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The Best Field Guide for Wild Edibles

Anyone wanting to eat wild plants must be able to correctly identify them first. A number of wild plants will easily poison an unsuspecting person. Dr. John Kallas, the Director of Wild Food Adventures evaluates the best field guides for wild edibles. These books contain the necessary information and illustrations to assist you to identify a large number of both edible plants and those that mimic them. Dr. John Kallas indicates that no one book should be used exclusively to identify potentially poisonous plants.

A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants Eastern and Central North America
- Lee Allen Peterson wrote this guide to wild edible plants. The guide covers the identification of wild edible plants that grow in the eastern half of the United States. The guide includes illustrations of both high quality line drawings and more than 70 photographs. Dr. John Kallas considers this guide to be of a high quality and valuable to anyone wanting to identify edible wild plants. The author discusses numerous characteristics that will assist in identification. These include the flowers, leaves and stems of the plants. This guide also discusses edible plant look-a-likes.
Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West
- Gregory Tilford wrote this guide, which includes 86 photographs to assist the reader to identify both wild edible and medicinal plants of the west. Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West describes the flowers, leaves, stems and in select cases, fruits of edible and medicinal plants. The author often uses more than one photograph per plant. In this way, Tilford highlights the important identifying characteristics of each plant. This guide does not include look-a-like plants.
Best-Tasting Wild Plants of Colorado and the Rockies
- Cattail Bob Seebeck wrote this photo-based guide. Best-Tasting Wild Plants of Colorado and the Rockies identifies edible plants that are found in the Southern and Central Rocky mountain areas. The author has included four photographs for each plant that is described in the guide. These photographs show close up views of not only the entire plants, but of their fruit, leaves and flowers. Seebeck has described 67 different edible plants, including shrubs, herbs and trees, which have edible parts. The Best-Tasting Wild Plants of Colorado and the Rockies contains 300 photographs and the author also describes a number of the most poisonous plants found in the area.
Edible and Medicinal Plants of the Rockies
- Linda Kershaw, discusses edible and medicinal plants in the Northern and Central Rocky Mountain areas. Edible and Medicinal Plants of the Rockies is a photo-based guide that also refers to the uses of many of the plants by Native American Peoples. This guide, which incorporates 73 illustrations, discusses 182 different plants. Dr. John Kallas considers this guide to be valuable for people traveling in the Northern and Central Rockies.

Nature