land, but these Indigenous foodways were never truly lost. In the recent past, foraging has become a tremendously popular way for many peoples to connect with the earth, promote sustainability, and revive and honor cultural food traditions. In this beautifully illustrated new edition, Kindscher explores 117 wild plants of the prairie, offering information about habitat, food use, and cultivation. Color photos and maps make this stunning book a useful foraging guide for anyone to take out into the prairie. A must-have for enthusiasts and professionals alike, Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie gives us the great opportunity to engage with the land we live in.

An Ethnobotanical Guide. Second Edition, Revised and Expanded

Kindscher documents the medicinal use of 203 native prairie plants by the Plains Indians. He also adds information on recent pharmacological findings to further illuminate the medicinal nature of these plants. He uses Indian, common, and scientific names and describes Anglo folk uses, medicinal uses, scientific research, and cultivation.

Medicinal Wild Plants of the Prairie

Richard Stephen Felger

James Thomas Verrier

Xavier Raj Herbst Khera

Field Guide to the Trees of the Gila Region of New Mexico is the definitive guide for field botanists, researchers, students, and avid nature lovers who wish to explore the natural history of native and introduced tree species across the Gila. The book documents over seventy-five tree species in the first wilderness area in the United States--and the largest in New Mexico--known for its wildness, remoteness, and significant recreation opportunities. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the authors feature detailed individual species accounts and special ecological and ethnobotanical information, providing full dichotomous keys to the families, genera, and species of all trees in the region. Color photographs of the species provide diagnostic clarity for easy identification, showing the whole tree, trunk, and foliage as well as macro photos of the flowers, fruits, or cones and other significant features. This comprehensive and user-friendly guide will be welcomed by residents and visitors studying and discovering the diverse trees of the Gila Region.

Kelly Kindscher

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