Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie

An Ethnobotanical Guide

Kelly Kindscher

$53.95 $48.84

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

University Press of Kansas
30 July 1987

Mathematics & Sciences; Botany & plant sciences; Biogeography; The natural world, country life & pets

"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 strange 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 relates 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."

By: Kelly Kindscher
Imprint: University Press of Kansas
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 220mm, Width: 180mm, Spine: 15mm
Weight: 456g
ISBN: 9780700603251
ISBN 10: 0700603255
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 30 July 1987
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , ELT Advanced , A / AS level
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Reviews for Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie: An Ethnobotanical Guide

"""Unique and important. . . . A definitive contribution to the study of wild edible plants and American Indian ethnobotany.""--E. Barrie Kavasch, author of Native American Harvests: Recipes and Botanicals of the American Indian ""Whether you simply like prairie plants, want to diversify your diet, plan to recreate Grandma's plum jam, or are a scholar comparing tribal uses, this book is an invaluable reference.""--Great Plains Quarterly""This book is semi-popular in nature, containing much information useful to the professional yet accessible to the non-specialist as well.""--Journal of Ethnobiology ""A fascinating and readable book, which will please a wide audience from historians and anthropologists to amateur naturalists, botanists and the home gardener.""--Missouri Prairie Journal"