Once you have identified the plant, apply the four questions above to assess whether it would be a priority to learn the plant in depth. I say “naturally” because it is easiest to identify native plants with local field guides. In fact, if you are truly an experiential learner, then go outside with your Lone Pine or Botany in a Day field guide and find a tree or other plant that appears to have grown naturally in your neighborhood. Those are the four criteria you can use to judge whether a particular plant you come across is worth prioritizing in your learning process. Which plants have important utilitarian uses for you?.Which plants have important medicinal value for you?.Which plants have important nutritional value for you?.So, which plants are critical to secure those basic needs? Ask yourself: The skills needed to acquire those basics include breathing, shelter, fire, tools, and hunting/gathering. With what we in the field of earth skills education call the “order of survival” we describe our basic needs as air, warmth, water and food. How can 9 or 10 lowly plants give a person more than half of everything they need? Bear with me. But if people knew that they only need to learn about 9 plants in order to gain 90% of benefits from plants around them, then that’s an attainable challenge! Once we realize that there are thousands of plants to learn, we can become very discouraged, and turn our attention elsewhere. My choice of plants is a practical one, and I should have named this article the “Plants Which Have the Most Critical Ethnobotanical Uses in North America ” if it weren’t such a cumbersome statement.ĭeciding which plants to study first is also critical for those of us who are trapped by linear thinking. But all of us who publish books about plants make choices as to which plants to highlight, and which to leave out during the editing process. ![]() No plant is more important than any other, just like no person’s life should be more important than anyone else’s. Adult Classes, Presentation, Hikes & Workshop Testimonials Since 1996.Youth & Family Camp/Class Testimonials Since 2000. ![]()
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