Edible and Useful Plants of the Southwest

Book excerpt: A guide to useful Southwestern wild plants, including recipes, teas, spices, dyes, medicinal uses, poisonous plants, fibers, basketry, and industrial uses. All around us there are wild plants useful for food, medicine, and clothing, but most of us don’t know how to identify or use them. Delena Tull amply supplies that knowledge in this book, which she has now expanded to more thoroughly address plants found in New Mexico and Arizona, as well as Texas. Extensively illustrated with black-and-white drawings and color photos, this book includes the following special features: · Recipes for foods made from edible wild plants · Wild teas and spices · Wild plant dyes, with instructions for preparing the plants and dying wool, cotton, and other materials · Instructions for preparing fibers for use in making baskets, textiles, and paper · Information on wild plants used for making rubber, wax, oil, and soap · Information on medicinal uses of plants · Details on hay fever plants and plants that cause rashes · Instructions for distinguishing edible from poisonous berries Detailed information on poisonous plants, including poison ivy, oak, and sumac, as well as herbal treatments for their rashes