Compound Leaves – Pinnate, Palmate, or Trifoliate?

Basic Botany for Foragers, part 2

“Carefully observing leaves is an important step in accurately identifying leafy plants. However, sometimes what we may think of as leaves, are botanically speaking, just parts of leaves and are called leaflets.”

Avoid dangerous mistakes while foraging by learning important plant identification skills with Harvest McCampbell.

Check it out here with a free pass, good for all Harvest's articles for one week:  https://biodiversepress.substack.com/p/compound-leaves-pinnate-palmate-or

If you have already used your one-week pass, you can subscribe for $5.00 a month (or $30.00 a year) and receive new articles as they are released.

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Harvest McCampbell is an author, nature writer, and a retired naturalist and master gardener with a healthy list of publication credits in the small press category. She has also been a long-time member of the WillapaWorld and Conservation - Willapa & Beyond committees. She has been our lead writer and editor on our self-generated posts for the last six years.

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#Foraging #BasicBotany #SafeForaging

Food Security and Sustainability for the Times Ahead

“’Food Security and Sustainability for the Times Ahead’ is a book that provides practical guidance on planning safe food storage, gardening, and developing balanced and sustainable diets13. It helps individuals and communities prepare for financial down-turns, climate change, and peak oil2. The book also highlights the importance of addressing sustainability and food security in the context of the SDGs5.” From Bing co-pilot search response.

Food Security & Sustainability for the Times Ahead was actually written before the Sustainable Development Goals were developed, and it isn’t about the big picture for nations, or even cities. It’s about what individuals, families, and small communities can do to be more resilient. It wasn’t written with the potential impacts of a massive trade war in mind, but the tips are just as valuable now as in any other food system disruption.

Food Security & Sustainability for the Times Ahead is mostly about stocking up and storing staples, but it covers a lot of other ground, including tips on nutrition, gardening, wild foods, and having a flexible diet. It can be used as a study guide for sustainable family food production and surviving hard times. It doesn’t go into depth on every subject, but it brings up many ideas you may not have thought about, and it provides sources for more information. Some of those sources are likely outdated, as it was written and published in 2008. However, library catalogs and search engines are much better than they used to be. Sometimes knowing what to search for is as good as gold. It’s available from Amazon.com and likely by request from your favorite bookstore or library. https://www.amazon.com/Food-Security-Sustainability-Times-Ahead/dp/0981897509

Botany for Foragers: Leaf or Leaflet?

By Harvest McCampbell

Leaf or Leaflet? is now live

and available on Substack

with a free subscription.

Many books and articles do not provide enough botanical information to confidently make an accurate identification. Plant identification apps are rarely trained on botany and are frequently wrong. Social media sites can be helpful, but you often find that folks don’t all agree on the name of the plant you are hoping to identify. Even iNaturalist hosts photos of a variety of different plants that are purported to all be the same species. Should the plant you are interested in have toxic relatives or look-a-likes, inexact identifications can be dangerous.

Your best defense is to learning some basic botany for foragers. Not only will it help keep you safer, but it’s fun, and it will help deepen your observations of nature. And that’s good for your soul. Check it out here: https://biodiversepress.substack.com/p/leaf-or-leaflet

If you want to read a very scary story about a home school group that had mistaken poison hemlock for wild carrots, check out my post on Wild Cress as well. The story is included there as a cautionary tale. https://biodiversepress.substack.com/p/wild-cress-cardamine-hirsuta

Thanks! May all your foraging adventures be happy!

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Harvest McCampbell is an author, nature writer, and a retired naturalist and master gardener with a healthy list of publication credits in the small press category. She has also been a long-time member of the Facebook Willapa World and Conservation - Willapa & Beyond committees. She has been our lead writer and editor on our self-generated posts for the last five or six years.

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#Foraging #BasicBotany #SafeForaging