Recommended Reading

My interests range from plants to exotic places to what it was like in the past, so although I made categories, there is a lot of overlap.

Plants, Travel (Geography), History

Amy Butler Greenfield. A Perfect Red. (2004).

Thomas Hill. The Gardener’s Labyrinth. The first English gardening book. 1577. reprinted by Oxford University Press, Oxford (1987).

Joe Kane. Running the Amazon. (1989)

Lauren E. Oakes. In Search of the Canary Tree. The story of a scientist, a cypress and a changing world. (2018).

Oliver Sachs. Oaxaca Journal. (2002) .

Mainly Plants

Cheryl Campbell, editor. Edible. An Illustrated Guide to the World’s Food Plants. National Geographic. (2008).

Katherine Darrow. Wild About Wildflowers. Extreme Botany in Crested Butte, Wildflower Capital of Colorado (2006)

William W. Dunmire and Gail D. Tierney. Wild Plants and Native Peoples of the Four Corners. (1997)

H.D. Harrington. Edible Native Plants of the Rocky Mountains. (1967).

Mary O’Brien and Karen Vail. Edible and Medicinal Plants of the Southern Rockies. Foothills to Alpine in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho. (2016).

Beryl B. Simpson and Molly C. Orgazaly. Economic Botany. (2013)

J. Smartt and N. W. Simmonds, editors. The Evolution of Crop Plants. (1995).

Ben-Erik van Wyk. Food Plants of the World.(2005).

Peter Valder. The Garden Plants of China. (1999).

J. C. Vaughan and C.A. Geissler, editors. The New Oxford Book of Food Plants. (1997).

Willow Zuchowski. Tropical Plants of Costa Rica. (2007)

Mainly Travel

Charles Darwin. The Voyage of the Beagle.

David Roberts, editor. Points Unknown. The Greatest Adventure Writing of the Twentieth Century. (2000).

Captain John Slocum. Sailing Alone Around the World.  (1896 adventure).

Botanists

(Examples of contemporary science by women)

Hope Jahren. Lab Girl. (2017).

Cassandra Quave. The Plant Hunter. (2021).

Lauren Oakes. In Search of the Canary Tree. (2018)

Beth Shapiro. Life as We Made It. (2021).

Mainly History

Roy V. Alleman. Blizzard 1949. (1991).

Michel Pastoureau. Blue. (2001).

Michel Pastoureau. The Devil’s Cloth, a history of stripes. (1991).

Richard Tomasson. Iceland, the First New Society. (1980).

Mark Kurlansky. Salt. (2002).

Helpful Reference Books:

Dominique Cardon. Natural Dyes. (2007).

A. J. Coombes. Dictionary of Plant Names. (1985).

Don George, editor. Travel Writing. (2o13)

Mrs. M. Grieve. A Modern Herbal. Reprinted by Dover, Originally 1931. Also online.

J. Gruenwald, J., Brendler, T. and C. Jaenicke. PDR (Physicians Desk Reference) for Herbal Medicine. (2013.)

John B. Hall. A Hiker’s Guide to Trailside Plants in Hawaii. (2008).

Daniel E. Moerman. Native American Ethnobotany. (1998). It is online as a database naeb.brit.org