A field guide helps only if it matches your region, so take guides for the area where you will live: edible plants with colour photographs and toxic look-alikes, a dedicated mushroom guide, and guides to trees, animal tracks, birds, fish and medicinal plants. A guide for another region is worse than none, because it invites a confident wrong identification.
Regional field guides turn the surrounding land into food, shelter and tools, if the identification is right.
Regional Matters More Than Famous
The species that grow and live in one region differ from another. A guide to Pacific Northwest mushrooms is useless in Georgia. Choose guides written for your area.
What To Take
- Edible wild plants. Peterson, Audubon or regional foraging guides. They must have colour photographs, not only drawings, and must cover toxic look-alikes.
- Mushrooms. A dedicated mushroom guide for your region. Some mushrooms are highly nutritious and some are lethal. Do not identify a mushroom to eat from a general guide.
- Trees. Identification by leaf, bark, silhouette and fruit, for choosing lumber, firewood and edible or medicinal species.
- Animal tracks and sign. For hunting, trapping and knowing what has passed through.
- Birds, fish. Game birds, nesting and migration; fish species and habitat.
- Medicinal plants. Herbal references specific to your flora.
Method: Checking A Guide Before You Rely On It
Step 1: Check the region on the cover. If it is not your area, leave it.
Step 2: Check for look-alikes. A good plant or mushroom guide shows the dangerous species beside the edible ones.
Step 3: Check the images. Colour photographs of several stages (leaf, flower, fruit, mature and young) are more useful than a single drawing.
Step 4: Cross-check in the field. Use more than one source and more than one feature. See Plant Identification and Mushroom Dangers.
Common Mistakes
- Taking a famous guide for another region. The species do not match.
- Using a plant guide for fungi. Fungi need their own reference.
- Identifying from one feature. Several features must agree.
Safety
A wrong identification can be fatal, and some poisonings show late
Some poisonous mushrooms and plants cause no symptoms for hours, by which time damage is under way. If you are not certain of an identification, do not eat it. A book narrows the choice but does not make an uncertain specimen safe.
What’s Next
- Learn next: Maps & Atlases — the third Tier 1 shelf
- Combine with: Foraging Edible Plants — using the guide in the field