Uses of Plants by the Indians of the Missouri River Region

This book is easy to carry along in a backpack and well bound, but it is not a field guide. It is fundamentally a ethnobotanical scientific research paper written so that "normal" people can understand it. It showcases 80+ plants of the northern plains that had particular importance in the lives of the Pawnee, Omaha, Winnebago, and Dakota peoples. It has an extensive bibliography for further reading sources, and it is indexed by common English names as well as taxonomic names. Yes, to get the maximum benefit out of this book, you really need to have some familiarity with plant structures, but don't let this put you off. The historical native American content is interesting, sometimes even a little mysterious as relates to plants in their religious ceremonies. The photos are old black/white, predigital, and thus date the book with their lack of clarity but, uniquely, the plants are mostly photo'd in the field against an expansive background, providing a sense of expected placement and size in relation to the surrounding landscape. There are also 31 superb pen and ink drawings detailing the specimens' peculiarities, including patterns in stemming, leafing, and flowering, as well the size of the specimens' leaves, stems, seeds, and roots. The drawings are good enough to be able to identify the plant on sight, even with no extensive botanical knowledge. So, if you aren't intimidated by Latin plant names, and you appreciate knowing how the Missouri region Indians regarded these plants, this is a good little book to put in your reference library. However, the book does not detail how the natives prepared the plants. For a wonderful helping of steamed wild hyacinth bulbs and other tasty natural edibles, along with how the Indians prepared and stored these plants, read Kelly Kindscher's Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie, another great daypack-sized ethnobotanical classic that is formatted more in the field-guide manner.

This is a reprint of a historical book and it came carefully wrapped and just as described—excellent condition—and it was just what I expected and was looking for!

I was so excited to get this book, In the introduction the "author" states please understand that some parts may be difficult to read due to duplicating older originals. However, it was not legible so I returned it. The Author would have done better re-writting everything so it was legible. Very disappointed

Good information. Worth reading. Could be a life saver. If you are interested in history or survival it will be useful.

Gilmore's field research resulted in a very interesting book. The knowledge of how plants were used could not be replicated today. He had a respect for the people he encountered that was possibly unique in that time.

Good information.

Very interesting publication, but this Kindle version is so filled with typos as to be almost useless. Most of the scientific names and first nation words have been badly garbled by whatever process was used to automatically convert this document to a kindle format. You should go get the free pdf instead.

Very informative

DAs Buch ist so schlecht reproduziert, daß nur einzelne Worte zu entziffern sind! Der Text ist unlesbar, die Bilder sind nicht zu erkennen. So eine schlechte Qualität kommt nicht einmal bei alten Kopierern raus.