Foraging books

[Happyhatter]

Can anyone recommend any foraging books? Know basics eg blackberries/elderflowers, must of passed no end of edible food on my walks & not realised

[Frnc]

Can anyone recommend any foraging books? Know basics eg blackberries/elderflowers, must of passed no end of edible food on my walks & not realised

If you mean just plants...
Wild Food UK book is probably the best. River Cottage Hedgerow isn't bad. Ray Mears Wild Food isn't bad. WFUK also have a great website, and they run courses. Also have youtube vids.
Edit: half this book is fungi by the way. It also has poisonous plants and fungi to avoid. This book has useful little detail photos on top of it's main photos, very well thought out.

But ideally you want at least one or two proper ID books as well. Of those, I can recommend:
The Wild Flower Key by Francis Rose. A very well known book.
Plants and Habitats by Ben Averis. Easy to use, nice.
I also have The Vegetative Key by Poland, but it's heavy going for a beginner (like me).

Also maybe worth a look is Botany In A Day by Elpel. He's not a botanist but he seems to know his stuff and he presents quite a simple way to go about identification through the traits of the main families.

I also have a terminology book A Botanist's Vocabulary. But you can easily look terms up online.

[Ara]

Richard Mabey's "Food for Free" used to be a favourite among friends of mine although I never used it much and just stick to things I know.

[Frnc]

Richard Mabey's "Food for Free" used to be a favourite among friends of mine although I never used it much and just stick to things I know.

Yeah, forgot that. Good for it's size.

I probably make some shudder, but I write notes in all of my plant books, as I study each species or family. I probaby won't do it to my £70 fungi books though!

[jansman]

Wild Food by Roger Phillips is my favourite. Set out on a monthly basis with superb photos. Also, the New Guide T Mushrooms by Peter Jordan.Again, excellent photographs.

[GillyBee]

I have the River Cottage "Hedgerow" book by John Wright. I kike that this clearly shows some plants you must learn to recognise so you can avoid them as well as the common edibles.
Having said that I learn better by seeing/feeling/smelling plants rather than seeing pictures so would also suggest a foraging class if you can find one locally.

[Frnc]

I have the River Cottage "Hedgerow" book by John Wright. I kike that this clearly shows some plants you must learn to recognise so you can avoid them as well as the common edibles.
Having said that I learn better by seeing/feeling/smelling plants rather than seeing pictures so would also suggest a foraging class if you can find one locally.

Dogiest family is the Apiaceae aka Umbellifers. They look similar and include carrots, parsley, celery, poison hemlock, and hemlock water dropwort (the most poisonous plant in the UK). Also the photo-toxic Giant Hogweed. For this reason most of this family's wild edibles are probably not worth the risk. Sweet Cicely, Myrrhis odorata is pretty safe. WFUK say "About the only fern leaved member of the Apiaceae family that we consider safe as the aniseed smell is so strong it can’t be mistaken for one of the poisonous varieties." This plant has distinctive white splodges on its leaves.
Pignuts are also an important edible (from a survival point of view) from this family. You must be on private land with the owners permission to dig up pignuts, which are small tubers at the end of the roots. Note this plant looks similar to hemlock, I think.

WFUK also lists Yarrow and Alexanders as edibles from this family, which both have leaves very different to plants like poison hemlock.

To find what grows where, you can enter a name in the taxon search box on this site
https://bsbi.org/maps

[Frnc]

Ok, seeing as fungi have been mentioned, I have the little Gem book (Mushrooms), River Cottage Mushrooms, and this monster 2 volume set I got for £70 on ebay, £89 here...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fungi-Temperat ... 0691180377

The WF UK book has lots in, about half the book.

[Frnc]

I have the River Cottage "Hedgerow" book by John Wright. I kike that this clearly shows some plants you must learn to recognise so you can avoid them as well as the common edibles.
Having said that I learn better by seeing/feeling/smelling plants rather than seeing pictures so would also suggest a foraging class if you can find one locally.

Forgot to say, WFUK book has toxic plants and fungi in as well.

[Happyhatter]

Thanks for the suggestions, will check them out