I am often asked which edible wild plant identification books I recommend. There isn’t a specific edible wild plant ID book available for the UK, so you are left with using wild flower plant ID guides instead.
Most wild food books only give cursory plant ID specifics and generally not enough to ensure absolute certainty.
Initially I always used photo ID books, and that was great to begin with, however you will want to get stuck into learning wild flower keys, and using illustrated ID books as these are better than photos. Don’t forget – If you can’t ID a plant with 100% certainty then never eat it.
Robin’s Top Picks For Edible Wild Plant Identification Books
Cassell’s Wild Flowers of Britain & Northern Europe
Author: Marjorie Blamey, Christopher Grey-Wilson
Publisher: Cassell
This is a beautifully illustrated book covering over 2400 wild flowering plants. A hefty tome, but worth having on your shelf.
Wild Flowers of Britain & Ireland
Author: Marjorie Blamey, Richard Fitter, Alastair Fitter
Publisher: A&C Black
Illustrated by Marjorie Blamey who did the illustrations for the book above. This is one you can pop in your backpack, and stomp out into the wilds. The descriptions are not as comprehensive as Cassell’s Wild Flowers of Britain & Northern Europe, but worth having.
Concise British Flora in Colour
Author: W. Keble Martin
Publisher: Ebury Press / Michael Joseph
A classic wild flower guide covering more than 1480 species. As old as the ark but still worth getting a copy.
Wild Flowers of Britain & Northwest Europe
Author: Christopher Grey-Wilson
Publisher: Dorling Kindersley
The best photographic plant ID book, and the one I started out with and still use. Dog-eared as hell!
Wild Flower Key: How to Identify Wild Flowers, Trees and Shrubs in Britain and Ireland
Author: Francis Rose
Publisher: Frederick Warne
Wild flower keys can be hard to get your head around if you aren’t a trained botanist, however they are well worth having, as the detail of each plant species is listed in minute detail thereby ensuring you can correctly ID a plant.
Vegetative Key to the British Flora
Author: John Poland, Eric Clement
Publisher: Botanical Society of the British Isles
One of things about wild food is that you need to often ID a plant before it has flowered. This can cause a problem for beginners as they have to wait a full year after the plant has flowered to be able to ID it again. Normally you would ID a plant once it is in flower. With Vegetative Key to the British Flora the aim of the authors is to “enable reliable identification at any stage of growth”. So depending on your skill level, you should be able to ID a plant pre-flowering which is when you generally want to eat it.
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Four and a half years ago I moved to France, to open a chambre d’hote (B&B) I’ve now almost finished renovating the house part of an old chateau, and now have some time to become more involved with growing and collecting food. I am amazed how much foraging goes on here we are in the Black Mountains of Aude. I don’t read enough French yet to get books in French would you now any books in English about what I might expect to find in this region?
Christina: Unfortunately I don’t know of any English language books covering your area.
Im so surprised you never mentioned any books by Richard Mabley or John Seymour
Wil: Errr, the list is for Plant ID books not books about Wild Food… that list is coming soon.
Also theres a book,
Seaweed and Eat it: A Family Foraging and Cooking Adventure.
thank you for a great websiet given me some great ideas for my escape down to Slapton next week.
“Robin’s Top Picks For Edible Wild Plant Identification Books”
‘err’… well I would add to this list the very obvious and lovely book by richard mabey ‘food for free’ collins natural history.
Joan: Mabey’s book is not an ID book, but reference. My list above is solely for wild plant id books. I am creating another list that includes wild food books, and obviously will include Mabey’s.
i’m keen to learn all i can about edible wild plants and am in the process of turning my garden into vegetable and herbs plots, and generally trying to encourage more wildlife into my garden, so i’m glad of this reference book
thankyou !
Thanks for this list!
A similar question to Christina’s: do you know of any good Plant ID books covering the Mediterranean (or more specifically the Southern Pyrenees)?